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MARIANI’S
Virtual Gourmet
May 15, 2005
NEWSLETTER
The
Wine Cellar at Peck, Milan (2005) Photo:
Galina Stepanoff-Dargery
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SOUTHERN CAL REPORT by John Mariani
NEW
YORK CORNER: BLT Fish by
John
Mariani
QUICK BYTES
SOUTHERN
CAL REPORT by John Mariani
Things seem to be
percolating in L.A. again after a few years of gastronomic
ennui. Ortolan, owned by
Chef Christophe Emé and actress Jeri Ryan, has opened big, and
the new
chef at L'Orangerie,
Christophe Bellanca (who replaced Emé there) is
doing great work, and Michael Cimarusti,
the well-respected chef at Water Grill, is soon to open his own
restaurant, Providence.
Meanwhile, La Terza
(8384 West Third Street; 323-782-8284)
is the slick new operation of Chef Gino Angelini, whose smaller Osteria
Angelini has done well enough to drive the opening of this much
larger restaurant, next to the Orlando Hotel. I've always liked
Angelini's work in the past, though the Osteria didn't bowl me over; I
fear, however, that he's now expanding too quickly and not keeping his
focus. La Terza was, for me, a considerable disappointment.
The two-tiered restaurant is starkly white,
but it's tough to tell if diners consider the first or second level
prime seating. The lower level (left)
does have a view of the street
(such as it is on West Third), while the upper level escapes the
feeling of being a Siberia. The crowd is constantly trying to monitor
such concerns by regarding people coming up the staircase with nervous,
neck-turning curiosity.
What both dining areas share is a
deliberate design to be blisteringly loud, and the
caterwauling guests here contribute to the din by trying to draw
attention to themselves and reveling in cell phones that emit all sorts
of personalized rings,
toots, and music that adds further to the cacophony. No wonder
the
waiters seem harried, even as an ultra-oily
maître d' makes does chummy "how-we-all-doin'?" way to every
table.
La Terza's wine list is substantial and pricing not
too bad; nor are the food prices, which range from $9-$16 for
appetizers, $12-$23 for pastas and risottos, and $14-$37 for entrees,
about what you'd pay in Rome these days.
The best way to begin here is with a selection
of cured meats and a cream-center burrata
mozzarella with prosciutto, pickled
onions, and olive oil. The three pastas I tried were good, though
none outstanding, from pappardelle
with taleggio cheese and guanciale
to fusilli with a soupy lamb
ragù and fresh
mint, to agnolotti
filled with veal osso buco, red chard and oregano--all good ideas with
nothing substantial to them.
There are daily specials listed, from baccalà
ravioli with golden raisins on Monday (too bad I was there on another
night) to grilled calf's liver with onions and guanciale on
Friday. Roasted Dover sole with fennel, thyme, lemon, and
shallots was all right, nothing more, and might have been improved by
using a fish more local, since most Dover sole is flown in on Mondays
in the U.S. and chefs get whatever arrives, not what they'd
like. Osso buco alla milanese with
saffron risotto was correct and proper but not scintillating and a
little on the light side, even for L.A. When Italians say lamb
chops
are "scottaditto," they mean
they burn your fingers because you can't resist picking them up while
they are piping hot. The examples at La terza were fine enough
chops, though too big to
pick up, served with escarole and torta
rustica. The desserts
(supposedly overseen by Nancy Silverton of Campanile)--vanilla panna cotta with a tangerine salad
and vanilla wafers, and zuppa inglese
with brandy ice cream--were textbook perfect, and they do ricotta
fritters with a sour cherry compote and mascarpone ice cream that
really is delicious.
La Terza would be easily better if it
were not so frenetic and fast-paced, much better if it were
smaller, and probably terrific if Angelini devoted his full attention
to it. But, as with so many offshoots, it's not getting the nourishment
it deserves.
A return visit to Jer-Ne + Bar, a weird name
for a superb restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey (4375 Admiralty Way; 310-241-3333;
www.ritzcarlton.com), proved
that Chef Troy Thompson only gets better and better each year. In
contrast to the cooking at La Terza, Thompson's seems more focused
than ever, less flashy, more intense. The presentation of his
food in Bento
boxes, tangines, woks,
towers, tabletop hibachi grills, and various other vessels is a
delight, not simply there for show. (There's nothing I hate more
than oddly
shaped china that defies you to eat out of it.)
I first sampled Thompson's work in
Atlanta when he was chef at Fusebox, an overly designed showcase
restaurant where his work still managed to shine through all the
glitz.
He
also did a stint in Osaka, where he learned the precision of Asian
techniques, and it shows in his menu here in Marina del Rey.
