Bond Girl
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I remember Paula Wolfert once told me that the best bean pots are the pot bellied kind you get in chinatown. Diana Kennedy in her book on Mexican Cooking expound the virtue of a mexican clay pot...I think there is probably some merit to a bean pot, but as a person living in Manhattan with only 64 sq ft to my kitchen space, I followed David Kinch's advice and cooked my beans in a normal pot (non-reactive) with ionized water, and it turned out fine. So, buy one if you have the space, but I don't think it really make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.
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I made a practice batch last night...the taste is super! However, mine seem still "wet" on the inside...should I have slit them when taking them out of the oven? I was afraid to bake them the full 20 minutes since the bottoms seemed like they were getting really brown. (just a regular electric oven).
Pichet is doing a pastry focus right now. Why don't you guys ask him for suggestions or a few possible solutions?
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Finally went there for dinner, after having stumbled on the press party. I love this place not because Zak is one of the nicest person I've met, but because he refuses to tone down the spiciness of the food and he wants you to eat the claypot chicken out of the pot. Last night, he gave a young woman the claypot with her take out (she promised to bring back the pot).
The Chili crab is a giant dungeoness crab that is bathed in a sweet spicy chili sauce. It was messy and difficult with lot of cracking and picking, but God was it good. The dish came with three thick slices of bread that you can use to mop up the chili sauce. The servers will provide plenty of napkins and handi-wipes. The watermelon salad has a fresh limey taste to it that provide the perfect starter. The wonton mee is a bit on the salty side but provided a good calming effect after the crab.
The shaved ice is a medley of peanuts, rose water, green jelly (don't ask) and shaved coconut. It makes me feel like a kid. The fried banana with ice cream is geared for the more mature minded among us but satisfying all the same.
Atomosphere is laid back and easy going with loud music playing. The bartender will offer you any advice on beer, wine or make you a mixed fruit juice to go with the food.
If you live near by, you can avoid the wait by ordering takeouts. There are plans for lunch service and delivery, and pretty soon, it'll even stay open until 4am on weekend.
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I think different type of restaurants will bring in different type of gross sales but also have different cost structures. A four star restaurant may have huge gross sales figures but also huge expenses to go with it. On the opposit end, a little dessert bar may only have sales in the few thousands range, but with very little overhead, it can be more successful.
I've forgo the idea of owning my own place for now and decided to invest in a restaurant instead. The biggest issue with the number of business plans so far is the cost of the place., and how realistic I think it is.
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In Piedmont's Le Langhe, agnolotti al plin are a favourite pasta, small, little sacks of stuffed pasta about the size of a dime. The filling is usually veal, sometimes vegetables and cheese. My winemaker friend Mario Fontana's mother Elda made these for us on a recent visit to Barolo - the 'al plin' indicates that the stuffed pasta (they really are one of the smallest of all ravioli type paste - almost more like tortellini in size) are pinched by hand. I'll ask Mario if his mother will share the recipe - and, most importantly, the method. Incidentally, they can be served con burro e formaggio or in brodo. We had them simply bathed in butter, and over this we spooned finely chopped black summer truffles which added a wonderful earthy flavour as well as a toothsome crunch.
Please ask her for the recipes. I was told by good authority that Keller complicate things too much. The instruction I was given so far was to fold them in thirds and then pinch the sides.
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Thank you twodogs. I will go find that tomorrow.
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I recently had one of the most inspiring agnolotti in LA's La Terza. The thing was light fluffy and swathed in a delicious butter sauce with wild mushrooms. The whole experience has inspired me to blow the dust off my pasta machine. Here's what they look like:
Anyone know how it's done? and how do I get the best results?
