in praise of sardines

Small plates done right: A.O.C. in LA

I have a love-hate relationship with the so-called "small plates" restaurant.

For the most part, "small plates" restaurants are a Bay Area phenomena. They are, as Marian Burros wrote in her 2002 article in the New York Times on Bay Area dining, "places that are devoted entirely to serving small portions of serious food." The appetizer-sized portions are meant to be shared and cost from a few dollars to the high teens.

Some of the most popular restaurants to open in the past five years focus on this way of dining. Cooking styles vary with the restaurant, with menus inspired by Asia (Betelnut, Eos, and Grasshopper), India (Tallula), France (Chez Nous and À Côté), Spain (Bocadillos and César), the whole Mediterranean (Cortez), Latin America (Destino and Fonda), California (Isa and Fork) and all of the above (Andalu).

So what don't I like about "small plates?" First off, I despise the term. It drives me nuts that I feel like I have to put quotes around it, because it's a made-up construct. I lump it with another globalized word of the nineties: "wraps." There are perfectly good words in various languages for "small plates:" tapas, pintxos, hors d'oeuvres, antipasti, cicchetti, dim sum, chaat. We even have a word already in English: appetizers. Is it really necessary to have a catch-all phrase that lumps all of these disparate cuisines together under one big tent?

What makes me even madder is that I can't come up with a better phrase!

As a diner, sometimes I don't want to share. It drives me crazy when I only get one (or worse, no) bite of the dish that I really wanted and then have to endure other people's boring choices (don't you want to go out with me now?). How often have I left a "small plates" restaurant still vaguely dissatisfied and hungry?

Most of all, I hate that the bill always seems to rise to stratospheric levels, even though you-know-who at the Chronicle rated the restaurant with one dollar sign.

But, when done right, I love the "small plates" restaurant perhaps more than any other. When I'm dining with sensible people (i.e. my wife N and our food-loving friends), I like being able to sample lots of different flavors. When I'm dining alone, I like that I can avoid the typical super-sized American restaurant entrée and save room for dessert.

Some of my favorite restaurants specialize in "small plates:" La Cuchara de San Telmo in San Sebastián, Cal Pep in Barcelona, Tía Pol and Casa Mono in New York, and Bocadillos in San Francisco. You may notice that all these places are Spanish.

The Spanish have a long history with this style of eating and know how to do pull it off successfully. None of these restaurants is the traditional tasca that serves one- or two-bite tapas. In Spain, most of the portion sizes would be more similar to what is known as a media ratión (half portion).

My all-time favorite "small plates" restaurant in America is, however, not strictly Spanish. And it is not in the Bay Area. It is in Los Angeles and its name is A.O.C. (how was that for a rambling, ranting introduction!).

Suzanne Goin, the chef/co-proprietor of A.O.C. and Lucques, shows what wonderful food can be served under the name of "small plates." Her food is seasonal and sensual. The flavors are bold and the portion sizes are perfect.

This visit was my second and I have yet to find a dish that doesn't make me swoon.

My favorite artisan bakery in California is...

Most Angelinos will agree that, compared to the Bay Area, their gastronomic scene can often be as barren as the deserts that surround the city. But, as I've been pointing out these past few days, there are oases in that gastronomic wasteland.

For example, compared to my new home town of San Francisco, the city of my birth (LA) has superior Jewish delis, Indian, Korean and Ethiopian restaurants (although New York bests LA in the first three categories and D.C. reigns in the fourth).

But what really surprises me is that LA has beaten out all contenders in two culinary categories associated with the Bay Area. Today, we'll look at one of these categories: the artisan bakery.

Let me clarify myself. In each of these categories, LA has only one place, well let's be honest, one woman who reigns supreme.

I believe the best artisan baker in the country is Nancy Silverton of La Brea Bakery. I'm not referring to the frozen par-baked bread that you can buy at Costcos all over the country under the name La Brea. These are respectable loaves, but not nearly as good since Nancy and her business partners sold the name and concept to an Irish conglomerate for a reported 55 million dollars (go Nancy!).

I'm talking only about the bread and pastries that you can buy at the tiny shop attached to her and her business partner/former husband's restaurant Campanile. Although I'm more than happy with the loaves I can buy locally (especially those from Della Fattoria and Tartine), you can't beat La Brea for its variety. N, a bread fanatic, won't let me back into our house if I don't return from LA with a bagful of breads and pastries.

This trip I picked up several loaves, including our favorite olive bread infused with thyme, and several varieties of pastries, including a couple of canneles.

I couldn't resist sampling Nancy's take on the famous caramelized bordelais pastry that has been whetting my appetite on several other food blogs. The one other cannelé that I had sampled locally failed to excite me. In fact, I had such low expectations for this new cannelé that I didn't even bother to photograph it. However, I'm happy to report that my new friend from La Brea was spot on, crispy on the outside with an alluringly rich and custardy interior. After the first bite, the thought occurred to me that I should grab my camera and take a photo as evidence of its beauty, but I couldn't refrain from taking a second and then a third and then...well, you'll have to forgive me, but it was just too late. I finally understand what all the hoopla is about.

