Gift Idea: Butcher Box

Butcher Box is a meat delivery service specializing in grass fed beef, organic chicken and heritage pork. They offer 4 different boxes with a variety of meats and cuts for $129, which includes shipping.

The content of the boxes vary depending on what cuts they have available and they appear to source from a variety of producers. The company sent me some samples and they were tasty.

Pork chops were excellent, flavorful and juicy. Beef top sirloin was a beautiful cut, but people who haven't cooked grass fed beef before should note that it's quite lean and can be tough - marinating it is key. A package of Pederson's Bacon (the only meat with the source listed on the package) from Texas looked like mostly fat but was crisp and tasty when cooked up.

For a meat lover, a Butcher Box would make a great gift.

Berlin: Europe's Next Great Food City?

I walk down my block and I've got tons of great food choices: Korean, Italian, Vietnamese, burgers, Middle Eastern. Just another day in LA, right?  Except, I'm not in LA, I'm in Berlin.

Grilled octopus with polenta at Donath.

If you ask the average American to name some of the great food cities of Europe, Berlin isn't likely to be in the top five, maybe not the top ten. Paris, Barcelona and nearly every city in Italy have a claim to the greatest food on the continent so it's easy for people to overlook Berlin, but I think there's a strong argument for it as a great food city, and certainly one that is flying under the radar.

Octopus bibimbap at Gong Gang

But Berlin's food is great more in the way that LA's food is great. It's the food of immigrants in a cosmopolitan city. I particularly enjoyed eating my way around Prenzlauerberg, a very hip neighborhood in what used to be East Berlin. That's where we found great Korean, Italian and Vietnamese food.

Marzipan

There's great Middle Eastern food throughout the city. Along with all of the Donar Kebab and falafel stands, it's worth a trip to the Turkish Market and one of the higher end Turkish restaurants like Hasir.

And Berlin has some excellent sweets as well. From the delicate and not-to-sweet marzipan at Wald Konigsberger to the rich, chocolate drinks and cakes at Fassbender & Rausch.

I wish I had time to explore the regional Chinese restaurants or even more of the Turkish food. What didn't I eat much of?  Traditional German food. It wasn't even that easy to find it in Berlin (except for the ubiquitous currywurst), but hey, that's what Munich is for.

Standard-Serious Pizza

Bestia's Best Bone Marrow

Possibly the best dish I've had this year is the roasted marrow bone at Bestia. It's served on the bone, but you scoop it out and mix it with their spinach gnocchetti, a spaetzel like spinach pasta. The gnocchetti has been sauteed so its chewy and crispy with some garlic. The marrow bone is coated with balsamic to give it some acid. When you mix the fatty bone marrow chunks into the pasta, you get the contrast of chewy and creamy textures and fatty, acidic and salty flavors. It comes together beautifully.  Everything about this dish is great; it's one of those dishes I'll dream about until I have it again.

Bestia
2121 E 7th Place
Los Angeles, CA 90021
(213) 514-5724 

LA (and Maybe the World's) Best Pastrami: Ugly Drum at Smorgasburg

If you haven't been to Smorgasburg, you need to make a beeline there on your next free Sunday. Smorgasburg is a food fair that originated in Brookly and opened in LA in June. It includes around 50 vendors; some are connected to food trucks or stores, but many are only available at Smorgasburg.

The festival is a food lover's dream with vendors selling a wide range of great food from Summer Crab Company's fried soft shelled crab sandwiches to pork belly paratha tacos from Goa Taco to Wanderlust's fantastic ube ice cream.

But the best thing I've had so far in the entire place is Ugly Drum's pastrami. They serve one thing. Pastrami on rye with a squirt of mustard if you want it. This pastrami is amazing. The flavor is as rich as any I've had, but the texture is more akin to fat marbled, barbecued brisket; it has that melt-in-your mouth quality. This is the best pastrami I've ever had, better than Langer's, better than Katz's. Go eat it!

Smorgasburg takes place downtown at the Alameda Produce Market on Sundays from 10 to 5. It's shockingly uncrowded, and there is plentiful parking at the lot at Alameda and Bay Streets that is free for the first two hours.

German Food in LA

Schnitzel with spaetzel at Wirtshaus

This summer, I was lucky enough to be able to visit Germany, which should be considered more of a food lover's destination (maybe I'll write something up about that but if you're interested, I covered it on Instagram).  Upon returning home, I was craving some traditional German food. There aren't a lot of options in LA, but here are two that I really liked.

Wirtshaus, on La Brea, has many traditional German dishes including sausages and schnitzel. I enjoyed the schnitzel and spaetzel (a German pasta) and they make a really great pretzel. Their strength, though, is really their beer and pretzels. They have a massive German beer selection and the pretzels are baked fresh, come out piping hot and have a great crusty outside and chewy inside.

Alpine Steinhaus, in Torrance, is located in the Alpine Village, a bizarre, cheesy recreation of an Alpine Village with a mix of German themed shops. It feels like a cross between Epcot Center and a horror movie set, but the food is great. There is a German market with a fantastic selection of salami and house-made sausages as well as German packaged food. The restaurant is also surprisingly good with some of the sausages offered at the market, very good schnitzel and a garlicky, pan fried spaetzel. The food is comparable to Wirtshaus though Alpine does a better spaetzel and Wirtshaus does better pretzels and has a much better beer selection.