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This is a simple Asian puff pastry that can be used in savory as well as sweet dishes. The technique is extremelly easy, and you can achieve the effect of a layered pastry without the complixity of its French counterparts. The puff pastries are normally made into Thai Curry Puffs, which is a savory pastry filled with meats or potatoes and vegetables. However, it can also be made with butter and used as a shell for a sweet filling such as ground peanuts mixed with honey and cinnamon, fruit purees, or stuffed Asian style with red bean paste or shredded coconuts, chopped bananas and palm sugar. The puff pastry here is demonstrated by Pichet Ong, who will answer any question you have himself. Apologies for the blurry pictures.
You will need:
Ingredients
11/2 cup of flour
5 tablespoon of vegetable oil (or butter if making sweet pastry)
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
3 tablespoon of water plus more for sealing the edges
Equipments
A rolling pin
A large metal bowl
A mixer if using one
Take 1/2 cup of flour and mix it with 2 tablespoon of vegetable oil either by hand or with a mixer until it forms a smooth ball.
Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator.
Meanwhile, mix the remaining ingredients together until it forms a smooth ball.
Flattened it out with your palm into a flat disk, take the chilled dough out and put the chilled small ball of dough on the large disk.
Pat it into a long shape and roll it out with a rolling pin into a rectangular sheet.
Roll the sheets away from you into a jellyroll shape. Lightly squeeze it with your hands to make it tighter.
Put it back in the refrigeratpor and let it rest for 10 minutes.
Slice the roll crosswise into 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch pieces.
Take each round and turn it out with your thumbs to make it into the shape of a bowl.
Spoon in your fillings.
Dab some water along the edges, bring them together and crimp.
The pastries can be baked or deep fried and the ingredients should make enough to serve four.
A classic example of use of this pastry is the Curry Puff, popular iin Thai restaurants.
you will first need:
For the Sauce (4 servings):
1 tablespoon finely chopped shallots
1 1/2 inches diced cucumber
4 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 teaspoon sugar
Stir all the ingredients together and let it stand for at least 10 minutes. This part could be made a day ahead.
Curry Chicken Filling (4 servings)
3/4 cup of diced chicken pieces
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon Maggi sauce or use sweet soy sauce
1 tablespoon of Madras curry powder
White pepper to taste
Marinade the chicken in all the sauce and stir in the curry powder and the white peppers.
Meanwhile chopped the aromatics
2 tablespoon vegetable oil.
1/4 cup minced shallot
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup of small diced carrots
1/4 cup of chopped cilantro (you want to use stems first, which is more flavorful)
1 tablespoon of Madras curry powder
Heats up 2 tablespoon of vegetable oil until hot, sauté the shallots garlic and carrots until it release the flavors. Add the marinaded chicken. saute for another two minutes.
Stir in Cilanto.
When it cools, this could be filled into the puff pastry to make little appetizers.
Pichet Ong will be a guest on the pastry and baking board. He hopes to change the perception of pastry to show that it's not just about desserts.
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Probably next year when I go for the Bond conference in Santa Monica.
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I think there is a page 6 article that detailed the affair between these two. But it's page 6, take it with a grain of salt.
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Okay, this is the 3 days LA Extreme Food Weekend. To qualify my weekend, I should first clarify that I was traveling with (1) a running injury, making all form of exercise virtually impossible, (2) the pastry chef Pichet ong, who knows everyone in the food world, and (3) my friend Gary who works for the James Beard House, and knows everyone else in the food world that Pichet didn't know.
After the guys picked me up at the airport, our first stop was a cute little pastry place in Venice called Jin. Owner Christy Choo is a lovely person, but unfortunately the pastries tasted stale and the cream inside our macaroons were greasy, having separated for some reason. We got into a debate on whether we liked the little outdoor space with sand on the grounds. I didn't mind it so much but Pichet didn't like it at all.