Yet another reason to continue to visit LA.

Food|and Drink|Bakeries|Reviews|Los Angeles

Showdown at the Taco Corral: LA vs. the Mission

Besides the Indian food served at Bombay Café, the Los Angeles culinary scene offers a few amazing treats that are, though I hate to admit it, better than comparable examples found in San Francisco.

In fact (as LA food blogger extraordinaire Sarah of Delicious Life pointed out) in an article in the August 2005 issue of GQ Mark Bittman surprisingly named LA (along with Bangkok, Madrid and Piedmont) one of the four greatest culinary cities in the world. Bittman specifically chose to spotlight LA's excellent selection of Korean, Japanese, Thai, Mexican and breakfast restaurants.

While I didn't see Bittman's article and can't vouch for any of his choices, I am always pleasantly surprised when I find gastronomic delights within the Sprawl of the LA that I grew up in.

For example, I had lunch at a highly regarded taqueria, ¡Lotería! Grill, in the LA Farmers Market. I was dying to discover if the tacos tasted as good as those at my favorite La Taqueria in the Mission district of San Francisco. For what it's worth, in the latest Zagat guides, Lotería (I'll dispense with the emphatic ¡! from here on out) receives a  25 for food, while La Taqueria garners a 24.

I was immediately smitten with the counter, because as you may know, I love restaurants with counters.

The first difference I noticed between the two taquerias is that the menu at Lotería offers more choice. While variety may be the "spice of life," it has no significance when it comes to taquerias. I also got a chuckle from the menu when I read that the restaurant will make tacos from lettuce cups if you are on a low-carb diet. Only in LA!

On closer inspection, I was impressed by the unusual choices of fillings, including nopalitos (fresh cactus), mushrooms with the Mexican herb epazote, and pollo en pipian rojo (chicken in a spicy pumpkin-seed and peanut sauce).

I initially ordered two tacos, a calabacitas made from zucchini and roasted corn topped with salsa verde, minced onion, cilantro and queso fresco and a tinga de pollo, which consisted of chicken stewed with chipotle peppers and house-made chorizo, topped with salsa roja. I requested guacamole on both.

Being used to the size of the tacos at La Taqueria, which are wrapped in two 6-inch corn tortillas, I was taken aback by the puny 4-inch size of Lotería's tortillas. But, apparently size isn't everything, as these mini tortillas were exceptional. They are freshly hand-made, arriving warm and tender without being reheated on a griddle as the tortillas are at La Taqueria.

Another difference that's readily apparent is that you have to eat these tacos the second that you are given them. With just one soft tortilla holding in the moist fillings, if you don't act fast, you're out of luck. I'm speaking from experience here. It took a lot of napkins to wipe all the overflowing juices off my arm and chin as I hurled the quickly disintegrating taco into my mouth.

I liked the two tiny tacos so much, I ordered a third, this one made from cochinita pibil, pork shoulder slowly roasted in a banana leaf, then shredded and topped with pickled red onions and habanero chile. By now I had learned that the fillings are so good that you don't need to order guacamole.

I considered a fourth, but decided it would be prudent to save lots of room for dinner later that night at AOC.

So, who won the showdown of the taquerias? Because I am fiercely loyal to my local La Taqueria, I'll call it a draw. But, believe me, no future visit to LA would be complete without a stop at Lotería to sample a few more of their offerings. I wonder which places Bittman included in his GQ article? What if there are even better taquerias in LA that I have yet to discover?

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Reviews|Los Angeles|Mexican

Dussehra at Bombay Cafe

All sorts of significant religious events took place in the past few days. Ramadan is ongoing and Yom Kippur was on Wednesday. Wednesday was also Dussehra, the final day of the nine-day Indian festival of Navaratri. This is one of the most important Hindu festivals of the year.

Although festivities vary by region, the focus of Dussehra is the victory of good over evil.

On this day, according to the Ramayana, the hero Rama defeated the demon king Ravana. It is also the day that the goddess Durga (pictured left) slayed the hated Buffalo demon, Mahishasura, which no other god (feminists note, they were all males) was able to defeat.

Amongst N's Gujarati community, Navaratri and Dussehra is the time to feast and dance. There are two fun group dances, both similarly danced in a huge circle, one called garba and the other, my personal favorite, dandiya ras (performed with dancers percussively tapping their partner's set of batons, dandiya, against their own dandiya in rhythm to the gradually increasing tempo of the music). Unfortunately, with N in grad school and holding down a full-time job, there would be no celebrations in our household this year. Besides, I had to go south to L.A. for a work-related project.

After arriving in L.A. Wednesday afternoon, I was craving something healthier than what I had for lunch. In a word: vegetables. With Dussehra on my mind, I decided to head to what is perhaps the best Indian restaurant in California, Bombay Café.

