MARIANI’S

July 15,   2007                                                       NEWSLETTER

 

Kosher Burrito, Los Angeles, California (1990)

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In This Issue

     Houston rarely gets the credit it deserves as a restaurant town.  I've had editors scrunch up their noses when I mention doing a story about Houston and say, "Whaddaya mean? A story on barbecue?"  The irony is that Houston is not a very good barbecue town, once you get past Goode Co. Barbecue, and maybe Otto's.  And although it does have plenty of good Mexican restaurants, few, with the exception of Hugo's, have risen high above the pack or gained much national attention.  And you'd think Houston would have a slew of indigenous steakhouses, but the city is as inundated as any by the national chains.
      What most people don't know is that Houston has a thriving restaurant scene with a growing number of restaurants that rank with the best in the U.S., starting with the third incarnation of Tony's, which owner Tony Vallone keeps at the top.  There's also the pioneering Cafe Annie, still as good as when Robert Del Grande it opened in 1981,  Américas,  which was the first significant Central American restaurant in the U.S., Brennan's of Houston, Mark's, Carmelo's, and Bistro Moderne--all as good as any in the U.S.
     So I am always happy to return to this big sprawl of a city and find fine new restaurants and some I've missed that prove to me the breadth and depth Houston has had for more than a decade now.  Here are some from a recent trip.

catalan food & wine
5555 Washington
713-426-4260
www.catalanfoodandwine.com

     One of my long-time favorite restaurants in Houston is Ibiza Food and Wine Bar, owned by Charles Clark and Grant Cooper, so I was eager to try their new place, Catalan on Washington Avenue, which is growing into an area with several new restaurants.   Like its predecessor, Catalan is a big place, seating about 150 in the main dining room and about 40 more on the patio (which Houstonions seem to favor even when the heat and humidity would melt a steer's longhorns.  There are decorous echoes of Spain in the brick archways, use of dark woods, and metal chandeliers, and the admirable use of tablecloths and carpeting to tamp down the sound in this big space makes Catalan a romantic spot, as well as a good venue for a business lunch.
     Clark and Cooper have taken on sommelier-managing partner Antonio Gianola, formerly of Da Marco, to maintain an impressive wall of wine, while chef-managing partner Chris Shepherd, formerly at Brennan's of Houston, is overseeing the kitchen. As at Ibiza, the food at Catalan isn't reverentially Spanish, though there are several traditional items here that would qualify, including Catalan garlic soup, gazpacho, and wonderfully spicy chorizo sausage braised in cava sparkling wine.
      The food is hearty throughout, starting with crispy pork belly with a gloss of cane syrup, with which you may well want to drink a cava or a Xacoli from the Basque country.  There's spicy garlic shrimp, too, and seared tuna with a cool cucumber salad and a red chile-sake vinaigrette that really clicks. At lunch there are also several pressed sandwiches full of juicy braised lamb or brined chicken, and the salads are sumptuously mounted, including one with a seared flat-iron steak, goat's cheese, and almonds in a charred red onion dressing.
      The one starter you don't want to miss are the foie gras bons bons with red orange jelly--they burst in the mouth and spoil you for anything else, but treat them as an amusement and push on to excellent charcuterie like rabbit rillette, boudin, and a galantine with bourbon forcemeat and Creole mustard.
       One of the best of the  main courses is a seared redfish with corn, barley risotto with roasted cipollini vinaigrette, as well as  a crepinette of Kobe beef cheek with wilted frisée and a fried duck egg. (I told you this food was very hearty.)
      There are some wonderful desserts, including a trio of dark chocolate items, and a good selection of cheese, which goes well with a glass of Port of dessert wine.
       Catalan is open for lunch Tues.-Fri., and Sun., and for dinner Wed.-Mon. Dinner "small plates" run $5-$20, main "big plates" $24-$30.


