Julia Child, goddess (on this side of the pond) of French gastronomy
Photo courtesy of Jon Chase/jonchase.com

La Super Rica Taqueria, in Santa Barbara, California, Julia Child’s favorite restaurant late in life

Julia Child, ever-reigning goddess of French gastronomy in America, passed away in 2004 at 91 years of age. But almost a decade later she is still stirring food passion, and still stirring up food controversy.

Ask any Mexican restaurant owner in Santa Barbara, California, and you’ll get an earful.

Julia, who was actually born in Southern California (in Pasadena, in 1913), and who later lived, most famously, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, started gravitating westward, back towards the Golden State, in her later years. Her beloved husband Paul, with whom she’d taken the renowned Cambridge Victorian house in 1961, a short walk from Harvard Yard, had to move to a local nursing home in 1989 after a series of strokes, and Julia started splitting her time between coasts. Paul died in 1994, and, a few years later, Julia finally decided to spend all her time in Santa Barbara, when she moved to a posh retirement community, Casa Dorinda, in the tony suburb of Montecito.

There were food writers aplenty in those years stopping in to see Julia, or engaging her on the phone in pursuit of the living taste of our greatest food legend. And Julia, who was always intensely loyal to the things and people she loved, started telling everyone that her favorite place to eat in Santa Barbara was La Super Rica Taqueria, which had opened on Milpas Street, SB’s great Mexican food neighborhood, in 1996. She mentioned it in an interview with Bon Appetit, discussed it on Good Morning America, and even inspired an article in The New Yorker about La Super Rica Taqueria.

American foodies ate it up, savoring the wack factor: the tall, patrician, cultured, New-England-ish lady who introduced all of us to coq au vin, escargots, and French mother sauces was touting a down-and-dirty taco joint as her fave dining spot! The irony was irresistibly delicious.

From the beginning, however, Julia’s pick inspired controversy. If you roam the internet, you’ll find hundreds of posts proclaiming love for Super Rica, testimonies of miles driven, of annual pilgrimages from Ohio, etc. You’ll also find people calling Super Rica the most overrated restaurant on the planet, a place merely resting on Julia laurels, a secondary player in the Santa Barbara Mexican scene.

And yet, if you arrive at Super Rica today at noon, or at 6 p.m., you’ll find a line winding around the street — the very line upon which Julia stood! — that often requires an hour and a half of waiting time before you get to the hatch where the food is ordered.

I know. I was there last week.

Early diners in line just after 11AM opening

I had some business to do in Santa Barbara last week, but, as an old friend of Julia’s, I felt it incumbent upon me to make my first visit to La Super Rica Taqueria. I hadn’t been to Santa Barbara, a gorgeous, upscale, seaside Shangri-La about 90 miles north of Los Angeles, for almost 20 years and, accordingly, had never experienced the relatively youthful Super Rica Taqueria.

It was high time to see for myself.

My big questions were:

1) What kind of Mexican food is this?
2) What might have made Julia such a believer?
3) Is it great?

The discussion begins with the word “taqueria,” as in “La Super Rica Taqueria.” When I was hearing these Julia Child/Super Rica reports for so many years, I assumed ol’ Julia had found herself a true taqueria, the kind of place that offers tacos exclusively. This is very common in Mexico: the only dish on the menu is a pair of soft corn tortillas that can be filled with maybe eight or nine different kinds of meat (plus salsas, etc.). One of these bundles, filled one way, is the classic taco. Furthermore, the word “taqueria” originally was reserved for a street vendor stand; only later did some taquerias move indoors to become a kind of restaurant.

This one most definitely moved indoors… and most definitely expanded the menu to serve all kinds of other Mexican dishes. Tortillas are central here, yes…but many things are served ON tortillas, along with sauces and garnishes, not IN tortillas; in sum, Super Rica is far from a taco stand.

The main indoor dining room at Super Rica, with its vibrant turquoise trim…and the original plastic flaps now replaced by more “upscale” glass

An array of non-taco specials at La Super Rica Taqueria

There’s nary a taco to be had on Friday’s list of specials.

But though the menu sprawls, one of the things that keeps it all together is owner Isodoro Gonzalez, who launched Super Rica in 1996. He was there on the first day, working in the heat of the griddles and grills…and he was still there on Friday, doing the same exact thing.

Isodoro Gonzalez in the midst of the lunch shift last week

And what a griddle he oversees! Bundles of sizzling meat are constantly moved on and off, keeping up with the orders that come in at the hatch.

Supervised by Gonzalez, meats destined for all kinds of dishes at Super Rica

The energy is palpable. The sizzling smells are pulse-quickening. The smiles on the faces of the lined-up regulars are real, and really infectious.

And the quality? Did Julia get it right?

I am assuming that one thing that has not changed in 17 years is the quality of the tortillas. The tortilla itself is my favorite thing at Super Rica…and it’s not unreasonable to assume that Julia, she of the French baguette sisterhood, responded to something as simple and technical as a superior tortilla, even if she wasn’t a tortilla expert; for me, it’s the best taqueria tortilla I’ve had in the U.S. for years. Wet, fresh masa is shaped into balls á la minute, pounded by the tortilla specialist on a tortilladora (tortilla press) into lovely, flat thinness, then griddled briefly to keep up with the orders.

Super Rica’s great tortillas pounded and griddled á la minute

These tortillas are exemplary: complicated with chewy, flaky, soft layers…lightly golden on the outside…exploding with the proper, earthy taste of lime-slaked corn. One of my tips at Super Rica is to seek those dishes that show you the outside of the tortilla: when it’s buried under other ingredients, the tortilla excitement declines.

A good example of the tortilla-face-forward tradition at Super Rica is the delicious Lomito Suiza, “grilled marinated pork with melted cheese between 2 corn tortillas.”

Lomito Suizo, with pico de gallo placed on top by diner

I also loved their small versions of quesadillas, particularly the chorizo one–which features chunks of Spanish-style chorizo, not the usual Mexican ground-meat routine. Of course, the tortilla shines through.

The quality of the corn kitchen also carries over to the corn filling of the fluffy, earthy tamales; different wrappers (corn husks, banana leaves) will show up as specials each day, along with different filling/saucing permutations.

A vegetable tamal special, filled with corn, peppers, chayote, zucchini, lots of sweet flavors

Another great strength of Super Rica is the full flavor of the grilled green chiles used in many dishes.

Green chiles on the grill at Super Rica

Probably the simplest way to enjoy these chile flavors is to grab an order of the inexpensive Rajas–”rags”of green chile–cooked with long-melted onions and ladled over tortillas. Simple and sublime.

Rajas on tortilla

If you want to go all the way on some of Super Rica’s strongest categories–roasted chiles, corn tortillas–my choice would be #16, the Super Rica Especial. In fact, it’s my favorite dish at Super Rica.

The Super Rica Especial at Super Rica

The great thing is the front-and-center charred flavor of the pasilla chiles (same as the rajas chiles, but much less cooked)–blending perfectly with the marinated pork, and the integrating gooey cheese (of which, blessedly, there’s not too much).

Right. All that said, about a few particular dishes and themes…is Super Rica a killer dining experience?

I’m afraid I have to say, after two visits in May 2013…the answer is “no.”

Lovers of real Mexican food, from various Mexican regions, will notice right away a kind of blandness underlying many of the dishes. I hate to call it Americanization…but it must be at least a variation of that, which keeps bringing in the tourists.

Consider the very popular beans with bacon, which looks like a million bucks:

Beans with bacon

Where’s the bean flavor? For all that floating bacon, where’s the bacon flavor? It’s a watery barge, and a big disappointment.

Ditto the dishes loaded up with cheese and cream. Occasionally, a proper balance is struck–but mostly the cheese is too heavy as well as too bland, and the cream adds nothing but calories. I tried a chile relleno specialty, with cheese and cream…

Chile Relleno de Queso con Crema

…and came away knowing better!

Cream? Cheese? Of course, one could speculate that dear Julia liked the creamy-cheesy connection that might have put her in mind of French food. California girl at heart, she might also have liked the “vegetable transformation” dishes, where something traditionally made with pork now gets made with zucchini. I’m sure the locals and tourists are digging the “veg” themes here…though, truth, be told, they’re not awfully flavorful.

But whether Julia liked the vegetarian themes or not, I’m sure she like the visual analogues of them. This is no dark, porky, old-fashioned taqueria. This is a place with airiness all about it…and maybe a very old 1920s flavor of California.

The airy flow from the line to the dining room at La Super Rica Taqueria

Ah, the California-ness of it all

Maybe young Julia, in the 1920s, after a week of food cooked at home, sped with her parents on the weekend to some “naughty” place like this…which would have etched an indelible memory, of course. Perhaps the gorgeous trees around Super Rica…

Trees outside Super Rica

…helped her complete a nostalgic California fantasy in her mind.

Perhaps Julia’s love for Super Rica was not all about the food.

I spent the rest of my available Santa Barbara hours bouncing off Mexican restaurants, hoping to find something better. Intriguingly, almost all of them are “taquerias” which, like Super Rica, mostly focus on more complicated dishes than tacos (with the exception of Lilly’s, the one true taqueria in town). None of them has an airy decor like Super Rica; they go either for the gussied-up Mexican hacienda cliché, or the ultra-simple food counter (without the turquoise and the airy glass panels).

And…most important…the ones I tried erred like Super Rica in trying to present a softer, more mass-appeal version of Mexican food.

And that is why, after picking up a few whispered tips from local foodsters, I was delighted to find El Bajio–which, to my limited knowledge, is the best place in Santa Barbara to get tacos, and mucho more. It opened in the same year as Super Rica, 1996, so Julia had a shot at it. I don’t know if she ever went–and I don’t know if she would have preferred it to the airy turquoise home-away-from-home she adopted.

Entering El Bajio at 8AM

The simple take-out counter look of El Bajio: super-clean, but super-ordinary

Most folks who told me about El Bajio said it’s their favorite breakfast spot in Santa Barbara, so I dutifully went at 8AM. But I discovered a huge board of breakfast and non-breakfast possibilities…

Part of the “menu” at El Bajio

…most of which are available all day (until the typical 9PM closing time).

I did the breakfast thing by ordering chilaquiles–the classic Mexican-mama-leftover dish, in which last night’s broken tortilla pieces are soaked in sauce, sometimes mixed with eggs and proteins. The El Bajio chilaquiles–soaked in red chili sauce, not the more common green–was a standout:

Chilaquiles at El Bajio

For starters, these tortilla pieces hit the best combo of crispy and soggy that I’ve ever experienced in chilaquiles. Secondly, the red chile sauce was roaring with capsicum flavor (and of course heat)–an antidote for all the blandness I chomped through in Santa Barbara. Even the fluffy rice, and the pink beans, had tons more intrinsic flavor than anything else in the neighborhood.