Bratwurst with spaetzel at Alipine Steinhaus

If you know of any other good German food in LA, let me know (but no currywurst places please; I'm really not a fan of currywurst).

Wirtshaus

345 N La Brea Ave

Los Angeles, CA 90036 

(323) 931-9291

Alpine Steinhaus (Alpine Village)
833 W Torrance Blvd.

Torrance, CA 90502 

(310) 327-4384

Good Impressions of Szechuan Impression

Farm Chicken in Chili Oil

Szechuan Impression serves some of the best food in LA. This won't be news to a lot of people, but I was slow to get there.  I had a mourning period after Chung King closed and then settled into Chengdu Taste. I had heard great things about Szechuan Impression, but just hadn't made it there. I was lucky that My Annoying Opinions was in town and suggested we meet there.

My Annoying Opinions is a whiskey blogger who visits LA twice per year. We usually meet up in the San Gabriel Valley for a meal, to exchange whiskey samples and so that he can get material to make fun of me for the next six months.

Almost everything we ordered at Sichuan Impression, and we ordered a lot, was outstanding. The traditional Sichuan dishes that I'd also tried at Chengdu Taste were better at Szechuan Impression with more spice and brighter flavors.  Here are the highlights:

• Farm Chicken in Chili Oil, cold chicken bits and peanuts in a stupendous chili oil.  This is all about the sauce, which I would have been happy to slurp from the bowl if I didn't think it would spill and permanently turn my shirt bright red. It's hard to explain in words how good this stuff is, which is I guess why I stopped food blogging in the first place, but it's really good.
• Lamb on Toothpicks, pretty much the same as the popular dish at Chengdu Taste with intensely cumin flavored lamb buried under a mound of cilantro. 
• Boiled Fish with Rattan Pepper. This is probably the best Sichuan boiled fish I've had. It's fairly similar to other versions with pickled peppers and lots of peppercorns, but the flavor is sharper with a bit more acid. It's really wonderful.
• Leg Crossingly Yum Beef Soup. Is there a better name for a dish anywhere in the world? This is similar to the Korean bone broth seolleongtang with its cloudy beef broth and thin strips of brisket. This one also had radish and some chili powder for topping. 
• Fried Rice Cake with Black Sugar. For dessert, this is crispy fried rice cake served in a pond of deep, black sauce which tastes like molasses. Another dessert on the menu, Cinderellas Pumpkin Rides were tasty fried pumpkin fritters, though I preferred the rice cakes.  

So check out Szechuan Impression, and also see My Annoying Opinion's review which has photos of every dish hastily taken in the few seconds he could hold me off before I jammed my chopsticks into the bowl.

Szechuan Impression
1900 W. Valley Blvd.
Alhambra, CA 91803
(626) 283-4622 

  

Dream a Dream of BBQ

Dream Korean BBQ, at the corner of First and Western (in the spot that used to be Suhrabal), is one of my favorite of the all you can eat (AYCE) Korean BBQ spots. They have three distinct menus that offer different BBQ choices:  Four items for $10.99 per person; 15 items for $18.99 per person and topping out at a choice of 22 items for $24.99 for person.  All of them come free with a salad bar buffet, except that it's an extra $3.99 if you order the $10.99 at dinner (it's free at lunch with that menu too).

I always get the $10.99 menu.  The salad bar is a mix of banchan, traditional salad fixings, fruit and other assorted appetizers like California rolls and a really good tempura fried squid.  The noodle dishes, japche and spicy vermicelli, are particularly good.

For the $10.99 BBQ  menu, you can get brisket, bulgogi, pork belly and/or chicken bulgogi. The brisket is my favorite, paper-thin, lusciously fatty and good quality for the price.  Pork belly is also good, bulgogi is okay, and I've never made it to the chicken bulgogi. My MO is to just keep ordering brisket until I'm full.

They also do a very nice gyeran jjim (steamed egg). Often a throw-away dish, the Dream steamed egg, which arrives mid-way through the meal, has succulent flavors of pork and sesame oil with a perfect light, fluffy, souffle-like texture. They must cook it with pork broth. This may be one of my favorite egg dishes in town, and it's a perfect contrast to some good, plentiful grilled meat.

Dream Korean BBQ
100 S Western Ave

Los Angeles, CA 90004
(213) 388-7668

The Golden Age of Ice Cream

Sweet Rose

In Los Angeles, we are lucky enough to be living in a golden age of ice cream. Ten years ago, high quality ice cream was sparse in LA. Now, there are excellent ice cream shops all over the place (with more coming). Here is a list of my favorite ice cream shops in the Sku Eating Area*

1.  Traditional Ice Cream

No one beats Fosselman's in Alhambra for old-fashioned, high butter-fat traditional ice cream. Sure, they give a nod to modernity with flavors like taro and lychee (which are both very good), but this place is still an old-fashioned parlor dishing it out the old way.  My favorite flavors are coffee & cookies and peppermint (which is especially good in a hot fudge sundae).