ARTURO'S uptown ITALIANO
1180-1 Uptown Park Boulevard
713-621-1180
www.arturosuptown.com

 
     As with the owners of Catalan, I have long familiarity with those of Arturo's Uptown Italiano, the newest venture of Arturo Boada and Bill Sadler, whose previous combined or separate efforts included the Latino-inflected Beso, La Mer, River Café, Solero, and Café Noche. Here in the burgeoning Uptown Park mall they've gone Tuscan in a handsome, big room (again with patio) with rosewood floors, deep, rich tones of ochre and terracotta, oak chairs, and a sweeping colorful mural above the bar that is always a topic of discussion here.
      Chef Boada is not breaking new ground here, staying with traditional regional Italian boundaries, but he does everything with his own form of gusto, even bravado, and the food is rich  and intense in flavors, starting with his delicious and decadent baked eggplant parmigiana, which is elsewhere nothing but a flaccid cliché.  Here, made carefully, with good ingredients, it's a triumph.  So, too, fried calamari are crisp and greaseless; the jumbo lump crab cake fat with good meat; the bruschetta irresistible in its toasty, garlicky bread topped lavishly with a mix of salami, olives, capers, tomatoes, and cheese. The pizza margherita is good if a little too gooey
       Pastas come across with the same savory punch, including the now signature Sonia's ravioli, stuffed with chicken and porcini then sauced with a white wine pesto and the lagniappe of lump crabmeat on top--pretty impressive at $8.50 as a starter. Other pastas include sautéed shrimp on fettuccine with a creamy pesto made with cilantro, and--Boada always the master of seafood--fusilli ai frutti di mare teeming with abundant mussels, clams, calamari, and snapper in a lush marinara sauce.
        The seafood is best done simply here--the grilled tuna with salsa fresca is terrific--while for meats, go with the grilled beef tenderloin filet with porcini mushroom sauce or the crisply fried chicken alla milanese with lemon caper sauce and marinara. Desserts are big and puffy, Texas style and a tad too sweet.
    Arturo’s Uptown Italiano is open for lunch Mon.-Fri, and for dinner Mon.-Sat. Starters run from $6.50-$14.50 and main courses $14.50-$28.50.

 



      Rarely--maybe never--have I walked into a restaurant and been so swept away by the vibes of the place as at The Breakfast Klub. The line out the door clued me in, for even before getting to the order station everyone was smiling in anticipation.  So was I. Staff comes up to you and says good morning and asks how you're doing, social strata are mingled with a gregarious bonhomie, and the aromas of the food make your mouth water.
      The Breakfast Klub is something of a phenomenon, as much for its food as for its story. Owner Marcus Davis opened the place with a degree of savvy that began with its location just off the Interstate and the belief that inexpensive, consistently good food of a kind unavailable elsewhere in the city, and a genuine caring for every guest--and you are a guest here--will keep people coming back, as they do from 7 A.M. till closing time at two in the afternoon. 
    Davis (right) had once been a school teacher, then worked for Chick-Fil before opening The Breakfast Klub five years ago, and now it's become  an institution.  He's one of those big gentle giants and his personality is obviously infectious with his staff, who couldn't be cheerier, couldn't be better at perking up a sad sack with a cuppa java, and couldn't cook or serve with more devotion.
     Ah, yes, the food!  It is a breakfast place (Davis says the reason he closes at two PM is so that he can have a life, and he's spurned all offers to duplicate the eatery), and you go here for the biscuits, the catfish, the rice and red beans with pancakes, the pork chop and eggs, and the huge omelets.  But everybody knows you come here for the specialty--waffles and chicken wings, a really really terrific dish of perfectly tender, crisp, airy waffles with perfectly crisp, tender, juicy chicken wings.   The item is not unique but you almost never see it much anymore.  Once upon a time it was a staple of the great Harlem nightclubs.  To get to them the swells from downtown Manhattan, as Duke Ellington swingingly told it, took the A train and got off at 125th Street to go to places like The Cotton Club, staying till four in the morning when waffles and fried chicken were served for breakfast.
      And here, in a modern version, is the same dish, albeit served from seven in the morning. along with strong coffee--even a special Klub Karamel Macchiato--and a good dose of soul.
        The Breakfast Klub is located at 3711 Travis Street; 713-528-8561; www.thebreakfastklub.com


Amici Ristorante
16089 City Walk
Sugar Land, TX
281- 242-2800
www.amicitownsquare.com