Another breakfast specialty in Mexican restaurants, especially on weekends (for its hangover-cure value) is a red soup of tripe and chiles called menudo. I’ve eaten menudo all over the southwest on Saturday mornings…but this was the best one I’ve had in America:

Menudo, the real thing, at El Bajio in Santa Barbara

The magnificence was in the tripe…the earthy flavor of which was just at the level most folks can appreciate…not too strong, not too weak. Not to mention the abundance of tripe! And the deep, capsicum flavor of the red chiles! Everything counted.

And I already was knee-deep in something other than chicken breast with cream. When I eat Mexican food, I want the underbelly–literally and metaphorically. Here’s news, folks: the underbelly in Santa Barbara ain’t at Super Rica.

OK. I was done with breakfast, even though it was 8:15. I had to move on to a few all-day items, just to see. I chose to roar into three conventional tacos with fillings I love. If El Bajio passed the taco test, this would become my place.

First the downside: El Bajio’s tacos come with only one tortilla, not the traditional two. Why? I speculate that the reason is the thickness of El Bajio’s tortillas. They are not supremely thin, and one tortilla does the job. Oh, if they only had Super Rica’s tortillas at El Bajio’s taqueria!

But what they do have at El Bajio are insanely flavorful, insanely textured, insanely great fillings. They had me at lengua…the tongue-y specialty that has always been my favorite taco filling. I went on to carnitas, supremely porky pulled pork, tender and delicious. And I concluded with chicharron (pig skin)–which, they warned me at the ordering counter, would be soft, not crisp.

Brilliant tacos at El Bajio: tongue on the left, carnitas in center, chicharron on the right

Wow were the chicharron soft! They were goopy, even, stewed for a long time to bring out every sticky molecule, and every strand of porcine DNA. O Dios! this is not gringo food! This is the real thing!!!

Would Julia have preferred El Bajio to Super Rica? I’m not sure. Julia liked to do things and say things she wasn’t supposed to do and say. One of her dearest friends in the late Cambridge years, Dun Gifford, head of Oldways (a food think-tank in Cambridge), told me before his passing that bed-ridden Julia’s favorite treat was a bag of Big Macs and fries that Dun used to smuggle into her house. She felt so BAD eating those in bed, with the curtains drawn. I’m thinkin’ that Julia LOVED telling people about Super Rica because it was such a departure for her. But I’m also convinced she loved the feel there–which might have prevented her from plumping for the really bad boy in town, El Bajio, had she known it.

The last time I saw Julia we were returning to a downtown L.A. hotel, with a car full of acolytes after dinner on the west side of town. At about midnight, while we were driving through a sketchy neighborhood, Julia suddenly said “Stop at this gas station! I need to go!” We stopped–any order given in that voice had to be obeyed. But we didn’t like the idea of Julia walking to the back to use the facility. Every male in the car jumped out, insisted on escorting her, but she waved us all away. “Oh dear,” she said, “I’ll be fine.” We couldn’t figure out why, in her late 80s, she’d want to risk it.

Julia was a willful enigma to the end. What did she really think about Super Rica, and why? We will never know. But the good news is we can go there today–with only a little wait–where we can bask in her spirit.

What this country needs is a good five hundred American affineurs!

Affi-whut?

Hey, I’m just back from France…where I am always gastronomically programmed to seek out three things that are absolutely unparalleled:

1) Oysters (the French obsession with these critters insures superiority all the way from oyster bed to oyster platter)

2) Les abats (offal, another item that needs cultists in a culture to survive)

3) Cheese, which in France is unequivocally the best

Obsession plays a huge role here, as well, in French Fromage World.

Now, I’m not saying we don’t have good cheese in America, both domestic and imported. And I’m not saying that the cheese chain in the U.S. isn’t better than ever, resulting in the best cheese selection I can remember in American shops and restaurants.

But dude…we still ain’t France! Not by a kilometre de campagne!

There are numerous reasons for this, but the key one has to do with the French concept of the affineur, or the “raiser” of the cheese…a concept in very short supply in the U.S.

In France, in the cheese world, les vedettes…the rock stars…are not usually the actual dairy farmers, and cheese producers…(though good French gourmands are aware of them, too).

No. The real stars are the ones who receive the cheese from producers, then hold it in their shops, downstairs in the cave, until the cheeses are just á point (perfectly ready to eat). The cheeses may hold in that window of perfection for as little as a day, sometimes a few days. A great affineur knows exactly when to sell it to you…will not sell it too early, will not sell it too late.

But there’s more than mere timing involved. A great affineur truly “raises” his or her cheeses as if they were children. Some days, if the cheeses are too moist, they must be dried with a towel; some days, if they’re too dry, they must be moistened. Most days they need to be turned, or shifted in the cellar; some of them need a wash on a regular basis with strong alcohol to develop a certain flavor in the rind. There is no specific list of what the affineur must do in his her or cave; are there any rules for parents? Affinage, and parenting, are creative activities!

I tapped into this all over again, a few weeks back in Paris, when a chef friend took me to her favorite affineur in that cheese-mad city:

Cantin, a tidy, super-aromatic cheese fantasy on the Rue du Champ de Mars, in the 7th, not far from a good open-air market, the brilliant bakery Poîlane, and La Tour Eiffel.

Cantin is owned by Marie-Anne Cantin, who truly is a rock star in Paris. Gourmands come from toutes les arrondissements to get a few quivering slices of this or that from Marie-Anne.

I was a little intimidated on approaching the shop, because the great one has a reputation for persnicketiness. On some days she’s fine, they say…but on some days you my get your hand metaphorically slapped with a cheese spatula. So, I just went about my business, looking at the marvelous orbs on display…

Mostly goat cheeses near the shop’s window

Magnificent hard cheeses in foreground, like Emmenthaler

Cantin is so powerful that she has her own Roquefort prepared for her by one of Roquefort’s few producers

I guess I did it all politely…because, suddenly…the apparition appeared, looking for cheese talk! And what a pleasure it was…

Marie-Anne Cantin, the Parisian cheese legend

A few hours later, I was enjoying a Cantin selection at the wonderful home-cookin’ bistro Reed, not far from the cheese shop:

An array of Cantin cheeses at Reed, including (at 10 o’clock) the greatest St. Felicien I have ever tasted

Here’s what I want you to do: ALLEZ-Y!!!!!! As soon as you can! Because this is not about Marie-Anne Cantin alone–this is about an epochal surge threatening to sweep away all that’s good about French cheese. As you can imagine, the bureaucrats in Brussels are eager to “regularize” European cheese, make it more industrial, take it increasingly out of the hands of such a one as Cantin. And they, the bureaucrats, have made progress in numerous food areas, wiping out the small businesses of many tiny artisans, such as charcutiers.

I hope the EU never wins this one. But in case a bad ending is in the offing…we know that people like Marie-Anne Cantin are at the heights of their powers right now. Visit them now. Support them now. Expose your kids to this culture…because they may not have the pleasure of doing the same for their kids!

Well, going to pots, actually.

At table, dropping a dumpling into a Cantonese hot pot

On my March trip to the great eating city of Hong Kong, one of the most delicious themes that emerged was restaurants devoted to different kinds of “pots”…

Hot pots and clay pots, to be precise.

Hot pots first. I have a pretty long familiarity with the Chinese hot pot concept. The origins actually stretch back 1,000 years to Mongolia, food historians tell us, with beef, mutton and horse in bite-size pieces being cooked last-minute in steaming pots. I don’t remember those! However, the concept was alive in New York, in the 1970s, with lots of adventurous food writers turning us on to the “Mongolian Hot Pot.” Say “hot pot” to a foodie in 1980, and the response would be “ah…Mongolian hot pot!” But Mongolia doesn’t dominate the hot pot imagination any longer.

The important thing about the “hot pot,” as it has evolved…is the communal nature of it; a group of diners (the more the merrier!), are served a steaming, low-sided tureen of broth, into which they dip a hopefully endless array of meats, fish, vegetables, etc. These are always served with a plethora of condiments (soy sauce, fish sauce, XO sauce, chili sauce, sesame oil, etc.) that you can mix in your own dipping bowl to make your personalized dipping sauce.

Cut to contemporary times…where China has evolved all kinds of regional hot pots! One of the most popular in China is the Chongquing hot pot, with a spicy broth. (We in the U.S. call it “Sichuan hot pot,” and it is the trendiest of all right now, often requiring food treks to Chinese neighborhoods in big American cities).

But there’s another biggie in China (I need to explore its presence in America!). To be frank…though I’ve been to Hong Kong five times…I didn’t know before that “Cantonese hot pot” was such a big deal in this part of China…or even that it existed!

What is it? According to what I tasted, it’s not terribly different from most other hot pots. Sources say that in Canton raw egg is sometimes included for dipping, though I didn’t see it. Sources also say that in Hong Kong it’s a huge social event…I did see that…but I’d be surprised if hot pot eating all over China did not include a significant social dimension!

What I saw especially, in Cantonese hot pot, in Hong Kong, was quality…big-city quality!

At the amazing Cantonese hot pot restaurant I went to in Hong Kong, Woo Cow Hot Pot, you were given a choice of possible broths as your base, many of them esoteric–some of them hot (as you’d have in Chongquing hot pot), some of them mild, as you’d expect in Canton (like the delicious preserved egg, water chestnut and coriander base at Woo Cow). All modern hot pot restaurants that I know feature a special divided pot that allows you to have one kind of broth base on the left, and another kind on the right…if you choose to.

Preserved egg, water chestnut and coriander base on the left, spicy beef base on the right at Woo Cow

My Hong Kong hosts took me to a street in Kowlon called Nam Kok Road…

The unglamorous but mightily gastronomic Nam Kok Road

…where hot pot shops abound, rubbing shoulders with Thai restaurants.

Tell your taxi driver: this is where you want to go for Cantonese hot pot

In about the middle of the street lies Woo Cow Hot Pot. In case the English sign isn’t up, ye shall know it by this logo:

The sign at Woo Cow Hot Pot

Socializing over hot pot at Woo Cow

It’s rather bright and modern, but don’t let that scare you. The food‘s the thing. I was overwhelmed by the number of possible meats, fish, veg, dumplings, etc. that you could order off the menu for dipping into the hot pot and subsequent quick cooking at the table.

Some of the dipster choices at Woo Cow Hot Pot

So I arranged a price with the owner (around $40 a person)…and just let him bring platter after platter until I died. I almost did. One very savvy hot pot person who accompanied me said “It always takes me a day of fasting to recover from a good hot pot!” The problem is compounded at a place like this, where everything is so outstanding that crying “uncle!” is simply not an option.