I say “best” with some hesitation. Bombay Café is not at the same high level of dining as the finest Indian eateries in New York or London. Appropriate to the Santa Monica neighborhood where it is located, the atmosphere at Bombay Café is very casual. More than one diner donned flip-flops and shorts.

The somewhat tame level of spicing also caters to the predominantly non-Indian crowd that dines there. The chef-owner of Bombay Café, Neela Paniz (I wonder why she didn't name her restaurant Chez Paniz?), has reinterpreted Indian classics to suit her clientele’s tastes.

Usually that would be a red warning flag for me to stay away. But, not unlike the way Charles Phan tweaked traditional Vietnamese cooking at the beloved Slanted Door in San Francisco, Paniz has managed to successfully craft a menu full of interesting choices and daily changing specials unseen at other Indian restaurants.

Take for example the frankies.

These are traditional Bombay street food, typically associated with beachside food stalls. Similar to Mexican burritos, frankies consist of meat or vegetables wrapped in flat bread and served with sweet and hot chutneys. My vegetarian cauliflower-filled frankie, which admittedly was different and milder than those I’ve devoured at Bombay’s Breach Candy beach, was nevertheless satisfying. Being a pickle fan, I appreciated the pickled cauliflower on the side, a type of pickle you are usually served in people’s homes, but rarely in restaurants.

My starter was a Paniz invention, the “eggplant devi.” Roasted eggplant slices are topped with tomato chutney, garlicky yogurt sauce and cilantro. It’s one of N’s favorite eggplant dishes.

Because I had just read Mika’s mouth-watering description of almond kheer as a traditional Navaratri dessert on her blog Green Jackfruit, I decided to sample Bombay Café’s rice-based kheer for dessert. I tried my best to finish the heavenly cardamom-infused rice pudding, but I just couldn’t manage.

Paniz shares her recipes from Bombay Café in her cookbook, which I use all the time and highly recommend.

I'm getting so hungry writing this that I just may have to head back there for lunch before I make my way back up Route 5 to San Francisco!

I'd like to wish my Indian readers out there a belated Happy Navaratri and Dussehra!

UPDATE (ADDED SATURDAY 12 PM)

I did indeed have lunch at Bombay Café yesterday. This time I ate their Lamb Frankie, which was perfectly spicy and even better than the veggie version. The level of heat was just what I like in a frankie: my nose started to run, but not so hot that my eyes started to tear.

At lunch, the frankies are served as a thali, which at this restaurant means they are accompanied by a cooling dish of raita (yogurt), kachumber (salad of chopped cucumber, tomato and onion), sev puri (crispy fried snack food), and more of that lovely cauliflower and carrot pickle. I washed it all down with my favorite Indian drink, a nimbu (fresh lime) soda.

My long drive home was fueled by my cup of masala chai, which they graciously packed to go.

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Reviews|Los Angeles|Indian

Road trip fast food

I am not a purist.

Whenever I drive down to Los Angeles, as I did yesterday, for some reason my mind (more accurately, my stomach) fixates on obtaining one meal. It doesn't matter that I just ate a gorgeously juicy, sustainably raised grass-fed burger at Sunday's Slow Food Fast Food picnic. I have to have a burger. Am I alone in this, in my insatiable desire for junk food when driving?

My craving is truly Pavlovian: drive on Route 5, must eat burger (and fries and chocolate milkshake). I know that it is about 210 miles from my house before I will see the sign for Kettleman City, which lies somewhere between Cotati and Lost Hills on a desolate stretch of highway so straight you have to make a Herculean struggle to remain alert.

Kettleman City is ground zero for fast food, containing a representative of virtually every chain restaurant in America.

Not just any burger will do for me, though. Admittedly, I will not find a place that fits all of Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini's three criteria for good food: good (taste), clean (sustainably raised and organic) and just (suppliers, such as farmers, and workers paid fairly).

I focus my efforts on obtaining a burger that fits only the criteria of deliciousness. My burger, therefore, can only come from one place.

The Los Angeles based chain, In-N-Out, which Angelinos rate a respectable 24 on the food scale in the most recent Zagat survey (astonishingly just 2 points below top L.A. restaurants like Campanile and A.O.C., which perhaps says more about the L.A. dining scene than In-N-Out!) is renowned in California.

Although we have several locations in the Bay Area, the burgers there never taste as good as the one in Kettleman City. Perhaps it's the desperation, after driving for 3 hours and knowing you're still only halfway to L.A. Frankly, I don't think the burgers are as good as those made from Niman Ranch beef that we can get at  Burger Joint in San Francisco. But, then again, In-N-Out is much cheaper.

I rationalize this rather greasy, fat-filled meal with the knowledge that everything at In-N-Out is cooked to order. The kitchen uses 100% fresh beef (no fillers, never frozen), makes buns by the sponge-method without preservatives, and uses fresh Kennebec potatoes for the fries. Besides, I only eat there once or twice a year.

For the price, there probably is no better fast food burger. At least not on Route 5.

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Reviews|Los Angeles|Fast Food