The dining room itself, looking out on a
teakwood terrace above the
shimmering marina, is one of the loveliest in the city. Inside is a
14-foot long "caramel cream"-colored
onyx communal table (right)
that gets very chummy after 6 PM with a pretty swanky crowd. For
some reason the hotel seems to draw
a large hip-hop clientele of large men in outlandish sports regalia,
gold chains,
and cocked baseball caps, but fortunately they didn't intrude on my
sunny lunch the day I visited. I just put myself in Thompson's hands
and let him rip.
We began with Florida stone crab claws with black truffled mayo
and an ume plum sauce, the latter
adding an unexpected, fine sweetness to the natural sweetness of the
crabmeat. Cremini mushroom carpaccio with lemon and olive oil followed,
a nice, light treatment that worked well. White asparagus with a
rhubarb
purée and black truffle tofu did not--a goofy idea that wholly
compromisesd the taste of the asparagus. Much better was a sizzling
Oriental-style halibut with virgin sesame oil (I didn't know there was
such a thing), and Georgia white shrimp with winter
vegetable shabu shabu, a dish that showed how cannily Thompson can
adapt an idea by his tasteful creativity. A sizzling
hot rock arrived on which we cooked raw duck meat, with morels and baby
corn
congee--a very cool idea, followed by "Jer-ne Ma Bo Do Fu," a rather
yummy kitchen workers' dish that consisted of various rice and textures
of vegetables.
Desserts included a buckwheat panna cotta
(bland) with pear sorbet (tangy), and a series of ice cream cones with
banana, coconut, huckleberry, raspberry, and chocolate tofu flavors.
The last tasted like some form of dietetic punishment; the rest were
sublime, but no more so than a "Meyer Lemon Surprise," composed of
layers of Meyer Lemon curd, white chocolate mousse,
rhubarb gelée, and white chocolate ice cream.
Sommelier Alison Junker stocks a very
extensive wine list for any occasion, though this is tricky cuisine to
match with wines, so take her advice, course by course. And stick
around to watch the sun set on the marina. It's pretty wonderful.
Yet
another posh hotel dining room, Pavilion
at
the Four Seasons in Newport Beach (690
Newport Center Drive; 949-759-0808), is serving some of the
loveliest,
most sensibly conceived and executed food I've had in Southern Cal in
quite some time.
The formal-sounding name of the restaurant (left) should not put anyone off,
for it has a fine balance of the sophisticated and the casual, not an
overly dressy place but not one to enter wearing cut-offs and t-shirts
with bad jokes on them. (Tattoos seem not to be much in evidence
here).
Chef Michel Piéton, born in Normandy,
has been here
for 17
years, a tenure that in most other cases might make me wonder about
complaceny in the kitchen. Instead I found his cooking very much in
the flow of contemporary Southern Cal cuisine, full of color and bright
flavors, light but not cut back in flavor.
Lunch is a
slighter affair than dinner, with salads and sandwiches and soups (an
American affliction). But I managed to
dine more substantially, beginning with something
unexpected for a Pacific Ocean restaurant--a very well-rendered clam
chowder with the cheery addition of sweet potato and avocado.
Sautéed crab cake was very definitely made from jumbo crab meat,
with a
crusted green tomato, charred corn, and a tomato vinaigrette--an ideal
balance of flavors. Chappelet's Old Vine Cuvée Chenin
Blanc was
perfect and crisply green with these, followed by a St. Supery white
Meritage, aptly chosen by sommelier Cheryl Stanley.
A blue nose grouper recently arrived from New Zealand was a wonderful,
firm-fleshed fish, served with fingerling potatoes, sweet carrots, and
a grain mustard sauce that added just the right touch of piquancy.
Grilled sea scallops also came with fingerlings and baby beets, bell
pepper coulis, and pesto--good,
though a little fussy for the scallops.
I must say I was ravenous again the moment a Prime rare rib-eye hit the
table,
accompanied by creamed spinach, pepper chutney sauce, and more
baby beets (beets figured too large that day). Brandt Family
Lopez
Ranch Zinfandel 2002 was about as perfect a choice with this as any
wine I could imagine.
I can hardly count the array of wonderful desserts, from Graham crust
Key lime tart and a chocolate liquid cake to tres leches pudding with
white chocolate mousse and a coconut crème caramel with fresh
berries.
And so went another lazy sunny afternoon in the California sun.
NEW YORK CORNER
by John Mariani
BLT FISH
21 West 17 Street
212-691-8888
Last
year Laurent Tourondel took New York by storm when
he opened BLT Steak, refining the American steakhouse with Gallic
finesse, and there hasn't been an empty seat since. This year he
has followed up with BLT Fish,
which, given Tourondel's background as chef at the superb (now defunct)
seafood restaurant Cello a few years back, shows his real
mettle. That he seems equally well adapted to surf and turf
is only to suggest the importance of classical French training where
you learn a lot about everything.