Most platters that you order for dipping/cooking come with multiple ingredients, side-by-side. One of our early platters sold me completely. It included an array of brilliant dim-sum-like items, including one of the restaurant’s rare forays into “modern-creative”–a ball of lightly cooked shrimp enclosing a heart of foie gras! It was off-the-charts delicious!

The opening salvo of dumplings, with the shrimp-and-foie-gras balls at 2-3 o’clock (they’re flecked with pinkish-red)

Two great dumplings after their baths in the hot pot

Next up: an array of incredible shellfish items for dipping, one-by one. As you can see, at Woo Cow they’re ready for tourists:

The delicious razor clams

The tourist part

Next came a more esoteric assortment of Hong-Kong-type food. On this plate, the shrimp-stuffed mushrooms were the hit.

Shrimp-stuffed mushrooms at 1-2 o’ clock

It’s organ time! Tripe, liver, and a few other unmentionables are unbelievably delicious in the spicy beef broth.

Organ recital in Hong Kong

Frankly, there were many more mouth explosions along the way. But the one platter you cannot leave out, if you go–and the reason for the restaurant’s name–is the raw sliced beef, numerous cuts, which you get to cook to your preferred degree of doneness (that’s about a 20-second dip for me!).

The vaunted beef cuts at Woo Cow Hot Pot

Not since sukiyaki in Tokyo have I had dippin’ beef this good. The marbling and tenderness are insane. The one on the north end of the photo literally melted in my mouth…metaphors stay home!

And…yes…it was not so easy to start eating again at lunch the next day.

But I did.

From hot pots…to clay pots!…another Hong Kong obsession.

I have always been a fan of what you might call “the Chinese casserole”…something braised in a clay pot, cooked longer than and differently from a stir-fry. The sex is in the cooking liquid, which usually becomes a kind of stew-y sauce. I always seek out dishes like these in New York’s Chinatowns…but I didn’t know that the “clay pot” restaurant was such a fixation in Hong Kong!

I was taken to a few clay-pot joints…and, far and away…my favorite was Kwan Kee, in the Western District of Hong Kong Island.

It is just about the most humble-looking restaurant you can imagine…

The unprepossessing exterior of Kwang Kee

…with the most humble-looking wood-burning stove carrying the pots…..

Stove at Kwan Kee, with the keeper of the flame

…but the place is jammed, day and night, inside and outside, mostly with local residents.

It hasn’t made the guide books, thank God.

Still, it was difficult to score a reservation. And, once we got there (four people pushed into a cramped table in the corner)…it was impossible to change tables!

Made no difference whatsoever. Kwan Kee became one of my top restaurant experiences of the week…because the food is so damned good!

Interestingly, at a clay-pot restaurant…there are two clay-pot categories. And then…there are lots of dishes to supplement the menu that are not cooked in clay pots!

The first clay-pot category is braised food, no rice in the pot. We had a sublime stew translated as Braised Chicken and Taro…

Braised Chicken and Taro in the claypot at Kwan Kee

…which featured juicy, tender chicken, and a rich creamy-dreamy sauce, oozing with the subtle taste of taro. My Cantonese ain’t great–but I stumbled my way through a few questions, and found out that milk and cornstarch are key players in the sauce.

Another delicious rice-less claypot was the Chinese Broccoli with Shrimp Paste…

Chinese Broccoli with Shrimp Paste in the claypot at Kwan Kee

As you can see from the freshness of the vegetables, this is not a long braise…but the cooking in the clay pot, presumably with a cover, builds up intensity of flavor.

(NOTE: Last week I covered the Michelin two-star restaurant Summer Palace, at the great Island Shangri-La hotel. In a completely different environment!…they too serve clay-pot dishes, though the clay pot is a tiny percentage of their menu offerings. Here’s a delicious one I had there:

Chicken in Clay Pot with Scallion and XO Sauce

The second category of clay-pot dishes in clay-pot restaurants, is clay pots with rice. Why would you want to compromise your top-layer proteins with an under-layer of rice? Because the rice is delicious…and adds great texture to the dish…especially the way the rice is done here…

The bottom of the rice exposed in a clay-pot-with-rice dish at Kwan Kee

This is nothing less than a socorrat, the great crusty bottom of a paella! Furthermore, when you look closely, you can see that the special rice they use has segmentation in it, making it look almost like something from the insect kingdom!

You get amazing chew from the “segmented” rice

But of course what’s on top of the rice is also important. We ordered kind of a Mixed Funk clay pot with rice, featuring preserved duck, salted fish, liver sausage…

Clay pot rice at Kwan Kee with assortment of preserved items

…and it was screamingly delicious. All the top flavors here were wild…especially the liver sausage, in the lower part of the photo, which had the most extraordinarily deep mix of saltiness, sweetness, organ flavor and something that almost seemed alcoholic.

As if all this clay-pottery were not enough…Kwan Kee serves a wide assortment of dishes that have nothing to do with pots! Here are two amazing stir-fries:

Typhoon Shelter-Style Fried Prawn

(obviously brimming with fried garlic)

and…

The best sweet-and-pungent meatballs you’ve ever had

(intriguingly, these were ordered by our Hong Kong guide, to our dismay…but they were delicious!)

And there are all kinds of other cooking techniques represented, such as…

The awesome Minced Pork with Salted Duck Egg

If you’re in Hong Kong…go to pot! Both Woo Cow Hot Pot and Kwan Kee are must-visits! But be sure to reserve…

Woo Cow Hot Pot
G/F, 36 Nam Kok Road, Kowloon City
2383 9863
www.woocowhotpot.com.hk

Kwan Kee
Shop No. 1, G/F., Wo Yick Mansion
263 Queen’s Road West, Sai Ying Pun
Hong Kong
2803 7209

Coming soon: the story of BBQ meats in Hong Kong!

There is NOOOO doubt whatsoever, not a shred: my favorite white wine grape in the world is Riesling. Furthermore, my favorite white wine in the world is dry Riesling, preferably from Germany. Dry Riesling! Dry Riesling!

And thereby hangs an American tragedy…

For we Yanks…going back to our experience with the cheap German imports that flooded our market post-World-War-II…have typically sneered at the concept of Riesling.

“Riesling?” they’d say, if you proposed a glass. “Ya mean like Liebfraumilch and Blue Nun? YUCK!”

And the Yanks were responding, properly, to the insipid, mass-market lightly sweet wines that the Germans were sending us in bulk in order to boost their post-war economy.

The timing was awful; the Germans were staking this sugary claim just as Americans were starting to get serious about wine, in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. We got serious about Chardonnay, above all…about Sauvignon Blanc…even about the wines made in Soave, Italy……but we steadfastly did not get serious about Riesling!

Little did we all realize that in the preceding century, the nineteenth…..dry German wines were riding high across the world. You can check the catalogue of the great London wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd from the 1890s……dry Rheingau from Germany was selling at a higher price than France’s Corton-Charlemagne, or Montrachet…the two most expensive Chardonnays in the world! The vineyards of Germany had a supreme reputation…though the Germans never chose to promote great single vineyards as much as the French did.

The other mistake the Germans made was having a poor 20th century in general. We often speak of the various nightmares of the two wars….but, a few rungs down the ladder of concerns, the century for the Germans was a marketing nightmare as well. And the post-war resuscitation of Germany’s reputation as a place of fineness, of cultural achievement (the land of Brahms, Goethe, Schiller, Kant)…..was not helped one iota by the marketing of cheap sweet wine.

Then the world changed, though most American wine-drinkers still don’t know it. The Germans…let’s say the 1980s was the key period…started getting real serious again about making outstanding dry wine from Riesling. The key word on labels was “trocken,” which means dry; if you saw, and if you see, “trocken” on a label, it means the wine inside the bottle is dry. You can bank on this.

The “trocken” boom, unfortunately, didn’t get off to the greatest re-start in the 1980s. Many German winemakers went full-on in this boom, converting all the sugar in their grape must to alcohol before they figured out how to make a balanced dry white wine in Germany. Within a few years, though, they did figure it out…and were making beautiful trockens.

It was the Germans themselves who were thrilled the most. They took to the new generation of dry Rieslings like nobody’s business. If you saw two businessmen having lunch and drinking wine at a restaurant in Frankfurt–they were undoubtedly drinking DRY Riesling. To this day, about 80% of the Riesling consumed in Germany is bone-dry…and the rest consumed in Germany, sweet though it may be, is very sweet, super-expensive, concentrated, fabulous dessert wine, certainly among the world’s greatest. There is almost no consumption in Germany of the mass-market, lightly sweet wines that Americans associate with Germany!

I visited Germany on a wine writers’ trip in the mid-1980s…and freaked the hell out! Already tired of Chardonnay (with its heaviness, its high-alcohol, its frequent oak), I was treated, at fine German restaurants, to tall, cold wine glasses containing miraculous, graceful wines as dry, as pure, as complex as any white wines I’d ever had. There were a number of varietals represented, but the most spectacular one, over and over again, was Riesling. And….it was so widely flexible with food, so contributory to great dining.

At about that time, American sommeliers began to catch on as well. The growth over the last 25 years has been nothing short of amazing! Great guys like restaurateur/sommelier Paul Grieco have been beating the drum for decades…and, today, dry Riesling is among the very hottest wines for sommeliers across the country.

There are many dry Rieslings in Germany, from many sub-regions and, of course, from many different producers. But here are eight things that I love about dry German Riesling in general, eight things that make this my favorite dry white wine in the world:

1) ELEGANCE
This is kind of a composite quality, and difficult to pin down. All of the words in this section are essentially metaphors. But if you know what I mean by the “heaviness” of Chardonnay, its galumphin’, in-your-face quality–you might be able to imagine its opposite. Dry Rieslings have “cut,” they have a kind of crystalline quality, a quality that my importer buddy Terry Thiese describes as “filigree.” They are light and refreshing, while simultaneously important and deep. There is nothing in the world of wine quite like the “breed” of a great Riesling.

2) LOW ALCOHOL
The northern climate of German (i.e. less sunshine) yields, on average, the lowest-alcohol wines in the world. There’s many a good German Riesling with a little sweetness that registers at 9 to 10% alcohol! This helps to make them so light and appealing. The drier German Rieslings weight in at a little more alcohol…11%, 12%, 13%…but it’s very rare to find the number that’s so common in California Chardonnay…a whopping 14% alcohol and above. Among the many charms of dry German Riesling is that it doesn’t rattle your brains, and does let you drive home!