Mateo's Ice Cream and Fruit Bars at Pico & Vermont is a traditional  Mexican ice cream shop with excellent paletas and great tropical fruit flavored ice cream.

Top Round, the Roast Beef sandwich place on Olympic and La Brea, does thick, creamy frozen custard, the mid-western way, which you can get plane or in a concrete with various mix-ins. Probably the best frozen custard I've had in LA.

2.  Hipster Ice Cream

The new wave of ice cream definitely has some of that ridiculous hipster vibe - everything locally sourced from farmers markets, cacao percentages listed on a chalk board, uncomfortable metal chairs, flavors like uni-fennel sorbet and olive oil goat cheese swirl, but you know, the stuff can be really good.

In this category we've got Sweet Rose Creamery, probably my favorite (everything is great from the punchy fruit sorbets to the standards like salted caramel and coffee), Carmella (especially the ice cream sandwiches), Jeni's (where pretty much everything is good) and Salt & Straw, which is definitely the silliest (which makes sense since it's an import from Portland) but still quite good.

SnowLA

3.  K-Town Favorites

Koreatown has developed its own unique ice cream culture with places like Snow LA, HoneyMee (which has multiple locations in the LA area) and CottonHi. SnowLA is a shaved ice cream place mostly fun for the diverse toppings bar. HoneyMee has a really delicious ice milk soft serve base. I like it plain or topped with honey, though if you like the idea of a big, waxy honeycomb in your ice cream or ice cream in a hot dog bun, you can get those too. CottonHi is soft serve topped with cotton candy. It seems like a silly novelty, but the soft serve is really good.

Bulgarini

4.  Gelato

Bulagarini in Altadea was the winner of my gelato tour of many years ago, and it still towers above the competition.  Altadena is a bit outside the Sku Eating Area, but it's worth the trip. The yogurt gelato with olive oil is the classic, but the seasonal fruit is wonderful and the nut gelatos (e.g., pistachio and macadamia nut) are as trasnscendent as a frozen dessert can be.

As to more Sku-adjacent gelato, we are now lucky to have Grom, an Italian gelato chain that serves up great stuff just like you can get at an Italian train station. The only downside, and it's a pretty big downside, is that it's located at Hollywood & Highland. Rumor has it that we will be getting a Venchi, an even better Italian gelato chain, when Eatly opens in the Century City mall. 



Those are my favorites.  Did I miss anything good?  Let me know, but don't say Milk. Milk is an abomination, a really popular abomination where you stand in a long line to get beautiful, overly sweet, mediocre ice cream. God bless them though, because I'm happy to let people stand in line there while I breeze into Sweet Rose across the street.

*The Sku Eating Area or "SEA" is not an official LA culinary designation, but it is the area of the city in which I most frequently eat and therefore that with which I am most familiar. It includes an area of mid-city bounded by Hollywood/Franklin/Los Feliz Blvds. to the North, La Cienega Blvd. to the West, Venice Blvd. to the South and the 110 freeway to the East as well as the western San Gabriel Valley.

A House of Bricks...and Meat: Les Trois Petits Cochons

Founded in 1975, Les Trois Petits Cochons was an American pioneer in the sale of French style charcuterie, pate and other meats. For many years, even after the advent of the internet, they stayed small and mostly East Coast focused.  Recently, they have had a change in management and seem to be branching out.

The company sent me a sample pack of pates, sausages, salami, duck confit and cornichon.

Chicken Sausage with Spinach and Gruyere

I'm not usually a huge fan of packaged, gourmet sausage, particularly chicken sausage, but these were great. It's a mild white sausage, sort of weisswurst-like, with a very subtle gruyere flavor. It's tasty and goes well with a nice, seeded mustard.

Saucisson Sec Aux Herbes de Provence

This was a delicious pork salami with a nice balance of spices and a light garlic note. While it's a dry salami, it's juicy and satisfyingly chewy, as opposed to some salamis that are harder.

Duck Confit

These are packaged confit of duck leg and thigh. I'm a big fan of duck confit. These are a little on the salty side but quite rich with great flavor. Shredded and lightly fried to crisp up the fat, the duck was fantastic in a salad, a sour vinaigrette providing a nice contrast to the duck's fat and salt.

Mousse Imperiale is a pork and chicken liver mousse with truffles. There isn't much truffle influence, but the pate itself is fantastic, my favorite of the three.

Terrine de Trois Rois is a terrine with layers of of Armagnac macerated prunes, duck foie gras and some sort of chicken sausage. The foie and macerated figs were great and went perfectly together, but the chicken was like an unwelcome guest at this party, its gelatinous texture a distraction from the creamy foie gras.

Wild Boar Pate is wild boar with pork and chicken liver pate, chestnuts and raisins. This was another great pate with sweet and savory notes.

Cornichons

These were pretty basic but tasty cornichon. Sour pickles are the perfect accompaniment to a charcuterie plate.


The overall quality of these products was outstanding. I would buy pretty much all of it again, and given how much I enjoyed the Trois Petits Cochons mousses, pates and sausages, I will certainly try other varieties.

Many Les Trois Petits Cochons items are available on Amazon, and their website also lists various markets that carry their products.