BLT Fish is actually two restaurants, on the site
of what was once AZ. Downstairs is a "Fish Shack" (below) seating 45 and serving the
kind of seafood you'll readily find up and down the New England
coast--platters of shellfish and clam chowder, lobster rolls and fried
calamari. The walls are brick, a raw bar
sits in the middle, and the specials are listed on a blackboard.
Upstairs, actually on the third floor, is a more serious seafood dining
room (above, left) with a
striking
see-through ceiling, suede walls, and gray leather banquettes, with the
light of feverish culinary activity bursting forth from the open
kitchen. It's a sophisticated decor, though I'd like to see
linens on the walnut tables. The second floor is for private
parties.
When
he is at BLT Fish, Tourondel works along with his cooks and chef de
cuisine Mathieu Palombino, turning out an array of dishes that never
become experimental and are always in good taste. The wine list,
overseen by wine director Fred Dexheimer, is solidly knit to go with
the food here, weightier in whites than powerful reds for all the
obvious reasons. Pinot noirs, on the other hand, have a
significant place on the list, and all wines are divided into "aromatic
and stylistic" categories, and there are good bottles under $50. About
twenty wines are offered by the glass, and the glassware is of fine
quality.
Like his French colleague Eric Ripert at
Le Bernardin, Tourondel is insistent that fish from American waters are
to be preferred over fish flown in from the far Pacific and
Mediterranean, though he does not totally discriminate in this regard,
and he buys by the season, so look for soft shells and shad roe right
about now.
BLT Steak is famous for its cheese
popovers, so Tourondel has happily come up with a signature item at BLT
Fish--cheddar-chive biscuits with sea-salted butter and a touch of
maple syrup. They don't need that last ingredient, for these
addictive biscuits are yummy beyond description with a simple lick of
butter all on their own and
threaten to put a few inches in your waistline.
The prices of entrees here are based on
the pound--$35 per pound for Florida red snapper, $32 for Maine black
sea bass, $34 for Chilean wild turbot--and the whole fish average two
to three pounds, so ordering one for two people is the only sensible
way to go. These may be had with any of variety of sauces, from
lime-cilantro mayonnaise and ginger ketchup to curry-lemongrass and
soy-citrus wasabi. The whole fish are simply grilled and graced
with olive oil, served either on the bone (as is best) or filleted for
you. The prices are somewhat below those charged in the same
manner at the Greek seafood restaurant Milos, where sea scallops now go
for
an astounding $38 a pound.
There
are some main courses like salt-crusted New Zealand pink snapper
and crispy Cantonese-style red snapper with some real spice, but the
spicier items are in
the appetizer column, like lovely, fat-rich tuna tartare with avocado,
preserved lemon, and American caviar (above,
right);
there is a grilled octopus salad with bergamot oil (left), and grilled sardines--nice and sweet,
neither fishy nor salty--with bacon, marinated tomato, and basil.
Dungeness crab comes with avocado and a grapefruit vinaigrette, which
gives it a luxurious, buttery flavor in tandem with the citrus
flavors. Piling Port-poached figs, Fourme d'Albert cheese, and
walnuts onto Nantucket bay scallops does nothing to improve those
bivalves' natural sweetness.
There are lots of good side dishes here,
from baked fennel and glazed carrots to salt-crusted sunchokes and
light-as-air pommes soufflé,
which just about every table
orders.
Desserts, by Patricia Brock, are pretty darn scrumptious, including
chocolate cake, and pecan pie downstairs, and chocolate praline cake
topped with marshmallows and chocolate upstairs. And if you finish your
meal, you are likely to be presented with some chocolates and green
cotton candy.
BLT Fish is a serious restaurant, but it's not
so serious that you
won't have a
grand time, and that makes it a very modern New York restaurant people
are
going to love, as long as Tourondel and his staff can handle the
crush.
There are already plans to open BLT Prime this fall, and that worries
me. One can only wonder if
next year he'll open BLT Veggie.
You can stretch a sauce too thin, and I hope success doesn't translate
into multi-units in multi-cities. Time will tell.