3) ACIDITY
Oh yeah! Probably the single component that most makes Riesling sing is its electric acidity! In places like California, they add acid to wine to make it a little livelier on the palate. Not so in Germany…where the natural zingy acidity harmonizes perfectly, naturally with a wine‘s other aspects. The result for the drinker? A freshness unique in all the world…and the ability, like lemon juice, to cut through a million foods (smoked salmon, picnic meats, creamy fish dishes, cooked pork, and on and on and on.)

4)MINERALS
One of Riesling’s greatest attributes, to me, is the stony-minerally scent and flavor it so often carries. My wise-ass response to the white wine we Americans usually drink has oft been quoted: “If I want fruit, I’ll drink grape juice!” It has long been the other aspects of wine that form the basis of my vinous love affair. When a wine starts speaking rocks, earth, underground…that’s when I get interested! And Riesling speaks this language eloquently!

5) THE FRUIT THERE IS
Well, grapes are fruit…so every wine has to have some. And, frankly, when Riesling (usually in youth) shows its fruit…I like it! Despite my anti-fruit prejudice! The thing is…the typical young white wines, non-Riesling….exude this non-gastronomic kind of fruit that turns me off. It’s something like hyper-active pears and apples, bumped up by a little bubble gum. Of course I know that white Burgundy can be a lot more interesting than that–but it’s usually not the fruit that makes it so. In Riesling, when the pure fruit is reigning in youth…that fruit, often suggestive of flowers, peaches, nectarines, apricots…meshes with the brilliant acidity to form something truly mouthwatering. And fascinating. And gastronomic.

6) AGING
And now we’ve reached the best of all…well, almost. I LOVE the way German Riesling smells and tastes when it reaches 5-10 years old! And then…those bewitching aromas and flavors of age can continue to develop another 20 or 30 years…or more! Of which aromas do I speak? There are many, of course, in a complex, high-quality aged Riesling…but the most famous one is what the Brits call…”petrol!” That’s right…as Riesling ages, it begins to take on this hyper-minerality that is reminiscent of…petroleum. It is a unique thrill–an acquired taste for some, but a wonder first-time out for many. To me, it is one of the greatest, most gastronomic wine aromas in the world.

7) TRANSPARENCY
Now that we’ve discussed all the kinds of aromas and flavors that Riesling can yield…please recognize that as a kind of lagniappe from the wine gods…there is no grape in the world that translates its immediate environment into in-the-glass flavors and essences as felicitously as Riesling does! Wine people often froth on about “terroir”–a complicated French term, that refers to many aspects of a wine‘s environment. But if you focus on what the soil contributes to a wine–no grape sucks up the essence of the specific soil as readily as Riesling. This is a bonus thrill for the knowledgeable: “check out the taste of Bernkasteler Doktor in that wine!” “look how Kallstadter Saumagen is expressed in that wine!” “Donnhoff always nails Norheimer Dellchen as he does in this wine!” And on and on.

8) FOOD-MATCHING
Lastly, the greatest good of Riesling. For me, wine is for food; a wine may be great, but if it doesn’t taste delicious with food, I have no interest in it. One of the reasons that sommeliers are going crazy with Riesling these days…is that they find it to be an all-purpose food-lover…or, as wine-writing legend Hugh Johnson once said to me about the matching abilities of German Riesling…”it’s the banker!” It cuts through heavy foods (like a big pork roast with sauerkraut). It complements light foods (like salads). It goes in a million different directions ingredient-wise…and cuisine-wise! Brilliant with French food, American food, Italian food…Riesling is also highly sympathetic with Asian foods of all kinds, and with spicy food in general. Save that Gewurztraminer for the gastronomic freak show…and break out the Riesling instead!

As you may have noticed, I’ve begun to import wine. I’ve already begun with the wonderful dry German Rieslings of Philipp Kuhn…but in the near future there’ll be scores more dry Rieslings…they will be the heart of my portfolio!

Philipp Kuhn

My mission is to bring in all kinds of wines that are easy, and elegant, and simultaneously complex…but they must be brilliant with food. And…I want them to be for everybody, at reasonable prices. Taking my advice on these wines is NOT like reading the Wine Spectator and getting their “definitive” ratings…which have no consistency, and which have nothing to do with the dinner table. Once you have come to know my palate, you may decide it’s not for you. No prob! But I suspect you’ll see the method in my madness, and, if you’re a true gastronome, it will become your madness too. A Rosengarten wine–which carries the sticker “A David Rosengarten Wine for Food–will NEVER fall outside of my aesthetic! I will scour the world for these food-loving wines…and will hope to stem the world domination of Chardonnay and Cabernet!

I have ten categories of wine in my portfolio. Here’s a glimpse:

David Rosengarten‘s Ten Wine Categories: The REAL Categories Every Wine-Lover Needs in His or Her Life!

(I estimate that 95% of the wine in wine shops falls outside of these categories!)

*Round, gentle, complex, affordable aged reds

*Dry, sleek, racy whites (for oysters, etc.)

*Dry Riesling, Chenin Blanc, and a few others, young and old (the best white-wine category for food-matching)

*Young, bouncy, juicy reds (other wines of the world in the sappy Beaujolais mode)

*Complex aged whites with tolerable wood (excellent cream sauce wines)

*Elegant mainstream reds…..that’s mainstream but ELEGANT!

*Complex toasty-yeasty Champagne (or Champagne ringers)

*Crisp, clean, non-fruity sparkling wine

*Meaningful rosés, light on their feet but…bursting with fruit, or smoldering with almost-red-wine interest

*Complex, luscious, affordable dessert wines

Photos courtesy of the following, in order of appearance:
Homepage photo: www.summerofriesling.com; Post photos: www.newyork.metromix.com, Photograph by Clive Rutland from Colbury and Ashurst Theatrical Society’s production of Robin Hood and the Singing Nun, www.winebeing.com, www.blog.friendseat.com, www.themanfrommoselriver.com, Bigstock, Bigstock

The electricity of Hong Kong, from a red-sail junk at dusk

I had the great good fortune in March of touring Hong Kong for almost a week, led by people who really know the city—and, most importantly, people who were entirely willing to believe me when I said I wanted to eat like a Cantonese person! Usually, my hosts anywhere will say “yes” to the local question—and then proceed to serve me the things they think “Americans” will like. Not these Hong Kong guys! I was bobbing in a tide of snakes, and innards, and dried seafood, and rice gruels…all of the “real people” food that makes dining in this city such a gustatory, unmatchable thrill!

In fact, if I were you, I would probably move myself into Hong Kong planning gear right now. I don’t think tradition will ever go away in Hong Kong…but my sense is that it gets a little harder all the time to find it. Simple Cantonese restaurants are becoming fancier Cantonese restaurants; mom-and-pop Chinese “diners” are closing, much like the bouchons in Lyon, so that the urban planners may put up new 80-story apartment buildings (lower in Lyon!); the wine culture is taking hold, and many new restaurants are bending their food to match the wine influx; and ethnic food, once rare in Hong Kong, is definitely moving in at a rapid pace (at first it was things like fancy Italian restaurants, now it’s street food too):

Visible on the street in one of Hong Kong’s most traditional neighborhoods for Cantonese food

Nevertheless, if you know what you’re doing…holy Confucius can you have a week of Cantonese feasting here (oh, Hong Kong does a great job of representing many other regional Chinese cuisines too, but its soul is Cantonese…so I choose to stick with that).

In five more segments over the next month or two, I’m going to show you five vital Cantonese themes of Hong Kong dining…the themes to live by…hoping powerfully, of course, that you’ll take my lead and start thinking about a Hong Kong visit in 2013 or 2014.

Here’s a photo montage of some of the treats I’ll be covering in the upcoming Hong Kong stories:

Goose

It’s going away due to environmental concerns…but not that much!

Tortoise jelly…so good for your skin!

Hong-Kong style shrimp with an insane amount of fried garlic

Bottom of clay pot rice casserole, with incredible detail

Exquisite just-out-of water fish in nearby fishing village Tai-o

Amazing Cantonese hot pot joint

“Big bun” at my favorite dim sum shop

Killer preserved egg, served with ginger

The best bowl of noodles, wonton and meats…ever???

Now if you do go, you’re gonna need a hotel or two, for sure…and, Hong Kong is brilliant on that front as well!

Hong Kong has many parts, but central to the geographic dichotomy is this: old Kowloon (and its subsidiary neighborhoods) stands on the north side of the grand Hong Kong Harbour; Hong Kong Island, epicenter of the financial boom, stands on the south side of the Harbour (A ferry from one side to the other takes no more than five minutes).

Courtesy of www.fnetravel.com

During my trip, I split the difference. I started on the Kowloon side, at Hong Kong’s newest luxury hotel, the Hong Kong Ritz-Carlton. And though I love Ritz-Carltons all around the world…really and truly there has never been a Ritz-Carlton like this one. The main Ritz-Carlton company, headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland, has partnered with Sun Hung Kai Properties in Hong Kong, a titanic developer; together they have built (and it just opened two years ago) not only the tallest building in Hong Kong…but the tallest hotel in the world!

The Ritz-Carlton at sunset, taken from the Hong Kong Island side of the harbour

Hong Kong for decades has made even New Yorkers crane their necks to take in the altitudinal attitude, but that mostly took place on Hong Kong Island. The headline: as of March 2011 Kowloon’s Ritz-Carlton is cranier than anything on the other side! Most of the building is a ritzy office building…but the hotel occupies floors 102 to 118, including 312 guest rooms. My vertiginous room was on the 117th floor…gasp!…with a gorgeous view of the big boys back on the Hong Kong Island side.

From my 117th-floor room at the Ritz-Carlton, my view at 8AM of the buildings that line the north shore of Hong Kong Island…including the now SECOND tallest building in Hong Kong, the International Finance Centre to the left (IFC II is all of 88 stories high.)

And it’s gorgeous. I loved the combination of traditional Chinese and modern comfort in my room. In fact, I was freaked upon entering, after my 25-hour journey, to see the array of electronic options set among the warm bamboo. But guess what: I conquered every single one of them on first shot (a rare feat for me!). The intuitiveness built into this design is unique among well-equipped hotels!

Then there’s the Wander Factor: one beautiful hallway with one room after another. I also toured the five main restaurants, and kept finding extraordinary combinations of old motifs (particularly Chinese lamps), and modern dining/conference needs and sensibilities.

MY GALLERY OF RESTAURANT SHOTS IN THE RITZ-CARLTON, HONG KONG

I am equally enthusiastic about the hotels of the Hong Kong Island side. You don’t, of course, have the views of Hong Kong Island’s buildings….but you do feel smack dab middle in the fierce financial capital that is Modern Hong Kong. Think of staying on this side, in the area called Central, as akin to a stay on Madison Ave./Fifth Ave. in New York City.