Sidecar Doughnuts are Without Equal

I'm a doughnut maven. I've scoured the city for great doughnuts. Over the last few years, there have been a lot of new additions to the doughnut scene. I haven't hit them all, but I've been disappointed with a lot of them which seem to expend a lot of effort on creative toppings while neglecting the actual doughnut. It's all well and good to cover your doughnut with bacon and Snickers bars, but I want to taste a high quality doughnut underneath.

Recently, after it was recommended to me by my friend Tim Read (of the late, great Scotch & Ice Cream blog), I made it over to Sidecar Doughnuts in Santa Monica. Let me be clear, these are the best doughnuts I have ever had. I do not make such a pronouncement lightly. Sidecar uses all kinds of toppings (including bacon), but they keep their eye on the prize, the actual doughnut. The doughnuts are made throughout the day, come out fresh and are topped while you watch. The glazes are more subtle and less sweet than a lot of places, allowing the doughnut underneath to shine rather than covering it up. Because of the constant production and the popularity of the place, all the doughnuts I purchased were still warm.

The Sidecar piece de resistance is the butter & salt doughnut. It's a cake doughnut with an amazingly moist and buttery texture and just a light glaze and sprinkling of salt. It's like a more refined version of Primo's buttermilk bar. This is a doughnut that is all about the actual cake, and it is pretty much a perfect specimen.

I also loved the choc-a-lot, an airy, raised chocolate doughnut topped with chocolate glaze and cacao nibs. The other doughnuts I tried, raspberry, blueberry cheesecake and salty caramel, were all very good but the butter & salt and the chocolate were the ones that stuck in my mind. In fact, pretty much as soon as I finished my last doughnut I was thinking about going back. It's that good.

Go there now!

Sidecar Doughnuts
631 Wilshire Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 587-0022
(There is also a location in Costa Mesa)

Recent Eats: Shabu Hyang

Old timers might remember when this was a food blog. Well, it's still called Recent Eats, and I still eat plenty, so I thought I'd get back into the habit of sharing some of my food finds. Lately, I've been enjoying the shabu shabu at Shabu Hyang at the corner of Wilshire and Western.

At Shabu Hyang, you can choose between regular and spicy broth or get  a half and half order which comes with a partitioned bowl to separate the broth. There are two basic orders. One is the traditional shabu shabu with huge cabbage and chard leaves, various mushrooms, bean sprouts and fish cake. The other is a spring roll which comes with rice paper wrappers assorted veggie toppings. Both come with beautifully marbled beef and a variety of sauces.  If you're there with a group, get both traditional and spring roll for maximum variety.

Noodles & Rice cooked in the shabu broth.

Once your done with the shabu shabu, there is a noodle course and a rice porridge, both cooked in the same broth and with whatever meat and veggie odds and ends are left in your dish.  The rice porridge is great, particularly if cooked in the spicy broth. It's a mix of rice, seaweed, pumpkin and egg.  A lovely end to the meal.






 
Shabu Hyang
3807 Wilshire Blvd., #120
Los Angeles, CA  90010
(213) 384-5464

And if you're interested in more of my recent eats, I've reactivate an old Instagram account and plan to use it mostly for food pics. My Twitter will remain spirits focused.

Dandelion Chocolate

After Dandelion Chocolate was my top rated chocolate in my recent blind chocolate tasting, I picked up a few more of their bars. Most of their bars are $8, and you can get a three bar set for $20 at their on-line store. I opted for the three bar set which included the Venezuelan I ranked first in the chocolate tasting as well as bars from Madagascar and the Dominican Republic which I'll review here.

Dandelion Chocolate Ambanja, Madagascar, 70%

The aroma is deep, dark chocolate. The flavor on this one is just incredible. The first note is just a pure chocolate note, very dark and very intense. As you chew, there's cherry and raspberry, and it ends with an intense raspberry note which carries into a chocolate/raspberry finish. This is fantastic! I think I like it better than the Venezuela bar.


Dandelion Chocolate Zorzal Dominican Republic, 70%

The aroma is fruity with grape juice notes. There's also a grape juice note on the palate. Nothing fancy, more like Welch's. The chocolate notes are much less intense than the Madagascar bar. The finish has more of that grape note.

Between these two, I definitely preferred the Madagascar, which was just wonderful. Given that I also loved the Venezuela, I would definitely recommend checking out Dandelion Chocolates.

Chocolate Tasting

In the early days of this blog, which were also the early days of bean to bar chocolate, I tasted some of the first bean to bar chocolates being made, including chocolate from DeVries, Patric and Askinose. Since then, the artisanal chocolate world, like the craft whiskey world, has exploded.

I dipped my head back into chocolate with a blind tasting of nine bean to bar chocolates which were were asked to give notes for and score on a 100 point scale. Here is how I rated them from the one I liked least to the one I liked best.

9. Nathan Miller Papau New Guinea, 75%, Chambersburg, PA

The aroma is very fruity but with some off notes like spoiled vegetables. The palate kicks off with a really strong chemical solvent or industrial chemical type note, maybe furniture polish or floor wax; magic markers also come to mind. That dies down, and it develops a nicer dark chocolate note, but it's still got that weird note in the back. The finish is pretty bitter with more of those chemical notes. The bitterness on the finish is long and unpleasant. This one was weird and a bit off. 50

I learned after the tasting that the beans for this Nathan Miller Papua New Guinea bar are dried over an open fire which infuses them with smoke. Several tasters found the flavor reminiscent of peated Scotch.  I did not.