That evening we all congregated at Sona, where we were seated right next to two of LA's most popular professionals: a divorce lawyer and a plastic surgeon, who chated pleasntly with us. We all had the 6 course tasting menu, which in reality was around 8 courses, with David Myers comping a few dishes. While many people would find the food at Sona more than acceptable, my overall impression with Sona is that it tries to accomplishing too much at the same time. There are enough flavors and ingredients in each of my dishes to confuse the palate and as much as I can appreciate that the flavor combinations weren't personally appealing, I can appreciate perfect execution in technique. Well, that didn't happen either as most of my fish dishes were overcooked with the exception of the tuna and the raw shellfish that was served in the beginning. The desserts were underwhelming as well with a highlight being a wasabi ice cream that just tasted weird.
The next day, we are back on the pastry whirlwind visiting 3 pastry shops in succession in between catching the Fred Segal 75% reduction sale. We visited Boule-the pastry shop of David Myer's wife, Michelle Myers. A pretty little place that is best described as the LA version of Fuchons. The croissants at Boules were wonderfully flakey on the outside with buttery dough on the inside. Although the chocolate croissant needs more chocolate, the almond crossants and the plain croissants were absolutely delightful. Chocolates at Boules looks as pretty as the place itself and wons praises at the office when I got back.
Lunch was at La Terza-a collaborative project between Angellini and Nancy Silverton. La Terza had Sona beat by a mile. The tatooed chef Jason sent out a decadent soft poached egg on toast with shaved white truffles. Then we had a wonderful angolotti (sp?) dish-the guys had then stuffed with some sort of meat while my was stuffed with cheese in a white mushroon sauce. This was by far the best dish I had in my entire trip. Simple and lovely. My arugula salad was a refreshing finish with some of the best baby arugula that I've tasted, and the guys ordered the carbonara and papadelle both excellent in their own ways. Dessert was a bit of a let down with a overly stiff pannacotta and a rather uninspiring ice cream in coffee.
We then drove through the molasses like traffic to Sprinkles-a West Coast equivalent of the Magnolia bakery. Sprinkles had as unnatural looking cupcakes as Magnolia, except they are bigger and more expensive. I bought a one to share with the guys. With the exception of Pichet, who I believe is only being a contrarian, despite all denial on his part, we all thought the cupcakes were overly sweet and characterless. For those who do not live in LA, you can see Sprinkles a mile away from the long lines that snaked out the door.
After that we stopped at Bread Bar, Eric Keyser's very sleek establishment. Here we know that we entered the temple of Bread-dom with dark matted metals and dark wood. After Boules, La Terza and Sprinkles, no one has any room left to eat anything else, so we looked at the breads and oogled at how delicious they looked.
Saturday night dinner was at Spago, where the food was...well, it's Spago and you don't really go there for the food. We ran into the same plastic surgeon and divorce lawyer as the night before. The tasting consisted of Tuna drowned in sweet spicy gooey sauce in a grilled pastry that begs the question of : if you are going to have tuna, why drown it in a sweet gooey sauce? But, like I said, you don't go to Spago for the food. Then there were some meat in a pastry, and something else in the same pastry, but since they all tasted pretty much the same, I forgot what it was. More Angolotti, but with shaved white truffles, although not as good as La Terza. Then a sweet corn soup, which was rather nice but not extraordinary. After that came the halibut, which was encased in some sickeningly sweet saffron sauce and more corn. The dish was just a bizarre combination of sweet, sweet and more sweet. Moreover, the fish tasted old and fishy. Perhaps, the only redeeming quality of Spago was Sherry Yard's awesome dessert. There was a souffle with a citrusy sauce, a sinful multilayer chocolate granache cake, a beautiful apple tart, a cream doughnut with raspberry sauce, and a homey plate of cookies with rainbow cookies that literally melts in your mouth. Sherry hung out with us afterward and tossed ideas about her upcoming photo sheet with Art Culinaire.
Sunday morning breakfast was at Amadine, a sort of Asian french mix style place. Except for its charming exterior and pleasant proprietress, Amadine was unremarkable in everyway, with tarts that tasted of stale buttter, croissants that were dry and weak lattes that seemed more like milk water.