I’m in love with a number of these Hong Kong Island hotels, like the Mandarin Oriental. But on my first visit to Hong Kong 20 years ago, I stayed at the Island Shangri-La…which didn’t come far from matching its paradisaical name. It was my out-of-the-gate fave…so I’ve been eager to see how it has stood up over two decades…

Beautifully!

The only comment one might make is simply a note on changing styles. The atrium was all the rage in hotel design in March 1991, when the Island Shangri-La opened…and I can guarantee you that this was one of the most gorgeous atriums ever constructed. Today, the first-time visitor, walking past the dazzling splendor of the main lobby…

The main lobby

…may feel a bit of retro-shock when grabbing an elevator in the atrium. Fight it, say I…for this is still the most beautiful atrium I know of, ordained as it is with a breathtaking, 16-story Chinese landscape painting, set up in 250 panels of Chinese silk. The painting tells the story of China…in harmonious colors…and immediately grabs your focus from the atrium around it. I truly went to my elevator every day with excitement about another “viewing.”

The Island Shangri-La’s 16-story Chinese silk landscape painting

The rooms are similarly spectacular, simultaneously Hong Kong and global, always tended by a sincere, earnest, gracious, polished staff (one night, after most store hours, a captain drove me around Hong Kong in a house car in search of a prescription I needed!).

Many of the rooms take in either the Harbour side, or the verdant back mountains of the Hong Kong Island shore which lead up to the spectacular Victoria Peak. I made the smart play: my room on the 47th had a big dose of Victoria Peak, and one glass wall exposing the Harbour as well.

From my room at the Island Shangri-La, on the Victoria Peak side

Now, coming back to the gastronomic thread: You will find, in great hotels like the Island-Shangri-La, fancy Cantonese restaurants that soar way beyond street food, way beyond the focus of my gastro-study in March. Should the intrepid Funk-Seeker be tempted? Well, geez…when they invite me to one of these…can I say no? And I’m glad I didn’t…

This week, we’ll walk a bit on the glam side, before I settle down to my beloved funk over the next five postings. I think it’s instructive for you to see the differences.

The Summer Palace at the Island Shangri-La has two stars from Michelin, deservedly so. It is a beautiful restaurant, with its central conceit of a “summer palace”…

The “summer palace” at the Summer Palace restaurant

…replete with gorgeous china, cutlery, linens and truly soulful but accomplished service.

If you go…and I urge you to do so…you will find flavors and textures not so far from the Cantonese flavors and textures all over town. The difference is that these flavors are toned down somewhat: not so salty, not so fishy, not so oily…not as challenging for Americans, OR for the well-off Hong Kong locals who want to dine in a healthier, more elegant manner.

We started with the Crispy Ox-Brisket…and LOVED it!…one of the best BBQ dishes of the week (many ducks, pigs, geese and pigeons lay ahead!)…crunchy, juicy, melting, deeply flavored, all the good things simultaneously.

Meltingly tender Crispy Ox-Brisket

A great follow-up—and a classic example of this restaurant’s style—is the Bean Curd Sheets with Bamboo Pith and Black Beans…a good indication that funky ingredients can also inhabit the two-stars. I’m a lover of the dried bean curd that’s turned into thin, resilient sheets, AND of the fuzzy part of the bamboo shoot known as the pith. On my trip, of course, I hit tons of good textures out there in wild Hong Kong…but the hi-falutin’ delicacy and refinement of this textural bonanza had a lot to do with two-star reaching, I suspect. And that, of course, includes the plate arrangement.

Bean Curd Sheets with Bamboo Pith and Black Beans

Perhaps my favorite savory dish at Summer Palace was a simple thing, but brimming with luxury. The “real” Hong Kong is obsessed with dried seafood, all kinds of dried seafood—and some of it, like the much-loved dried scallops, or “conpoy,” can be quite expensive (if you get the good stuff). So the Summer Palace chef grabbed some high-quality conpoy, shredded it finely, and tossed it with an ultra-fresh bush of pea shoots.

Shredded conpoy with pea shoots

To gild the lily, he folded into it one of those dark-brown, goopy-but-complex, almost gelatinous, umami-rich, lip-sticking sauces that the Cantonese so love to pair with expensive ingredients. Some might taste this dish and find it of low-level intensity. But if you’re reading the Cantonese cues right, you’re saying…”THIS is luxury!”

You would expect a two-star to be elevated at dessert time, no? So I must confess that the knock-out dessert of the week came my way at Summer Palace…and, though I might have seen variations of it in lesser restaurants, I don’t think any place but a luxury restaurant could pull this one off with such élan.

The dish is in that spectrum of fruity and/or custardy Chinese desserts that trap little chewy pearls inside. In the U.S., direct from Taiwan and its bubble teas, we are most used to seeing tapioca play the role of the pearls. But there’s also a big sago contingent; sago are pearls formed from a powdery starch gathered from the trunks of sago palms. This combination at Summer Palace was insanely delicious: a velvety mango custard, chewy sago pearls, and several types of fruit, including the exotic grapefruit variant pomelo.

Sago pearls with mango custard and pomelo at the Summer Palace

Okay, just to give you the FULL story…I couldn’t resist ducking into another two-star restaurant on my trip, Celebrity…one that is also in a hotel (most of the multi-stars are in hotels), one that is very buzzy right now. There are twelve Michelin two-star restaurants in Hong Kong, seven of them Cantonese. From what I heard, and could tell…this one may be the most Cantonese of them all.

AND with luxury standards…though standards not nearly as lofty as those of the Summer Palace…just as standards of Celebrity’s Hotel Lan Kwai Fong fall short of hotel standards at the splendiferous Island Shangri-La.

The small, slightly high-tech dining room of Celebrity

But the real story here is the Chef, Cheng Kam Fu. Born not far from Hong Kong, Fu spent many years working for the late Hong Kong tycoon Lim Por-yen, before he started rising in the Hong Kong restaurant ranks. Today, he is one of Hong Kong’s culinary rock stars.

Cheng Kam Fu

Here’s what I loved about his food: its cleanness and simplicity. The flavors are unmistakably Cantonese, but brought to a different level of elegance…usually not through adding to, but, instead, through stripping down.

His array of first courses, at my dinner, included the best Dry-Fried String Beans I’ve ever had, with the classic inclusion of minced pork; a simple touch put Fu’s on top—the use of wider beans.

The array of starters at Celebrity

I loved Fu’s use of dried seafood…from the brilliant dried oyster in lettuce leaf…

Dried oyster in lettuce leaf

…to his wonderfully austere Dried Scallop Soup.

Conpoy soup

In both cases, the central ingredient is the star performer…and the chef is delighted to give center stage in the way that only a great chef can.

Next up in my meal was Fu’s most famous creation, something he started making twenty years ago: chicken wings stuffed with bird’s nest. The latter super-expensive ingredient usually floats in a bowl of soup, of course—making for what everyone agrees is one bland dish. But Fu, now oft-copied, uses the oddly-textured bird’s nest as a filling for fried chicken wings—which gives the bird’s nest strands a flavor to play against, and creates a unique, delightful texture at the center of a chicken wing.

How the chicken wings are presented

A chicken wing turned over to display its enclosed filling

After the first delicious bite

Next up, it was dried seafood again—a lot of it!—as Fu presented Braised Assorted Superior Dried Seafood.

Dried seafood

This particular plate involved dried abalone, dried sea cucumber, and dried shark’s fin…all served in the sexy-deep, goopy sauce that the Cantonese love so much with their luxury products.

The last big thrill of the meal was Fu’s Baby Pigeon—as crisp, deep, and delicious as any Chinese Roast Duck I’ve ever had.

Baby pigeon

You can see it all in these photos—the simplicity, the fundamentalism. What you cannot see is the depth of flavor in each of these fabulous dishes—a two-star turn on Cantonese food, to be sure, but more intensely flavored than the gentle Summer Palace turn.

Coming Up Soon:
Down and Dirty with Hong Kong’s Hot Pots and Clay Pots

Meadowood

I recently spent a thoroughly beguiling three nights at The Meadowood Resort on the Silverado Trail in Napa Valley; really and truly, if you’re planning a Napa fantasy, you should most definitely book one of their mountainside cottages as your accommodation. The luxury, the pampering, the comfort…not to mention the fact that you feel so strongly that you are in a rural place. That you are in Napa Valley.

If you go, though, you’ll be luckier than I…for The Meadowood’s great restaurant, one of only two 3-star Michelin restaurants in Napa Valley (you KNOW the other), was recently closed for two months for renovation…of course, during my stay! But I’ve eaten there several times before (heavenly)…and, during this recent stay in February, I did get to chat with The Restaurant’s brilliant chef, one of California’s great culinary stars, Christopher Kostow.

Chef Christopher Kostow

After seeing the extensive gardens at The Meadowood, I was most interested in discussing with Christopher a subject very much on my mind lately: will locavore endure?

My own observation first: I’m not sure that the country’s hottest, hippest food trend—restaurants using ingredients that are local—is going to always have the weight it has right now. I don’t think it’ll ever die…I just think that there’s a locavore backlash right now among many chefs, and that “locavore” is going to get taken down a peg or two, or three.

Why? Lots of chefs feel handcuffed by the locavore creed. If you work in Miami and you want to cook with foie gras…whatcha gonna do? If you work in Cleveland, and the greatest fish is available to you only by airlift…whatcha gonna do? If you work in North Dakota and you need some brilliant fresh herbs in winter…whatcha gonna do?

But these examples are not minor exceptions to the rule. Many chefs are looking to the airplanes, and FedEx, for most of what they’re using.

Consider another major new star on the American culinary scene, Cesar Ramirez at Brooklyn Fare in (guess where!), another glittering recent addition to Michelin’s three-star pantheon.

When you go to Brooklyn Fare, your dinner is 25 or so small courses selected by Ramirez. No one has ever been able to exactly characterize what he does…other than “make incredibly delicious food!”…but more than anything else his vision involves a heavy Japanese aesthetic. And the execution of this aesthetic includes the air freight, constantly, of top-quality fish from Japan. In the same vein, you will find delicious fresh cheeses from Italy on your plate—also flown in, because they’re the best examples in the world.

Ramirez is part of that revisionist group of chefs who wants to work with the best possible ingredients, no matter where they’re from.

So…how does Kostow of Meadowood view all this?

For starters…Kostow sees himself as working very much in a very specific place. Ramirez of Brooklyn Fare could probably move to Kansas City tomorrow, and his restaurant wouldn’t change that much. Everything about Meadowood, however, and Kostow’s work there, screams Napa Valley.

