Gomme Sweet Gomme

Perhaps I feel cowed by the creativity cocktail makers seem able to offer so simply with just a shake of the wrist. Perhaps I am dulled by consuming too many of their drinks. But it's seemed hard to write this entry I've been meaning to get to since December 6, as December 5 is a day that should live in famy (isn't that the opposite of infamy?)--the repeal of the 18th Amendment. For 13 long years our poor country was dry and not high. That stretch even includes some Depression years, and if you can't drown away your centless sorrows, how miserable must life be? No wonder it was also the era of the great Dust Bowl.

But is it perfume from a bitters, that makes my entry all a-skitter? Indeed, for today we are in a perfect storm of cocktailiana--everything's legal (even absinthe), history is lovingly excavated by artful archaeologists, and then there's the fine fuel of the local-artisanal food movement turning its eye to craft distilling. Add in global influences as if sprinkling with fairy dust that's actually ground crickets and pretty much anything can happen in a cocktail glass.

Some of it's quite tasty, too, not just novelty, and that's crucial as a cocktail is nothing if it's not tradition. When you toast, it's not just to the person or people you're with, it's a cheers to every drinker ever, a sign of civilization at its most civil: we have tamed this firewater, made it beautiful, and will share it peacefully while even better doing our best to make witty and wise.

This was easy to do at a place like Drago Centro in downtown LA, all sleek and not at all old school Italian despite nailing Italian food with that simple made perfect from kick-ass ingredients way (tomatoes are tomatoes here, even in December, somehow). And then the brilliance of this dish il risotto allo zafferano e midollo, which just sounds beautiful (say it aloud, so your tongue gets ready for the beauty of the actual dish while eating it). That's saffron risotto and salsa verde, almost something minimalist, that is until you start to massage in the roasted bone marrow that sits atop. So much richness in each forkful.

But as to the cocktails, or the "new classics" as they put it, cleverly making oxymoronic sense (as a drink does, so very elegant as it begins to muddle your mind with its spirits). We had: the Blessed Bliss made of Karlsson’s vodka, Cardamaro, Underberg bitters, fresh ginger, fresh apple, and fresh rosemary; and the Hot Bellied .45 made of Bulleit bourbon, Del Maguey Vida mezcal, Cocchi Americano, Art in the Age snap, and Fee Bros. lemon bitters. That first led with its herbs--the very skilled waiter warned us he wasn't fond of the drink as he's not a rosemary fan--, but that's little surprise as in addition to the prominent rosemary sprig, Underberg supposedly packs in 43 herbs. So, something of surprising depth. As for the .45, the mezcal gave it a kicky smokiness, always a fine match for a bourbon, and then, again, things got complicated, what with a bit more lemon than mere bitters might make one expect and the molasses depth of the Snap (as in ginger).

Alas, this foray was nothing compared to what awaited us at Sly's on December 5 itself. It turns out the "Mix mistresses and barmen" as they bill themselves, craft a special cocktail list only for Repeal Day, and then it's your secret handshake for the year, as you can flash it and request the drink of your choice on it that no one else knows. Nothing like having your speakeasy and prohibition too. That's eleven choices I get and you don't (sorry, dear reader--go next year), including one from Chef James Sly himself, a sneaky Bloody Mary variation that swaps beet juice for tomato (it's a salad in a glass!, or, more seriously, the perfect drink to have with a salad, always a tough pairing).

And I don't mean to be coy, but I'm not going to spill any of the drinks' names, for they belong to those who are part of the secret society. Mandy Chinn, the head mix mistress there and award winner several times over for her mixology, has her team always take things one step beyond the norm. Here there's nothing so simple as simple syrup, it's gomme syrup, which with its gum Arabic emulsifying away, ends up even smoother than just sugar water. That's the way it used to be done, and still is at a place as fastidious as Sly's. Even more mysteriously, even owning the menu doesn't quite get you to the point where you can recreate the drinks at home, for key ingredients often don't make the list--is that merely a typo that there's a comma at the end of one write-up, or a sneaky hint Sly's is living up to its name? Don't worry, sip away, and watch as Chris Chinn beats a glass with sprigs of thyme like a penitent flagellating. Ah, ritual, delicious as sin, these well-balanced brilliances.

A Top Notch Idea from the Bottom of the Barrel

Sure, Thrillist can be downright Maxim-ish douchey at times, but they can also point to good new places, deals, and manage to disguise that douche in enough pop-culture obscurantism that you barely feel the need to shower afterward. All that said, here's a deal I'd jump on (ok, and now everything I write will sound like a double entendre, I know) if I lived in San Francisco: "Drink 40 Premium Bourbons at The Alembic--$250 for a passport for full pours of 40 fine bourbons, good anytime for 9 months." It's not just that I'm fond of the Alembic and have been for years as a surprisingly fine find mid-Haight. It's not just I like bourbon and would love an informal course in its barrel-aged ways. It's the sense you were part of a commitment, and then part of a community. Or maybe it just means I like to come up with ways to dress up my drunkenness.

All that said, anybody in the Santa Barbara area want to come up with a deal like this one? What's Social Living or one of those places for but some creative thinking/drinking?

(P.S. It took my amazing wife to realize I should pitch this locally. Thanks, dear!)

Downtown Dose of Mimosa

“About a year ago, when we started seeing new businesses opening up on State Street, Chris and I would say, ‘How crazy people are!’” said Derrick Melton, chef and co-owner of Restaurant Mimosa with his pastry-chef wife, Chris Melton. But that’s exactly where he is today, many blocks from the corner spot on De la Vina Street where the longtime French restaurant lived for its first 28 years. The new Mimosa’s only been open since November, but it already feels like home, said Melton, pointing to a new feature in the remodeled location, formerly home to Piranha, Matador, and Chino’s Rock & Tacos. “My wife wanted it, so I etched a compass rose into the concrete floor,” he explained. “It’s symbolic of how this place feels like home.”