Lunch was at Thai town where we had a satifying pad thai and fish cakes. The seafood pan noodles were excellent with a lovely sweet chili. There were also a fragrant thai chicken with rice and some sort of meat dish. Afterwards, we stopped at a thai bakery for little taro pancakes and crepes with shredded coconuts on top. If I were to go to LA again, this would be a place that makes all the slow moving traffic worth its while.
Sunday dinner was at Grace restaurant, which was rather nice. We all had different things, and it would be tedious to go through what each of us had, but overall, no one complained about anything. I though my squash blosson were a savory treat, and Greg's bean salad had good contrast in flavor. The restaurant comped us a steamed monkfish liver that had the version at Nobu beat hands down. I had a john dory that came with roasted salsify, gnocchi and greens. Gary thought his burger was very good although his fries were a bit on the soggy side. Pichet ordered the Elk with huckleberry pie and roasted chestnuts. He thought the elk was well executed but the chestnuts were hard and rubbery and the huckberry pie lacked distinction. The food was the first dinner we had that resembled a home meal rather than a frou frou tasting, and sometimes it's all we need. Sherry dropped by towards the end of dinner and hung out with us and Grace's Chef Neal Fraser until closing time.
Afterward, we all went back to Thai town to stock up for the plane ride home.
I'm afraid to step on the scale to see how much weight I gained, and this week the resolution is to cook home for a week.
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I got converted to DimSum A Go Go by Pichet Ong and the gang. We have dim sum there every sunday morning whenever he's in town, and so far, the place has been consistent. The food arrives nice and hot which is more superior to the pushcarts that tends to serve everything luke warm.
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Thanks for the report. I'm going Monday night, will tell you guys all about it.
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hey thanks guys. Yes, low key means no scene no buzz and no designer garbs requireed. Just easy laid back joint where one can have good food and decent convo....The suggestions are great. I heard good things about those places too. ps. any egullters who would like to join me on Sunday night please PM me.
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Got the $5.95 lunch special from them. My shrimp dish is reeking with so much szechuan peppercorns that made my sinus clear. My opinion: better than grand szechuan but not as good as spicy and tasty.
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The place is suppose to be a restaurant but they are only open from thursday to sunday. The pizza is supposed to be the real thang from Naples with organic ingredients blah blah. I live 1 1/2 blocks from this joint so decide to take out from here. $17 for a little pie that is good but not extraordinary. Then again, what I know about pizza could probably be written on a post it and you'd still have room left for the declaration of independence. So, the prize goes to someone out there who could explain how this joint stays in business. And, what's with the 'tude.
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I will be in LA for a weekend, staying in West Hollywood, and will be looking for places to eat on sunday night. My preference is to keep it low key, anyone have any receommendations?
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If I remember correctly, the popscicles came in a bowl like stand and we each just took one, they were little ones in different flavors. It's really cute, and we all felt like kids afterward.
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You don't have to know how to cook to enjoy good food, just as you don't need to be a concert pianist to appreciate a Brahms piano concerto. People who don't cook may not enjoy food the same way as a world class chef, but their enjoyment is just as valid.
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There's four of them from the Sandoval family: Philip (I think in San Francisco), Richard (Maya and Pampanos), Alfredo (Manages several restaurants including Sushi Samba but supposedly cooks better than any of his brothers) and Patricio (Mercaditio). Their mother still lives in Acapulco.
Isn't Aaron Sanchez also Mexican?
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Does it really matter if the restaurant is "Pro-women", "Pro-Men" or something in between?
Can we just try to keep the discussion to food, service and dining experience in general?
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It is expensive but the quality is a little better than the average mexican place. As for service, I did not find any faults with it, but then again I wasn't asking for much.
Bean Pots
in Cooking
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RG, your collection makes me jealous. I am in the process of looking for a bigger place, So may be, I get to have one or two of these things in my new apartment.