During the two-month closing, Kostow said, “our kitchen staff took lots of local trips together. We went to purveyors. We went to wine producers. We visited local historical societies, to get a better perspective on who we are.” Meadowood’s restaurant was locavore before, but it’s even more deeply locavore now.

“Locavore,” said Kostow “…depends on where you are. If I were cooking in a restaurant in New York City, I would not set up a rooftop garden. But when you’re in an agricultural place…of course you should emphasize the local products!”

“Fortunately,” he went on, “we’re in a very happy position: we do not have to choose between local and good, as many chefs do!”

“For restaurants like ours,” said Kostow, who worked extensively in France before burgeoning in California, “the new luxury is not lobster and foie gras, like it used to be. I handled many expensive ingredients in France, which sometimes came out of the freezer and were not all they were cracked up to be. Our ‘luxury’ has a better quality aura: we spend the money on running the garden, which is a much more precise guarantee of quality. We’re not interested in ‘name’ luxury ingredients on the menu. A restaurant’s own agriculture is the true luxury in 2013.”

Meadowood Garden

Though I’m all for anti-locavore pushback when it makes sense (as in Brooklyn)…I’m also all for a locavore like Kostow! I can hardly wait to get back to Meadowood and take the measure of The Restaurant’s enhanced locavorism!

And what else will be greeting me when I return? Here’s a piece of a recent press release, tracking the changes. Please note the number of times the concept of “local” is invoked!

On the inspiration behind the recent additions, Restaurant Director Nathaniel Dorn says, “The projects we completed during the last couple of months were primarily designed to enhance our guests’ comfort, enjoyment and sense of discovery. We delved deeper into our relationships with a few of our existing artisans and craftsmen and forged several exciting new partnerships as well.”

The new entry and expanded bar area, designed by noted architect Howard Backen, features a twenty-foot beamed ceiling, fieldstone walls, two fireplaces, large windows and a polished concrete-and-wood floor. Craftsman Michael Capp worked with Dorn to execute his designs for new dining tables for both The Restaurant dining room and the bar. The table tops are crafted of limestone while the bases feature cast iron steel and 100-year-old wood salvaged from a bridge in British Columbia. Suspended custom ceramic tiles by local artist Richard Carter add warmth and texture to the room and are positioned to add interest to the overhead space. Fabric colors feature shades of gray and subtle pin striping in keeping with the accents in the dining room.

In addition to the beautiful new space with seating for 18, guests will also find snacks from Chef Christopher Kostow and The Restaurant at Meadowood culinary team offered at $20 per person. The bar will be open Monday through Saturday evenings from 5:00 p.m. to midnight with wines available by the glass or bottle and an array of traditional and signature cocktails.

Another new culinary debut occurs at the actual bar itself, where guests will now be able to enjoy a three-course menu each evening priced at $90 per person. The menu will change nightly and guests are encouraged to call ahead to reserve space as seats at the bar are limited. “This new three-course menu was largely inspired by the members of our local community who enjoy coming into The Restaurant mid-week,” says Dorn. “We have a good many vintners, for example, who’ve told us they’d like to come into The Restaurant at the end of the day for a lighter meal and some good conversation. So, we’ve created that opportunity for them.”

The new private dining room was created in response to the growing number of larger parties inquiring about dining in The Restaurant. “Increasingly,” says Dorn, “we have guests who want to hold special celebrations in The Restaurant. This space, which overlooks a small, private garden, will be perfect for gatherings of friends or family members celebrating special occasions. It’s also ideal for members of our local vintner community wishing to host private dinners featuring their wines alongside Christopher’s menus.”

Finally, in the dining room, wine enthusiasts are likely to delight in the new Thomas Warner-designed wine cellar. Crafted entirely of rich walnut the cellar fills the space of the original four-seat private dining room. Says Dorn, “We’re excited to have our extensive wine collection located in the dining room where it will be close at hand for both our staff and our guests.”

For more information on The Restaurant at Meadowood or to reserve a table, visit www.therestaurantatmeadowood.com. To reserve seating at the bar or to inquire about the private dining room, call 707-967-1205.

All photos courtesy of Meadowood

My Surprising Week in America’s Most Famous Wine Region

About a week ago, I attended the annual Wine Writers’ Symposium, based at the splendid Meadowood Resort on Silverado Trail. Increasingly, the Symposium has also shared facilities with the CIA, just across the valley floor in St. Helena.

The symposium attendees, outside the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena

Now, as you may already know…..Napa Valley wine, at its most scale-tipping typical…..is not exactly my cup of tea. So I didn’t go into this thing expecting any wine revelations. I also thought I knew what to expect Symposium-wise, having spoken there four years ago.

But lots of things rocked my world during this most enjoyable visit.

Here are the five most interesting and relatable things I took away from my week in Napa Valley:

A) THE FOCUS ON MONEY AT THE WINE WRITERS’ SYMPOSIUM

Of course 60 wine writers at a conference are going to talk wine, wine, wine. But this year I also noted the number of panels, and the amount of buzz among the wine geeks, devoted to the business of our business.

On one central day, the morning began with a panel called Where Is the Money?, which included a kind of poll, conducted by electronic means, assessing the real financial life of wine writers. The results were shocking…..with most wine writers confessing that wine writing doesn’t bring in more than $10,000 a year in income. So the focus shifted, in the next panel, to The Wine Writer as Entrepreneur: How to Leverage Your Story and Your Brand.

I was on the latter panel—my favorite panel of the week—along with Karen MacNeil (of Wine Bible fame), Linda Murphy (of Jancisrobinson.com), and moderator Alder Yarrow (of Vinography.com, Alder’s highly visible blog).

At the heart of our discussion was a question of ethics: essentially, should a wine writer remain relatively passive, weakly surfing the ebbing tide of economic possibility……or, should a wine writer build his or her own brand, even crossing the line into…..gasp…..entrepreneurship!

You probably know how I feel. As long as a writer retains his or her integrity, anything is possible. I’m importing wines now! But I would never use the journalism part of what I do to give those wines an advantage by damning competitors. It’s unthinkable! Yes, I’m importing Michel Gonet Champagne….but every story I write for the rest of my life about Krug, or Charles Heidsieck, or Pierre Peters, or whatever….will include exactly what I think about those wines!

The controversy echoed throughout the conference. It was cool.

NOTE: for a short video look at the Symposium, click here:

B) THE PROMISE OF 2011 CHARDONNAY

A Chardonnay lover I ain’t. All that butter, vanilla, tropical fruit, alcohol….the stuff that gets some wine drinkers excited….gets me completely turned off, leaves me longing for a really tingly dry German Riesling at 11.5% alcohol and a citrus grove of acid.

And so…..one of my most surprising wine reactions of the week…..was discovering that I’m digging the Napa Valley Chardonnays of 2011!

Now, I don’t want to take this too far. These are still not among my favorite white wines in the world. But in a blind tasting of Chardonnays in which a dozen different Napa wineries presented three Chardonnays each—the 2009, the 2010, the 2011—in every trio I found the 2011 to be the most appealing by far. And that’s from me, a lover of wines with age.

The set-up for the Chardonnay tasting

The Chardonnay tasting

Here’s a summary of the vintage from California’s Wine Institute:

2011 California Harvest Report

SAN FRANCISCO — The 2011 California winegrape harvest was lighter and later than normal with flavors developing at lower sugar levels, giving winemakers the opportunity to make flavorful, elegant wines. A wet winter and spring delayed bloom and hindered fruit set, resulting in shatter in some regions, which decreased the overall crop load. A generally cool summer prolonged the growing season and harvest started very late in most areas. Early autumn rains prompted growers and wineries to pick many varieties at lower Brix. “We walked blocks carefully early on and started picking when fruit reached an early ripeness, which we felt was the correct expression of this vintage,” said Michael Silacci, Winemaker at Opus One in Napa Valley. “We are really excited about this year’s vintage.”

And this is exactly what I found in this group of Chardonnays. I would never consider ordering a 2009 Napa Chardonnay in a restaurant—just the opposite kind of vintage, a hot and ripe one—but I’ve now got my eyes out for 2011.

Some of my favorites in the blind tasting came from Hudson Vineyards (fruit from Carneros), Merryvale Vineyards (also Carneros fruit), and Pine Ridge Vineyards (Carneros again!)

Come to think of it, the advice is: look for Carneros 2011!

C) THE EXTRAORDINARY WINES OF REYNOLDS FAMILY WINERY

The odds against finding a new-to-me winery in Napa that totally knocks me out? 1000 to one, perhaps?

It happened last week anyway, big-time.

At the Symposium, we did another blind tasting of wines in vintage trios—this time, the Cabernet Sauvignons of 2008, 2009, 2010.

The Cabernet tasting

What can I say? It was a typical Napa Cab tasting for me—hot, dark wines, some quite bitter, most very tannic—the organizers even supplied toothbrushes and toothpaste upon exit, I kid you not!

However, winery #5 was different. I tasted the 2008, 2009, and 2010, and my heart leapt. I tasted other wines, then came back again. Still leaping. Tasteful wine writer buddies with purple teeth at the event were buzzing: “did you taste #5?”

When I saw the ID key after the tasting, I realized that for me, a new star had swum into my wine cosmos.

Reynolds Family Winery.

Never even heard of it before. But, beyond doubt, they make my favorite Cabernet in the Napa Valley today (at least among the ones I know about)!

Steve Reynolds was a dentist with a serious love for wine (a love that had been stimulated by some teen-age years in Europe, going to vineyards with his Dad). In 1994, after years of dreaming about it, Reynolds and family took the plunge: they purchased a 100-year-old chicken ranch on the Silverado Trail, and Dr. Reynolds traded teeth for nails…..building everything on this property from fences to the tasting room. Oh yeah….they also planted ten acres of Cabernet Sauvignon in 1996, and produced their first wine in 1999.

Here’s the thing about Reynolds Family reds: they are much, much more elegant than most of the competition—but still retaining the best of Napa Valley lusciousness. I always think that California winemakers could make more balanced, harmonious wines, if they wanted to (I think of the lovely Victor Hugo winery in Paso Robles)…..but winemakers usually don’t want to, preferring to bank on the high Parker points of wines that “hurt” (I swear a winemaker in California once said to me “Dave, I know a wine is good when it hurts!!!”).

The wine that hurt so little—and was absolutely world-class wonderful, at the same time!—was the 2008 Reynolds Family Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, Stags Leap District.