   Houston has no better restaurant than Tony's, Tony Vallone's award-winning fine dining room that moved to a new location two years ago.  Vallone has graduated many fine chefs and service personnel from Tony's over the last three decades, so it was no surprise to learn that Tony's exec chef Bruce McMillian and Tony's son Jeff (below), who'd been running some of his father's other restaurants, and for more than ten  years would go out on their own.  They have combined forces at Amici Ristorante out in Sugar Land's Town Square upscale shopping center and next to City Hall, bringing to that section of Texas a far more refined style of restaurant than it has ever had before.
      If Sugar Land is unfamiliar to you, you might have seen Steven Spielberg's second commercial movie, "Sugar Land Express," with a very young Goldie Hawn and William Atherton, in 1974, filmed in and around the territory. Named for the sugar plantations established there in the 1850s, the town is now an independent suburb of Houston bisected by I-69.
     Amici Ristorante is, first and foremost, large, and it gets very busy many nights of the week with people obviously having a good time, from the bar and lounge through the spaciously set dining room that has reclaimed a Roman frieze that was once at one of Tony Vallone's former restaurants, Anthony's.  The modernity of the look is striking for its warmth, with expanses of cherrywood colors and big windows along with an engaging use of blue neon striping against the gray banquettes and cone-shaped ceiling lighting that throws the kind of light that adds gaiety and makes people feel  good.  The lack of tablecloths casts this as a casual restaurant, and it can get very loud when full.  Because of the restaurant's size, the service staff can seem harried, but they perform their ministry with the kind of congeniality I've come to expect from a Vallone operation.
     The menu is an amalgam of Italian traditional cooking with the best Texas and Italian products, so the Prosciutto and Parmigiano are first rate, and the crab, shrimp, beef and lamb of exceptional quality.  The best way to start off is with a lavish and very generous plate of antipasti that includes mozzarella, olives, salami and sausage, and you may choose a selection of three or five items from the table.  Crab claws are pure Texas Gulf in spirit, here done with garlic, crushed red peppers, tomato, and a little Chianti, while the frutti di mare selection has clams, mussels, octopus, calamari and shrimp simply tossed with lemon and oil.
      Pastas run from the predictable but well made, like linguine with clams, to the more unusual and very good, like the big tubes called paccheri with tomato, shrimp, spinach, and fontina cheese sauced with tomato, garlic and basil.  There is a seafood lasagne stuffed with the frutti di mare and treated to a silky cream sauce with basil. White wine laced with lemon is the bath for thin fedelini with Gulf shrimp.
      The menu leans more heavily to meats and fowl, probably because there is so much good seafood as appetizers and pastas, so go with romano cheese-coated veal scaloppini layered with Prosciutto and fontina then sauced with a mushroom marsala reduction.  A generous lamb shank is braised and comes with a eggplant and tomato risotto with a basil garlic sauce. There are also some "family favorites" that include fettuccine Alfredo, chicken parmigiana, and spaghetti with meatballs.
      Dessert may well be an afterthought once you finish your main courses, so go light and order a well-made espresso instead.
       Amici's winelist has about two dozen offerings by the glass, and a fine number of California wines along with familiar and unfamiliar Italian bottlings that include most of the Super Tuscans. And there is a marvelous number of wines under $40, which are precisely the kind of wines that go with this kind of Italian food and good feelings.
        Amici is open daily for lunch and dinner. Dinner appetizers run $7-$17, full pastas $12-$19, and main courses $17-$26.