ALTERNATELY,
YOU MIGHT CONSIDER NOT BATHING FOR A WEEK (NB:
DOES NOT WORK IN INDIA) OR
WRITE "DON'T F**K WITH ME" ON YOUR FOREHEAD IN YOUR OWN BLOOD
"Downgrade
your looks: Just by being on your own, you've upped
your availability aura, and many people will assume you're eager to
connect, passionate and exciting. If you've reached your
threshold for getting attention, don't be afraid, literally, to get
ugly. Wear a cap over your hair and no makeup. Or repel to the
max; I know someone who used eyeliner to put a cold sore on her
lip! Less extremely, you can carry and show pictures of your
family and home, or make an insta-wedding ring by flipping over your
ring and placing it on the proper finger."--Lea Lane, Solo
Traveler: Tales and Tips for Great
Trips
(2005).
MORE SIGNS OF THE
DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
Starbucks has opened a branch in Vienna, Austria.
FURTHER
SIGNS OF THE DECLINE OF
WESTERN CIVILIZATION
One
of NYC's most famous and historic restaurants, Gage & Tollner,
which had been in business since 1879 in Brooklyn and which is one of
very few buildings with landmark status both inside and outside, has
been turned into a T.G.I. Friday's.
QUICK
BYTES
*
The Rink
Bar, located in Rockefeller Center, opens May 17, officially opening for the
summer
season, offering nightly drink specials
including $6 featured cocktails like mojitos, cosmos, daiquiris, and
margaritas. Crispy coconut shrimp, stone-ground guacamole, the Rink
Bar’s signature
antipasto, and other bites. For more
information, visit www.restaurantassociates.com.
*
Starting May 20 Hastings House in Ganges Harbor, Canada, inaugurates a month-long celebration of
4-course wine dinners, to
showcase 5e of British Columbia vineyards’
spring releases. The dinners can also be combined with Hastings
House’s
one-, two-, three- or five-night packages. Dinners are priced at
$79 (US) pp, incl. wine. May 20: Garry Oaks – Spring
Releases; June 3: Lang Vineyards
and Nichol Vineyards; June 17:
Poplar Grove and Elephant Island Vineyards. Call 800-661-9255
or visit www.hastingshouse.com.
* On May 22 Stone Creek Inn in east Quogue, NY, will hold a 5-course "Wine and Food of the
Hamptons" dinner, featuring winemaker Roman Roth of
Wolffer Estate Vineyard and Chef Christian Mir. $75 pp. Call 631-
653-6770.
* On
May
23 Azure Chef Robert Fathman’s in Boston will host a 4-course New England wine
dinner and discussion with Bill Russell, winemaker at Westport Rivers.
$50 pp. Call 617-933-4800; www.azureboston.com.
* From June 1-8, Chef José Andrés of Jaleo in DC has invited
celebrity Chef Quim Marques of El
Suquet L'Allmiral in Barcelona to participate in Jaleo's
annual week-long celebration of the paella. On June 3, Chef
Andrés and Chef Marques will prepare a giant paella for 1,000
people. For info call 703-413-8181 or
visit www.jaleo.com.
* Florida’s Ritz-Carlton hotels are
holding etiquette
classes entitled “Graduation Class:
Business Etiquette and
Dining Manners for the Graduate,” taught by Suzanne Willis instructor
of “Mimi’s
Manners etiquette class for children.’ Schedule: June
1, at Naples; June 9, at Miami Coconut Grove; July 16, at
Orlando. Topics incl.
Greetings
& Introductions: handshakes and proper introductions, The Job
Interview: what to wear, what to say, how to prepare, what to do:
before,
during and after the interview; Dining Etiquette: place settings,
table
manners, how to navigate a job interview during a meal $100 pp. Call The RC Naples at 239/598-6644;
Coconut
Grove at 305-644-4680; and Orlando, Grande Lakes at 407-393-4488.
*From
June 2-5 Auction Napa Valley 25
(formerly the
Napa Valley Wine Auction) will take place, with 24 vintners co-chairing
the
silver anniversary event, including a shorter live auction, the
addition of an
E-auction, additional hospitality events, and the creation of an
all-new, all-day
food and wine showcase. Complete
Auction packages as well as individual tickets to the Friday Festival
Barrel
Tasting and Auction will go on sale at www.napavintners.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Editor/Publisher:
John Mariani. Contributing Writers: Robert Mariani, Naomi
Kooker, Kirsten Skogerson, Edward Brivio, Mort
Hochstein, Lucy Gordan, Suzanne Wright. Contributing
Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery, Bobby Pirillo. Technical
Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.
John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire, Wine Spectator, Diversion and the
Harper Collection. He is author of The Encyclopedia
of American Food & Drink (Lebhar-Friedman), The Dictionary
of Italian Food and Drink (Broadway), and, with his wife Galina, the
award-winning new Italian-American Cookbook (Harvard Common
Press).
Any of John Mariani's books below
may be ordered from amazon.com by clicking on the cover image.
copyright John Mariani 2005
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