Now, Reynolds makes other wines as well, not all of them designated “Stags Leap District.” So back in New York, I called them up—discovering, happily, “the Cabernet  you liked was Steven Spurrier’s favorite winery of the tasting, too”—and asked for a broad sampling of the Reynolds wines. Tasting ensued…..along with quality confirmation!

So here are my sober, sit-down, focused notes on the best wine of my week in Napa:

2008 Reynolds Family Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, Stags Leap District.

Medium-deep garnet ruby, full to edge. Gorgeous plummy, berry-like nose, deep fruit, touch of rhubarb, celery seed, and Bordeaux earthy exotica, something like cheese rind. It makes me fantasize about some mid-Atlantic metaphoric island, looking both east and west. The kind of plush fruit that Napa Valley is known for—but in this case it’s dry-tasting fruit, not sweet-tasting fruit. Simultaneously, the wine has the type of exquisite balance that seems like great Bordeaux, maybe Right Bank. Gorgeous, subtle, haunting echoes of rose and incense gather in the finish, which is surprisingly soft and bouncy. This is what I’d want Napa Valley Cabernet to be, but so rarely find!

This baby costs just under a hundred dollars…..seriously worth it, to me, and seriously more lovely than famous Napa wines that cost five times as much.

At home, I also tasted these winning wines from Reynolds:

2009 Pinot Noir, Los Carneros

Medium garnet, not light, not dark. Closed nose. Nice berry fruit, only moderately ripe. Hints of cranberry, but little oak or spice happening right now (though a few minutes breathing brings out a little tootsie roll). Sweet attack, then even throughout most of the palate, though it finishes a little hot. Lots of promise, I think, because the structure is fine for New World Pinot….just kinda dumb at the moment.

2008 Merlot, Stags Leap District

Silky-looking slightly lightened garnet. Lovely fruit on nose, well-behaved, slightly Bordeaux-like berries. Crushed velvet feel on palate, tremendously bright fruit, refreshing through to finish (which is a little short). My second favorite, after the Stags Leap Cabernet.

My second favorite wine from Reynolds Family Winery

2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Estate Select

Quite dark garnet with hints of black. A little more in the ripe, hot, licorice-y direction…but only by comparison. A little hot and chunky on entry, with extremely subtle hints of Port-like ripeness. Glides across the finish-line like all Reynolds reds, with good acid and non-abrasive tannin….though this one has more tannin than the other wines.

2008 Persistence, Napa Valley

Lovely mid-garnet, ruby at rim, maybe a touch of onion skin lying ahead. Quieter than the others, but vague hints of spice and chocolate on nose. About as elegant as a big Bordeaux blend (that, creatively, includes Syrah!) can get. It’s for those who prize richness and power….but even such a wimp as I can enjoy the balance-of-power crafting in this wine.

D) THE BEAUTY OF CAIN VINEYARD AND WINERY

The tasting room at Cain Vineyard and Winery

Well, sure….a wine writer visiting Napa Valley has to make a few winery visits, no? I chose to go way the hell up on Spring Mountain, on the west side of the valley high above St. Helena, to visit a winery whose wines I’ve always liked. AND I heard the place is drop-dead gorgeous!

It is.

If you’re planning a Napa Valley visit, I would advise you to contact Cain, make an appointment (no drop-ins allowed), get a map sent to you, turn your GPS off as you ascend (because the winding curves on the way up confuse the hell out of your little device), and anticipate one of the prettiest hours you can spend in Napa.

The heart and soul of this winery is a gorgeous hillside on Spring Mountain, 550 acres of it, first purchased by Cain’s founders in 1980. They started planting vines in 1981, calling it the Cain Mountain Vineyard—a dramatic “bundt pan,” surrounding the ultra-dramatic rock called “La Piedra”—and, today, produce just a few different labels (the winery’s capacity is 25,000 cases per vintage), some from Cain Mountain Vineyard fruit, some from grapes purchased elsewhere.

Looking out at the vineyard from the winery….with La Piedra visible on the upper left

In the vineyard…..standing behind La Piedra

The most prestigious wine from this winery is called Cain Five, named for the five “Bordeaux” varieties that are blended to make it. All of the fruit comes from the famous hillside vineyard. I like it—because I find it a little more elegant than most Napa Valley top-of-the-pay-scale biggies.

But I reserve my special love for the inexpensive wine labeled “Cain Cuvée”—made from a little mountain fruit, but mostly from grapes grown elsewhere. Intriguingly, they make this wine every TWO vintages—so it is a carefully controlled blend (like Brut Champagne), not a single-vintage wine. To me, they continually hit the mark: lush but elegant Napa Valley red wine, bright and perky, terrific with a wide variety of foods. For every bottling, they include the same rows of wine, from the same growers.

The current release, specified “NV9″ on the bottle, was just released in February, and is 57% 2009 fruit, 43% 2008 fruit, with a majority of Merlot in it (53%).

So…..I’m recommending the wine, for sure….but super-recommending a trip up Spring Mountain!

E) SMITH-MADRONE SHINES AT WINE DINNER AT “PRESS”

One of the great dinner events of the Napa week was an event at Press, the upscale steakhouse owned by Lesley Rudd—who also owns the great gourmet-shop chain Dean & DeLuca, which happens to have a branch right next door to Press, just a bit south of St. Helena on Route 29. I’d been to Press before, and liked it greatly…but it was even better with all the thrill of a winemaker’s dinner in the middle of the winemakers’ region.

Waiters preparing for the crush at Press

You know the scene: local winemakers grab bottles of every this and that, many of them aged, before lugging them over to a big dinner with lots of round tables where lucky guests dive into the bottles at will. Usually there’s a set menu created by the chef, sometimes with a theme: on this night, we had a dozen courses with our Napa Valley wine that included all things porcine.

The top of the piggy menu

The wines flowed, of course….and, to be frank, though much flowed through me, not much thrilled me. Sorry to be such a Napa Scrooge! But when it’s good, it’s good. One of the sub-plots of the evening for me was an aged magnum of Mayacamas Chardonnay, really at point and yummy. Shouldn’t have been a big surprise….Mayacamas is one of the few wineries I rely on for aged Cabernet.

The lovely 1998 Chardonnay in magnum from Mayacamas

Best of all, however, was a bottle of Cab from a winery I thought I’d understood….Smith-Madrone…..also on Spring Mountain. The 2007 Cook’s Flat Reserve on my table—next to a sea of bottles from bigger-name wineries—knocked me out with its balance, and, particularly, its Bordeaux-ness. American winemakers are usually allergic to “green”—that herbal-veggie aroma so intrinsic to Cabernet, so common in France, so disgraced in California. Parker finds “green” to be a flaw—so 99% of American winemakers let their grapes get way too ripe, lest a little “green” creep into the wine (in America, it’s not easy being green!). Bleh. I like “green” in Cabernet, as long as it doesn’t dominate. This 2007, for me, had the perfect reminder of Cabernet’s true nature.

So, back in New York, I once again played the phone-call card to the winery….receiving by post, almost instantly, a lovely “library” set of Smith-Madrone wines. They make whites as well at Smith-Madrone, which I will taste in the future….but yesterday I put the Smith-Madrone reds into my Reynolds tasting and…..though nothing can measure up to the majesty of the 2008 Reynolds Family Winery Cabernet from Stag’s Leap….these were damned good wines too, atypical Napa Valley wines, right in my style.

The true knock-out was the 2000 Smith-Madrone Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley.

It is a silky-looking garnet, medium, with touch of lightening at edge. A little jam on the nose, but a hint of white truffle as well…a Napa Cab developing like a European wine! Even shows a bit of horse sweat (call it Brett, but I call it luscious!) Definite bell pepper character on palate, even Chinon-like…though the funk continues too at a very low level, with a whisper of smokiness. Great, lifting acid, and well-behaved finish. Compact, complex, delish.

Here are my notes on the other reds tasted in New York, all of which I also recommend:

1995 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

Medium garnet, faintest touch of onion skin at rim. Very Bordeaux-like herby nose, with a little jammy depth. Extremely Bordeaux-like on palate, with a kind of space between the Napa-esque concentrations of fruit that allows the wine to breathe.

2001 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

Slightly more advanced in color than the 2000, not quite as purply. Garrigue-like wild herbs on the nose, without as much fruit as the 2000. A little more disjunct than the 2000, with hints of volatile acidity, plus a little extra heat, bitterness and tannin. But perfect with the right foods, like grill meats.

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, Spring Mountain District

Medium purply-garnet, but not super youthful or strong looking. Pure fruit on nose, perfect degree of ripeness. Gorgeous mixture of Cabernet green and plummy fruit on the palate. Touch of licorice. Slightly aggressive tannins, but I think they will melt away….and I think the tertiary flavors will develop beautifully in this wine.

So the big take-away is: if you seek, seek, seek in Napa Valley….ye shall find! But, unless ye are part of the big-bomb crowd……ye must be one careful, specific seeker!

COMING UP NEXT WEEK:

Unfortunately, I don’t pass through Germany’s Pfalz region too often (it’s a lusty wine-growing area that I love, just to the east of France’s Alsace). But, when I do get there, the top of my gastronomic list is the uber-hearty local specialty of saumagen (pronounced ZOW-mahg-en).

Yup. “Sau” means pig (as in sow), and “magen” means stomach. So what we have here, mein freund, is a stuffed pig’s stomach! And it is spectacular.

Full disclosure, for those of you assessing my opinion: I’m also a haggis fan, another dish with inexplicably bad press. The Scotties, as you know, like to stuff a sheep’s stomach with meat (and oats), but the Deutsch make their equivalent with pig. I swear to you, if you were served saumagen (or haggis) without identification, you’d simply say “what a delicious sausage!”

Of course, things were a little different about 30 years ago. The first time I passed through the Pfalz (then known as the Rheinpfalz, always known in English as The Palatinate), the “magen” part was more apparent; you might get a hunk of a stuffed pig’s stomach. These days it has gotten a lot tamer. The stomach is stuffed with ground pork, cubes of potato, and a range of subtle spices (nutmeg, coriander seed, white pepper, etc.) The whole thing is cured, then boiled…then cut into big, round, regular slices about 1/4″ thick, which you buy at the local butcher. At serving time, the slices are warmed by a quick sizzle in a pan.

Anyway, I have a big case of saumagen love, no matter what the format. So when I got to the Pfalz this spring on a wine trip, I made sure to get me some saumagen quickly. It was easy. I was staying at the Deidesheimer Hof, in Deidesheim, where Pfalz-born Helmut Kohl regularly wolfed the stuff down and served it to such distinguished visitors as Maggie Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Kohl made this local dish known throughout Germany (though political enemies regularly inveighed against his passion for saumagen as an example of his “provincialism”).