8. Amano Ocumore Venezuela, 70%, Orem, UT

This has an aroma of musty straw, like inside a Cost Plus store, with some berry notes. The palate is very light and sweet, almost like cheap imitation chocolate, followed by artificial fruit notes. It tastes fairly low in cacao, and high in sugar. The finish has fruit and malty notes. I'm not a fan of this one. It was too sweet without enough chocolate flavor. 73

7. Castronova Sierra Nevada Colombia, 72%, Stuart, FL.

The aroma is very herbal with oregano notes. On the palate, the chocolate taste is dull at first; the texture seems to have crystals in it. Midway through, there are some acidic notes but without any real flavor. The finish has very muted chocolate notes. Overall, this is unbalanced and has weak flavor. 77

6. Dick Taylor Limited Release Bolivia Alto Beni, 70%, Eureka, CA.

The aroma is well balanced with lighter chocolate and fruit notes. On the palate, it's sweet with grainy notes, like a sugary breakfast cereal or maybe Ovaltine. There's not a huge amount of chocolate character. The finish is hot cocoa.  This one was a bit too sweet and lacking in chocolateyness. 78

I should note that most tasters loved this one. I was an exception.

5. Ritual Chocolate Ecuador Balao, 85%, Park City, UT

The aroma is pretty straightforward chocolate. On the palate, it has a very creamy mouthfeel with a less pronounced chocolate taste; it is only lightly sweet. The finish is dull and a touch bitter. This one had a nice mouthfeel but was lacking in flavor. 82

4. Ritual Chocolate Belize Toledo, 75%, Park City, UT

The aroma is light and fruity. The palate has lots of fruit with a high acid content and some citrus notes (tangerine, lemon rind, citron). The finish is a bit less fruity with darker chocolate notes. Okay, but not well balanced. 83 

3. Fruition Maranon, Peru, 76%, Shokan, NY

This begins with an aroma of Dutch process cocoa, then moves on to darker chocolate and red wine type notes. The palate is rich with a very creamy mouthfeel, light fruit notes and a touch of acid toward the end. On the finish, there are fresh currants (though not overly acidic) and chocolate milk. I liked this one. It had a good balance of rich chocolate and light acidic notes. 87

2. Dick Taylor Belize Toledo, 72%, Eureka, CA

This has an aroma that's floral with cocoa notes. On the palate, it starts dark with a light fruity/acid note which grows throughout the palate until it reaches a cherry like note toward the end. It tastes almost as if it's fruit filled, and you don't get the fruit until you bite into the center. In the finish, the fruit recedes and you are left with a nice strong chocolate flavor.  This one had Good composition and was nicely balanced. 88

1. Dandelion Mantuano Venezuela, 70%, San Francisco, CA

The aroma is grassy with wild flowers. The palate has rich chocolate with coffee notes, some vanilla and some very light acid toward the end. The finish is bold and rich like dark chocolate mousse. This has great flavor and is very even from nose to finish. Great stuff! 90

Thanks to Nick Hamilton for putting together this tasting.

More Foods You Should Never Buy

I got a lot of great responses to my post on Five Foods you should Never Buy (because they are easy and much better to make at home). Here are a few of my favorites but see the comments of that post for many great suggestions.

Guacamole. Assuming you can get good fresh avocados (which I know is not true for everyone), there is no reason to buy it in a package. It takes all of five minutes to mash avocados with salt and lime and add your choice of chiles, onions and other add-ons.

Egg Nog. Yes, you can make complicated versions that need to be aged for six months, but you can also whip up a quick Egg Nog which will be much better than anything you can buy in a bottle.

Premixed Spices (Like chili powder). " They take up a lot of space and with a quick Google search you can make most any blend with paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, coriander, oregano, salt  and pepper. It also tastes better."

Popcorn. Pre-popped popcorn in a bag is a travesty. Microwave popcorn is full of crap. If you have a dutch oven or other heavy pot, making popcorn on the stove is cheap and easy and doesn't take much longer than the microwave.

Infused Vodka: Yes, it takes a few days, but it's not that hard to add stuff to vodka.

Sour Mix (and along with that I'd add lemonade or limeade). See simple syrup in the previous post and add lemons/limes.

Thanks to Joshua, Carter R, Florin, Rohan, billyhacker and all the other commenters.

Five Foods You Should Never Buy

I'm all for convenience food. We all lead busy lives, and we don't always have time to cook. That being said, there are some packaged foods I don't get. Even in a time crunch, these things can easily be made at home and are so much better than store bought equivalents.

Simple Syrup: The people who managed to bottle and sell simple syrup are operating on a PT Barnum level.  It's sugar water for God's sake.  Sugar + water + 3 minutes in the microwave. Oh, you want some fancy, mint infused simple syrup. Take it out of the microwave and immediately throw in a bunch of mint leaves. Done.