If you want to read the rest do so at the Indy's site.

Holidays at the Ah-wine-ee

They call it the Great Lounge at the Ahwahnee Hotel, and that’s not even a scintilla of upsell, especially if you’re there for one of the eight annual Vintners’ Holidays held each November and December. The room itself, and the entire National Historic Landmark hotel, are what insiders dub “park-itecture,” which features lots of stone, wood (which may be fire-safe concrete made to look like wood), windows, and blazing hearths — think Frank Lloyd Wright goes Native American. But it’s not just the room that awes, for as you’re sipping your way through the seminars, you can look over your left shoulder, out the window, and indeed, that’s Half Dome fringed in snow. It’s as if both the natural and manmade worlds are conspiring to teach you a lesson in beauty.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.

Miss Maui, 2011

This is already a memory piece, of a meal in late July, but all food writings are memory pieces, aren't they. We either recall, relish, hope to relive or search for relief by ranting and venting. This, happily, is the former, as perhaps just this photo might make clear

as we're discussing a spot Pacific-side in Maui, so much so the turtles bob surfside like something Disney might have dreamed up, but these are real. It's in Lahaina, too, a town the tourists have taken over too much since its early whaling days when Herman Melville and Richard Henry Dana sailed through on their eventual writing ways. It's now dominated by t-shirt shacks and food filling stations (you can hardly call them restaurants) with maitre d's with headsets for traffic control, that will help you, definitely, get to the Cheeseburger in Paradise emblazoned t-shirt shack attached. Yes, that spot, but a bit to the north on the way out of town, close to another fine place I should blog about, Aloha Mixed Plate, sits Mala Ocean Tavern, and when in Maui you must go.

You must eat too much, too, as so much is good and the flavors run in so many directions--as if the tradewinds kindly dropped all the Pacific's cuisines into Mala's kitchen, along with enough cooks to pull it all off, too. Our fine dinner, on a deck at ocean's edge, as the sun set...well, why even finish that sentence? Oh, yeah, because the food and service (much more on that in a coming entry, promise) were so stellar we could have had the meal in a viewless cellar and been perfectly pleased. We shared a starter and salad, as that sort of seemed healthy and not-too-gluttonous, a plate of alii mushrooms in garlic and parsley (and they don't mention the probably butter/olive oil combo) and a Gado Gado salad, sneakily vegan with its tofu, brown rice, sugar snaps, tomato, chickpea, and a richly delicious coconut peanut sauce. This was a first course feast of food, and if you've never had alii mushrooms and are a funghi fan try them--they're marvelously meaty and called the "king oyster," so think that flavor, yet more room in the mushroom for it. A simple saute like the one Mala does sets them off excellently.

For a main we went for the the whole fish of the day for 1, as it feeds 2 amply. This day it was kampachi, a Hawaiian yellowtail rich and wok fried fantastic, fleshy and flavorful, the star of a dish full of other goodness, too, from a ginger garlic black bean sauce that makes clear what lame imposters most Chinese restaurants are to Molokai purple potatoes, a tuber that makes you wonder if potatoes need to go through the whole heirloom craze that's made tomatoes so exciting the past few years. If you wash that down with a 2009 Selbach-Oster Riesling Kabinett the spice will go nice and the bit of sweet will treat, and you won't get schnockered as it's low in alcohol, too. Oh, and the fish looked like this

and the photo doesn't do it justice, not till the iPhone camera comes with smell- and taste-o-vision.

There was dessert, too, at their peak fresh fruits, a slew of them, in something cheekily called a Caramel Miranda, so indeed, everything was a bit broiled to get the sugar up, and then there's just enough caramel and chocolate (the slightest hint) to send it all off into the stratosphere. It was a meal of ever increasing care and detail.

The Apple of My Eye

Downey's always leaves me thinking the old adage: Simple is not always best but the best is always simple.* And so, somehow after their Autumn Chef's Dinner earlier this month, and after all the other fine courses (including a homemade pasta with a light--yes, really--cream sauce and chanterelles, the pasta rung by kale, well, I could have had plates of that), I keep thinking of the dessert above, for which my iPhone photo does little justice.

Basically it's apple pie a la mode, isn't it? Well, I love my mom, but she sure didn't do this. For every element seems to have been labored over as if it were the only element, and you add all that care up and you get an apple dessert that will ruin you for any other. That crust, flaky and crisp, buttery but not so much it seems to ooze from your pores afterwards. Balance. Same with the apples, halved, perhaps, and then baked to the point you chew through without problem, but they still hold together--it's fruit, not sauce you're enjoying. That ice cream, vanilla and cream and enough (nothing worse than a la mode that a-la's away too soon). And then the caramel sauce, here importantly not too much--it's like a spice for the other elements that shine enough they only need a wisp of burnt sugar.

There is a reason we gave John Downey the 2011 Independent "Izzy" Award for Lifetime Achievement. The man can cook.

*Note: I do not always believe this, no way, nohow, as a lover of the Bradbury Building, Ulysses, and Phil Spector (producer, not murderer).

Here’s Looking at Casa Blanca

As a co-owner of Casa Blanca Restaurant & Cantina, Adam White can be honest to a fault. “We started with a fairly pedestrian menu that didn’t match the facility in some ways, so we had to get a more high-octane chef,” he admitted recently. “Onofre Zuniga had been let go by Cava after 15 years and was recommended by one of our vendors. He started last Wednesday [November 2], and the damn food is night-and-day better already.”

 Want to read the rest then do so on the Indy's site.