PROVENCE

    The still quaint charms of Greenwich Village and SoHo are kept so by a number of small, often beloved, restaurants whose intimacy and lack of trendiness are among their greatest appeals to those who want good food, not too expensive, and a genuinely amiable service staff.  Provence is just such a place, which has been around for many years and is now under new ownership, Vicki Freeman and Marc Meyer, who have done well with their other, well-established restaurants, Five Points and Cookshop.
      The sun-dappled exterior, with its lovely windows offering a glance at the passing parade of locals walking their dogs and tourists with guidebook in hand, is as Mediterranean blue as ever, but the new owners, with designers Christopher Hersheimer and Melissa Hamilton,  have both spruced up and warmed up the interior with rich earth colors, blues, and yellows, lots of flowers, and a refreshing of the garden room to the rear.  A marble oyster bar has been set up, glistening with shellfish on ice.  Red-striped banquettes, sturdy bistro chairs, lace, and paper-covered tablecloths make this as cheery and inviting as any restaurant in the neighborhood, though the noise level tends to force you to ask your tablemate to repeat what he just said. There is certainly no call for the throbbing music introduced around eight p.m.
      Although I would never judge a restaurant staff by one waitress, I am happy to report that ours that evening could not have been any more pleasant or knowledgeable, and it makes a difference in the evening.
       Provence's menu had for years been dependably traditional, if dated, so the new owners, together with chef de cuisine Lynn McNeely (below), formerly at Barbuto, have brought in fresh ideas while maintaining a very close connection to the kinds of dishes everyone loves and expects from a place with a name like Provence, including good, creamy brandade de morue on toast, a nicely chewy hanger steak with frites--though with the addition on the plate of radicchio, puntarelle greens, and sauce verte.  Other items are not so familiar and they tend to be among the best, including a good roasted cauliflower, leek, olive and goat's cheese gratin and ravioli with braised beef and Parmigiano.  A chilled golden tomato soup with cucumber, red onion, and mint needed more tomato flavor. Sustainable and organic are the buzzwords that guide the purchase of ingredients here.
      "Label Rouge" rotisserie chicken was excellent, juicy and flavorful, and well enhanced with rosemary and a sauté of broccoli di rabe and garlic. Also good in its simple, unassuming way was a whole fillet of grey sole with a tangy lemon-caper sauce and cucumber salad.   Sea scallops were nice and meaty, sweet with golden tomatoes, olives, basil and fava beans.  Oddly enough, while you'd think that perfect, crisp frites would be a no-brainer, the bunch we got that evening were limp and greasy.
        There is a cheese selection, and they come in peak condition, like Blue Ledge Farm goat's milk from Vermont and Brebis sheep's milk from the Pyrenees, but the portion size is teeny, with much more bread on the side than cheese on the plate. For dessert there is a delightful chocolate-almond cake, and the rarely seen Pavlova--actually of Australian origins--made of tender meringue and sorbet.
       The wine list (those by the glass are printed on the back of the menu), under director Richard Luftig,  is rich in Provençal bottlings like Cinsault, Bandol, and Chinon, with pretty fair prices.
       Provence is as likable as it is unpretentious, and a real bonhomie buoys the place.  I think that come fall, when richer, bolder flavors enter the menu, Provence will really settle in on its own style.

Provence is open for dinner nightly. Appetizers run $8 to $12; entrées, $18 to $27.