Croutons: Slice bread, coat with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, add some crushed garlic if you want, in the oven for five minutes. Boom. Better than any of those salted pebbles they sell at the store.

Salad Dressing: I really dislike most bottled salad dressing. Making a simple vinaigrette takes all of five minutes, and you can vary it by just throwing in whatever's in your cupboard: Tabasco? Sure. Worcestershire? Why not. Dijon Mustard? Definitely. Angostura bitters? Might as well. A simple blue cheese dressing doesn't take much longer.

Tortilla Chips: You don't need a deep fat frier, just a frying pan. Slice corn tortillas, fry in oil, flip and salt. You will never buy a bag of chips again. The only challenge is not eating all of them as they come out of the pan.

Prosciutto. Don't tell me you're still buying prosciutto. Give me a break! All you need to do is get a leg from a six month old Duroc hog, cure it and hang it in your meat cellar for 12 to 18 months. Well, okay, maybe some things should be left to the professionals (or Oliver Klimek).

What would you add to the list?

Ham Tasting

American country hams are tragically underappreciated. Few people know that across the mid-south, we have purveyors of cured hams comparable in quality to Italian prosciutto and Spanish jamon. Last year, I wrote about my experience buying a leg of Newsom's Ham Country Ham.

Recently, I was lucky to join a group of friends in a country ham tasting, featuring five hams from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.  Below are the hams we tasted ranked from my fifth to first place pick. In parenthesis I've listed the number that corresponds to the picture above.

5.  Edward's Virginia Smokehouse, Surry, VA (#5 in the picture). The aroma was very smoky with some bacon notes. Texture is very dry. Palate was very salty and very smoky. There were fat on edges but it was fairly lean overall. It has a funky finish and is a bit peppery. This one had more smoke and salt than pork flavor. It was very dry and the only one I really didn't care for.

4. Kite's Country Hams, Wolftown, VA (#2). This one had a funky, gym sock aroma. The texture was moist, medium salty, with not much smoke; it was fairly fatty. It was more funky on the aroma than the palate. It had a nice fresh taste and a soft mouthfeel. It was pretty good stuff.

3. Col. Bill Newsom's, Princeton, KY (#3). This is the ham I wrote up last year. The aroma was bacony. The texture was medium between dry and moist.  On the palate, it was medium salty and very smoky with lots of bacon flavor. It was nicely veined with medium funk. Bacon notes ruled this one; it is very tasty and was a favorite of a number of the tasters.

2. Benton's, Madisonville, TN (#1). This had a nice fresh aroma, dry texture and was fairly salty. There wasn't much in the way of smoke. It was nicely marbled and had some good funk. I thought it was very well balanced, not too extreme in smoke, salt or funky notes.

1. Father's Country Hams, Bremen, KY (#4). This one has a strong aroma of BBQ ribs. The texture was melt-in-your-mouth soft. On the palate, it was fairly salty, not as smoky as the nose with a light funk. It was fairly lean. Most importantly, this one had a beautiful, pure pork flavor. It was super-rich, almost like liver in its richness and was packed with flavor. This one was a transcendent ham for me, about as good as any ham I've eaten.

I have to say, this was probably one of the most fun tastings I've ever done. Hams 1 through 3 were all fantastic. I guess I'm not as big a fan of the Virginia offerings.

If you're not up for a whole ham, many of these producers sell slices or chunks of their great hams. It's a fantastic holiday gift for any pork lover.

Ham from Bourbon Country: Col. Bill Newsom's Kentucky Ham

Kentucky is most known for bourbon and horses, but it really should be equally known for ham. Kentuckians will be quick to tell you how great their hams are, and I've even known people who have done Kentucky ham tours (they should make a ham trail like the Kentucky Bourbon Trail).

For the holidays, I was lucky enough to get a whole country ham from Col. Bill Newsom's in Princeton, Kentucky. A whole Kentucky ham is a massive thing; this one weighed 17 pounds and was a full foot and a half long. It requires a deli slicer (which luckily, I have) and a hacksaw (which I had to buy).  This is the story of a boy and his ham.

First, a quick aside on country hams.  When you think of a roast ham or an Easter ham or one with pineapples on it, that's a city ham; those are wet cured and a totally different beast.  A country ham is dry cured and aged.  Prosciutto and Jamon Serrano are probably the most famous examples.

Kentucky country ham is in the same family, but strangely, almost every recipe or instruction I've seen for it recommends cooking it.  Maybe it's because of the American aversion to eating uncooked pork (which is what prosciutto is as well...remember these things are salt cured for over a year), but can you image sticking a Jamon Iberico in the oven?  It would be like drinking a Very Very Old Fitzgerald with Coke.  If I had 17 pounds of what is essentially American prosciutto, I was going to do it right.

And so I hacked my way into the behemoth.  For my first go, I hadn't bought the hacksaw yet, and it was tough going with a serrated knife. The pig skin is leather-thick so it took a lot of work.  My efforts looked less like this and more like this, but I managed to get the job done and free a chunk from the center of the leg. Then I ran it through my deli slicer on as thin a setting as I could manage, slicing against the grain (as you should with any meat) into beautiful, nearly transparent pieces with white veins of fat running throughout.

This stuff is fantastically good.  It's better than any prosciutto I've had.  The aroma is amazing; it permeates the entire room with a deeply porky perfume. Like a Spanish jamon, it's richly porky, but it's also got a funk that you don't get in prosciutto; it's salty but not overwhelmingly so.  It was hard not to eat every piece I sliced (which is why I could never work at a deli).

The tougher pieces near the bones are great for cooking (throwing in a few thicker slices with some eggs makes one of the best scrambles ever), and there's a whole hock that can be used to add flavor to pretty much everything, but the bulk of this is going to be thin sliced and consumed.

I have no idea why Kentucky hams don't have the same reputation as European hams, but this one was clearly of the same caliber.

Col. Bill Newsom's country hams are $6.29 per pound and are nitrate free.  They also have a prosciutto style ham that is even further aged, and if you have any questions, give them a call. Nancy the Ham Lady is more than happy to chat about hams.

Golden Mongolian Restaurant: Mongolian in the Heart of Koreatown

Once upon a time, this was a food blog, so occasionally, I like to pay tribute to that with a food post if I find a really interesting place.

For at least a decade, there has been a very small Mongolian population in my Los Angeles neighborhood of Koreatown, but this is the first time I can recall a Mongolian restaurant opening. (Note that this is not the once ubiquitous Mongolian BBQ style; this is an actual Mongolian restaurant).

Located at the intersection of Wilshire and Virgil, Golden Mongolian Restaurant opened a few weeks ago and also has a sushi menu, though they weren't serving the sushi the day I visited.  The Mongolian dishes are listed as "traditional" on the menu. Mongolian is not a cuisine with which I am readily familiar, so I was excited to give it a try.

We started with a salty milk tea ($1.50); the salty element, which you might think would detract, actually worked very well in the tea.  I'm not much of a tea drinker, but I couldn't stop taking sips, loving the combination of tea spice, milk and salt.

The steamed lamb soup ($9.50) was one of the best lamb soups I've had.  It featured a deeply intense lamb broth with thinly sliced lamb.  Some of the lamb pieces were chewy with connective tissue, but the broth was amazingly rich. It was served with a fried pancake, like a Chinese scallion pancake without the scallions, that was crisp on the outside and tender within - perfect for sopping up soup.

Tsotsgiitei Bansh ($6.25 for 10 pieces) are steamed beef dumplings served with thick sour cream. The dumplings were filled with a nicely spiced beef meatball and went very well with the sour cream. Like many of the dishes, this one felt like a melding of Russian and Northern Chinese cuisine which obviously makes sense geographically.

Huushuur ($5.95 for 3 pieces) are described on the menu as flat, fried beef dumplings (or something like that).  They are large flat dumplings fried in a flour-based dough.  They had nice flavor and were served with a pickled cabbage slaw.

Lastly, Tsuivan ($8.95) is a fried noodle dish featuring home made noodles, beef, peppers and carrots.  The noodles were delightfully chewy and the slivers of beef were very tasty, but the use of red bell pepper was a bit heavy handed and dominated the flavor.  I would have liked just the noodles and beef.  Still, I might order it again just to get those noodles.

All in all, this was a lot of fun and the prices were extremely reasonable.  The lamb soup was probably the stand out dish, but everything was enjoyable.

Golden Mongolian Restaurant
3012 Wilshire Blvd.,
Los Angeles, CA 90010
(213) 263-2141

Recent Eats: Buns, Fries, Ice Cream and More

It's been a long time since this was a food blog, but I still get asked a lot about where I've been eating, so I thought I would do a brief, totally eclectic post which actually covered Sku's recent eats.

Republique, in the old Campanile space on La Brea is phenomenal.  The food is served family style on communal tables.  I went with a big group, and everything we had was very good; about half of it was mind blowing. And Jonathan Gold is absolutely right that these are the best fries in town and that the Bernaise sauce is nearly drinkable on its own.  Other highlights were the eggs and uni on toast, duck confit, and for dessert, a chocolate cherry bread pudding.  The cocktail menu was sadly unimpressive for a restaurant of this quality.

I was so impressed that I stop by for breakfast and they have what may be the best breakfast in mid-city.  The breakfast is a much more casual affair.  You order at the pastry counter and take a seat in the dining room.  This place has wondrous eggs.  The eggs on toast with asparagus and arugula was as simple as it sounds, but it was one of the best breakfast dishes anywhere.   The scrambled eggs are so pillowy soft and creamy they are almost a custard, sliced asparagus spears were perfectly cooked with just the right crunch, add toast from their bread and the slight bitterness of arugula with sea salt and...its hard to describe how good this dish was.  On top of that they had a perfectly executed kimchi fried rice.  At the bakery items are more standard but you must try the canelles.  The burnt sugar on the outside is crisp and sweet almost to the level of  a creme brulee crust which gives way to a creamy, custardy center.  I may have enjoyed the breakfast more than the dinner menu (though I would have liked a side of those fries)  

The Bun Shop. This new Koreatown shop is one of those Asian fusion food trucks that opened a restaurant.  This one is a great concept, Chinese style bao buns stuffed sandwich-style with all manner of fillings: pork belly, bulgogi, spam, chicken katsu and more.  They are slider sized and come with an order of macaroni salad or marinated edamame.  These things are great and highly addictive.  They make a great snack anytime, but you could see how this place could become a major late night craving, though it closes at 10 pm.  This place is all sorts of fun. Go there now!