by John Mariani

Saga of the Mondavi Wine Family Chronicled in New Book
 
      Make no mistake that the American wine business is anything but precisely that: A business whose success or failure depends just as much on corporate guile as on romantic notions of sunshine in a bottle, just like selling shampoo.
       That is the lesson of a new book on California’s premier wine family, The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty by Julia Flynn Siler (Gotham Books, 452 pages, $28).  For despite idyllic notions of immigrant families like the Mondavis, Gallos, and Sebastianis breaking the land and bringing vines to fertile California valleys, their stories are as fraught with intramural and public battles as they are with the mundane, but ultimately destructive, forces of corporate greed and mismanagement, with plenty of law suits every step of the way.
      Siler (below), a writer for the Wall Street Journal, has done a tremendous job of research—525 hours of interviews with more than 250 people--in showing how a family farm grew into a multi-million dollar corporation, only to be shredded by rivalries, raging egos, and rampant expansionism, ending in 2004 with Robert Mondavi and his children losing all control and ownership of their namesake winery when Constellation Brands Inc. bought the majority of the stock and forced them out.
      The root of the Mondavi problems started early on when two strong-willed Italian immigrants, Cesare and Rosa Mondavi, pitted their sons Robert and Peter against each other to run the Charles Krug winery.  Robert, the charismatic dreamer, believed California wines could rise well above their jug wine reputation, while Peter the quiet pragmatist saw no reason to change what had been a successful enterprise since 1943.
      Robert left to prove his expertise in winemaking and marketing by opening the seminal Robert Mondavi Winery that made California the equal of any wine region in Europe, but in a bitter struggle—which included a fistfight between the brothers--sued his parents and Peter for a share of the family business, which he got after his mother died in the middle of a long, drawn-out trial.
     That brings the book only to page 133, and most of what follows is the sorry story of Robert’s own clashes with his sons, Michael, who would become CEO of the Robert Mondavi Corporation, and Timothy, who would tend the vineyards and make wine.  Michael, a workaholic marketing mind who wore his hair tied back in what his father called a “rat’s tail” and rode his Harley-Davidson motorcycle with a group called the “RUBS” (rich urban bikers), saw the future of the company in expansion, taking on new wine brands in the medium price category and investing in wineries on five continents.
      Robert, in semi-retirement, promised millions of dollars in philanthropy but when Mondavi stocks tanked in the 1990s, he didn’t have the money to make good.  Timothy, meanwhile, fought to maintain Mondavi’s eminence as one of the California’s stellar and most prestigious wineries. In the end, battered by countless law suits and sibling rivalry, with Robert entering his ninth decade, they lost it all, although all the Mondavis walked away with tens of millions of dollars.
       Siler begins her book with the embarrassment of the Mondavis having their wines auctioned off for low bids at the 2004 Napa Valley Wine Auction, and ends her narrative with the same result at the Auction the following year.   In the past Mondavi’s wines took the top bids at these affairs, but now, with their wines’ reputation in limbo, it was the new “cult wines” that were getting the outrageously high bids, which included the most expensive ever in an auction--$500,000 for a single six-liter bottle of 1992 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon. That day a unique and historic barrel of 2004 Cabernet co-produced by Robert and Peter, now reunited in their old age, went for only $401,000.                      Photo by Donna Goldman
      While Siler calls her book—unauthorized but based on interviews with most of the Mondavis—-an “epic tale,” “The House of Mondavi” belies the proverb that behind every great fortune there lies a crime. For although the Mondavis had their share of philandering, expense account padding, nervous breakdowns, and exorbitant spending, they never seem to have been involved in anything nefarious, so that the reader is left with hundreds of pages of management infighting, suits and countersuits, and, the Byzantine inner workings of corporate gyres.
       Which in the end, Mondavi, like most of the wine business in California and elsewhere, had become.  Towards the end Siler writes that Margrit Mondavi, Robert’s wife, reacted to the family’s loss by noting how little others “understood what motivated her husband, which was never money, and ruing that the family had ever left matters had ever left matters to people who operated more like calculating machines than passionate human beings.”
 

DUDE!

I consider this the best and savviest blog of its kind on the  web. Potter is a columnist for USA Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and Luxury  Spa Finder, a contributing editor for Ski and  a frequent contributor to National  Geographic Traveler, ForbesTraveler.com  and Elle Decor. "I’ve designed this site is for people who take their  travel seriously," says Potter. "For travelers who want to learn about special  places but don’t necessarily want to pay through the nose for the privilege of  staying there. Because at the end of the day, it’s not so much about five-star  places as five-star experiences."  To go to his blog click on the logo below:

MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly.  Editor/Publisher: John Mariani. Contributing Writers: Robert Mariani,  Naomi  Kooker, Kirsten Skogerson,  Edward Brivio, Mort Hochstein, Suzanne Wright. Contributing Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery,  Bobby Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.

 John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire, Wine Spectator, Bloomberg News and Radio, and Diversion.  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 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.

My newest book, written with my brother Robert Mariani, is a memoir of our years growing up in the North Bronx. It's called Almost Golden because it re-visits an idyllic place and time in our lives when so many wonderful things seemed possible.     For those of you who don't think of the Bronx as “idyllic,” this book will be a revelation. It’s about a place called the Country Club area, on the shores of Pelham Bay. A beautiful neighborhood filled with great friends and wonderful adventures that helped shape our lives. It's about a culture, still vibrant, and a place that is still almost the same as when we grew up there.     Robert and I think you'll enjoy this very personal look at our Bronx childhood. It is not yet available in bookstores, so to purchase a copy, go to amazon.com or click on  Almost Golden.                                                                                                                     --John Mariani

copyright John Mariani 2007