Sweet Rose Creamery.  This Brentwood ice cream shop now has a branch on Beverly across from Pan Pacific Park.  As a huge ice cream fan, I'm always happy to see more great ice cream, and this is indeed great, with fresh ingredients and creative (though not insane) flavors. They have a standard menu with silky smooth salted caramel, strong coffee and other standard flavors and a changing list of seasonal offerings.  The seasonal offerings are particularly good, utilizing fresh cherries, orange and other seasonal ingredients.  This place immediately rockets to the top tier of LA ice cream; hell, it may be the best.  They also have homemade sodas and toppings, but the ice cream is so damn good that I've never gotten around to them.

I've never had much of a wait at Sweet Rose despite the fact that people continue to line up around the block for the mediocre ice cream at Milk, just down the street.  Just as well, hopefully those Milk drinkers won't find out that Sweet Rose puts their overly sweet  concoctions to shame.  They also make great coffee using Caffe Luxxe beans.

SnowLA. I'm not sure if snow ice has reached other parts of the country yet.  I first had it in Hawaii a few years ago, but it's been in the San Gabriel Valley for a while and is starting to make in-roads in Koreatown. An ice cream/shave ice mash up, snow ice is made by placing a large block of ice cream in a shave ice-type machine; then toppings are added that would be typical for shave ice or frozen yogurt.  The thin, ribbon-like shaved ice cream at Snow LA is airy and light and melts in your mouth.  I particularly like it topped with condensed milk and dulce de leche as well as "popping boba" that burst with mango, yogurt or strawberry flavor when you bite into them.  The snow ice at SnowLA on Sixth Street is the best I've had with a really fine texture and good toppings.

Isaan Station.  Great Thai comes to Koreatown.  Alright, we're not that far from Thai Town, but still, it's rare for good Thai to be available south of Santa Monica Boulevard.  Issan Station, on Western at First (just down from the Bun Shop) brings some T-Town to K-Town with its classic Thai street food.  Really great sour sausage, loads of larps and papya salads as well as soups and noodles.  This will definitely become a regular spot for me.

The Oinkster.  The Oinkster, the fast-casual-gourmet-hipster joint in Eagle Rock recently opened a Hollywood branch.  Despite all of the praise heaped on the Eagle Rock joint, I never went because I consider Eagle Rock to be nearly unreachable by major freeways and boulevards, and for some reason, it seems to take me longer to get there than to Monterey Park.  So I was excited to finally get to try Oinkster, where everything except the beer is homemade.  My favorite here was probably the pulled pork sandwich, which had a nice Carolina style vinegar based BBQ sauce.  The burgers were nicely flavored if over cooked. The pastrami, which is house cured, was quite good, though more in the style of The Hat (thin cut, greasy, fast food stand style) than Langer's (thick cut, juicy, deli style).  The homemade condiments were very good, particularly the chipotle ketchup (and I seldom like homemade ketchup), but the fries and onion rings were lackluster.  When you call your fries Belgian, you have a lot to live up to, and these were not crispy enough and needed salt.  The breaded-style onion rings were similarly bland.  All in all, pretty good food, though expensive (but that goes with the category).  A good option for that area of Hollywood.


Eat up!

Roast Beef and Frozen Custard: Top Round

Top Round is a new roast beef sandwich/frozen custard spot on Olympic and La Brea.  The sandwiches, which you order outside, are Arby's style roast beef sandwiches with various condiments and toppings, but none of them matter so much.  What you should do is get one of the sandwiches with extra beef and then slather it with their horseradish sauce, which had an awesome kick to it.

Then get some curly fries.  Fried in beef tallow, the fries come plain, or with one of a number of toppings: home made cheese whiz, beef ends and drippings or "dirty" with gravy, cheese and caramelized onions.  All of these were great except for the beef ends and drippings, which needed a little something else (cheese?).

When you finish your sandwich and fries, go inside and order a frozen custard concrete (sort of a flurry-type concoction).  The custard here is by far the best I've had in LA, smooth, rich and creamy with a clean vanilla taste.  The toppings are nothing special, but getting the concrete whips up the custard to a great, smooth consistency.  Usually when you see frozen custard in LA, it's soft serve.  This is the real deal and the true highlight of this place.  Sandwiches are good, custard is fabulous.

One of the owners of Top Round is Anthony Carron from 800 Degrees pizza.  Carron is a St. Louis native, and this place definitely has a St. Louis feel (my wife's a St. Louisan and I lived there for a year).  You can get provel cheese on your sandwich, which is a God forsaken processed cheese loved only by those who grew up in St. Louis.  And the frozen custard is a clear homage to St. Louis' great Ted Drewe's Frozen Custard stand.  But while St. Louis natives will undoubtedly love this place, so will everyone else.

Check it out!

Top Round Roast Beef
1000 South La Brea (SE corner of La Brea & Olympic - and there's a parking lot!)
Los Angeles, CA 90019
(323) 549-9445