Screw them. Soon after my evening arrival on a spring night, I marched down into the dining room of the Deidesheimer Hof—which is now a Michelin one-star, and therefore possibly de-saumagenized—and tremblingly asked if they still serve saumagen. Big “ja!” Big smile. And out came a gorgeous plate of saumagen, bratwurst, liver dumplings, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.

I was happy, but not satisfied. I had 36 hours more in the Pfalz to go, and I wanted more saumagen! But there were winery lunches and dinners planned, and I suspected my big saumagen moment had come and gone.

The very next day I showed up at a winery in the Pfalz called Weingut Wageck Pfaffman, where I was supposed to taste some older wines, current wines, barrel samples, and share some lunch.

When I got there just after noon, we tasted a few bottles, but then the winemaker said “my Mom has lunch ready, so we can taste more during lunch, then more after.” It sounded like a good plan, but it was the “Mom” part that had my eyebrows twitching.

En route to the family dining room, we walked through the kitchen—where I met the gemütlichkeit Mom—who was griddling something in a pan. My piggy hopes soared. I looked in said pan.

YES!

Saumagen. With bratwurst. And liver dumplings in a bubbling pot. And sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes. That’s when I discovered that these five things together are a Pfalz staple. Saumagen is ALWAYS served with the others, just as the one-star had done the night before.

With a 2008 Wageck Pfaffman Riesling Schützenhaus, I was in pig heaven. With fried onions on the liver dumplings, yet!

The one-star table lanterns at Junoon

I remember eagerly clutching my red Michelin guide in France, way back in the early 1970s, expecting to find at the starred levels nothing but the best of French food. Later, Michelin began publishing a red guide to Italy–but often took criticism that their judgments in Italy had a French sensibility. The same thing happened in Spain. Today, Michelin covers 23 countries in its books–but still has difficulty losing the image of “French-oriented.”

Well, here’s an example of American exceptionalism that really makes sense: when Michelin first came to the U.S. in 2005, in the form of their New York City red guide–they were positively besieged with charges that they were seeing New York as a “French” city. It forced a change. The book comes out every year, and subsequent guides stretched to include more of the variegated ethnic restaurants that are the real strength of New York City dining. Two stars and three stars remain pretty “French” in the New York book….but, soon enough, ethnic one-stars crashed the barricades, and gave a new face to Michelin in New York. I suspect that face will soon be seen all over the Michelin universe.

A great place to take this pulse is Junoon, an upscale Indian restaurant that has had one star from Michelin since October 2011, just ten months after opening. I sat down for dinner last week with Aliya LeeKong, Junoon’s Culinary Creative Director, who is responsible for the development of new dishes and new ideas at the ever-evolving restaurant.

Aliya LeeKong in Junoon's kitchen

Aliya, of Tanzanian and Pakistani parentage, is a supremely talented chef, as well as a prodigiously insightful food thinker.

“It all starts at Junoon,” she told me, “with the attitude of the owner, Rajesh Bhardwaj. He has said since the beginning in December 2010 that Junoon is a ‘fine dining restaurant that happens to serve Indian food.’ ”

I must confess that when I first heard that topic sentence a few years ago, I was concerned; as with Tabla (Danny Meyer’s Indian restaurant), I questioned whether a city that hardly knew Indian food was ready for creative Indian riffs on various gastronomic ragas. But Aliya has had the wisdom to anticipate my concerns.

“Ah yes,” she said. “Most of our menu is composed of traditional Indian food.” The one-star difference? “We are more intensely regional/authentic,” she said, “with lots of regional Indian dishes not seen in New York before. Our care in cooking them is at a higher plane than standard Indian restaurant cooking. Most important, we are ingredient-based, to a degree that most Indian restaurants are not. Vegetables. Fish. Herbs and spices (there is a glassed-in Spice Room where spices are fresh ground). Meat. I will not put the goat curry on the menu unless we can get the meat from one Halal butcher who has the best.”

Indeed, one taste of Aliya’s goat curry and you understand immediately what one-star Michelin Indian food means.

But at Junoon, there are other possibilities, as well. More creative possibilities, the kind that you’d expect at a Michelin one-star of any stripe. “There are actually three Indian one-stars in New York today,” Aliya said, supporting my thesis. “But we are the only one that offers a special Six Course Tasting Menu, filled with new and imaginative offerings.” So if you want to come to Junoon, leave the conventional tandoori behind, and proceed directly to New Age Indian cooking…..all you have to do is ask for the Six Course Tasting Menu…..which, of course, will be paired with six wines, if you desire. (Junoon, in a highly one-star move, has just expanded its wine selections to 350….and will soon double that.)

At my dinner with Aliya we focused on the Six Course Tasting Menu–and this wonderful food, combined with the gentle, professional service, and the subdued warmth of a room that’s filled in with lovely architectural details, made me feel every step of the way as if I were dining in a one-star Michelin.

If you go, nothing will set the tone at the outset like the most amazing Bloody Mary I’ve ever had.

The spice-and-pickle inflected Bloody Mary at Junoon

“It’s loaded with spices,” Aliya told me, “particularly star anise and fennel. Not to mention a dose of puréed Indian pickles.” Topped with a skewer of roasted cherry tomatoes, it is nothing short of remarkable.

On to the first course–a palate-opening Lotus Root 3 Ways.

Lotus Root 3 Ways at Junoon

The roots are fried (for crunch) pickled (a mode Aliya loves) and pureed, tossed with hibiscus gel, and sprinkled with cilantro powder. It all adds up to a typical creative starter for Aliya: light textures with a bit of crunch, and beguiling Indian flavors.

Among the next courses, I was particularly taken with the Kari Patta Shrimp.

Kari Patta Shrimp at Junoon

The large crustaceans are marinated with curry leaves (one of my favorite herbs in the world), grilled, and served with an array of tiny pickled vegetables. Americans don’t usually “get” Indian pickles but, when done right, they are one of the glories of Indian cuisine. This would be the right place, with the right chef, to start acquiring this taste.

I was also in for a treat on Aliya’s spin on the great Rajasthani lamb stew Lal Mas, (which I frequently devoured on my last trip to Jaipur).

The rarely seen Lal Mas at Junoon

It’s the spicing that makes Lal Mas special–bursting with cardamom, clove and green chili. But Aliya’s modern instinct leads her to lighten the presentation with a perfectly-in-key salsa-like creation on the side.

One thing that sets Junoon apart is Aliya’s insistence on various chefs for various tasks. There’s a separate tandoori chef, of course….and Aliya is “lobbying” for a chaat chef (sprightly Indian opening salads). Already in place is a pastry chef who turns out both traditional desserts–and desserts in the one-star Michelin key.

Trio of sparkling desserts at Junoon

Our last course was a sampler of three desserts: mini ras malai, shrikhand, and date-fig gateau; the latter little square, which out-sticky-toffeed sticky toffee pudding, was my favorite of the three. When you get dense and sweet without seeming dense and sweet–that’s when you get me.

So where are we headed here? More refinement? More Tasting Menu and fewer traditional dishes?

“Don’t know,” says Aliya. “Don’t think so. We ethnic Michelin one-stars have a tricky balance to maintain. A lot of restaurateurs feel that once you go ‘too’ fancy, maybe flirting with two stars……you risk intimidating the consumer, who isn’t expecting a grand restaurant experience when he or she wants an Indian dinner.”

Or….with people like Alya working it…..maybe that diner will someday feel that two-star Indian, even three-star Indian, is perfectly natural. Let’s start with one and see how it flows.

Photos Via: David Rosengarten

We’re sitting pretty in the food world at the start of 2013: gak, is there ever new-found sophistication among millions of American food-lovers! Of course this means that some dishes are going viral on us…and of course this means that many chefs are getting them wrong.

Now, “wrong” ain’t tragic for me–except that many diners are not realy getting these hot new foods and dishes at their best. And that’s always my food prayer–the best of the best for everyone!

So here a few of them, now firmly entrenched on the American scene…that I really think could be better in oh so many places.

BURRATA

Discovering burrata in Puglia in 1993 is a highpoint of my gastronomic memories. This orb of sophisticated mozz, filled with the mozz-pot scraps and fat from the day before, was invented only about a century ago in southeast Italy. But up to just a few years ago, burrata was completely unknown to Americans.

Now, it’s everywhere…sort of. Mindless Trend City.

QAnd there are two big burrata problems:

1) If it’s not runny and oozy in the center…it’s really not worth having. And in the U.S., the real thing is practically unavailable. Domestic burrata-makers almost always make it too firm inside. And imported-from-Puglia burrata…..starts firming up the day after it’s made. (I’ve tried it in Rome, the day after it has been made in Puglia, just 250 miles away….and it’s not as good!)

2) Ignorant of the real nature of burrata, trendy American restaurants have stormed into the bur rata craze…by cutting up the orb and adding it to stuff. Burrata chunks in salad. On top of pizza. What have you. How can it be anything like Pugliese burrata when it’s cut up in the kitchen? The JOY of burrata is slicing into the full round yourself, and watching the center flow out.

There is a little good news, though I’m sure most chefs will not avail themselves of it. A pioneering cheesemaker in Los Angeles, Di Stefano, is producing a good version of authentic burrata…and can overnight it to you! Find out everything from this web site.

CEVICHE

Like most adventurous diners, I LOVE the concept of ceviche, as invented by the South Americans: raw fish slightly “cooked” by the addition of a little citrus juice, often lime. Ceviche is ubiquitous now in the U.S. in all kinds of restaurants–but, as happens so often, our chefs are often getting it wrong. They are over-”cooking” the fish.

Why? I think a logistic reason stands beside the aesthetic one: not only have our chefs not had the lightly-marinated ceviches of South America, but they find it much easier to hold the pre-made ceviche in a bowl, in a walk-in, steeping in lime juice. The result is ceviche that is no longer translucent, but white–ceviche that really has been “cooked” by the lime juice. I far prefer ceviche, as they do in South America, when it’s just transformed by the lime juice, just past the condition of sashimi or carpaccio, still holding the resiliency of raw fish but turned tangy by citrus.

Happily, there’s a new wave of restaurants serving ceviche in the U.S. now: Peruvian restaurants, reflecting the hottest national cuisine in South America today. If you’re in NYC, don’t fail to try a trio of lightly-marinated ceviches at the great Peruvian cebicheria, La Mar Cebicheria Peruana.

BBQ

Well, what can I say about real BBQ that I haven’t already said? It is the greatest food invention on North American shores, and I worship it. But it has this problem: the very name is confusing and, now that EVERYONE boasts of offering BBQ, the chances of finding real BBQ in a restaurant purporting to serve you real BBQ are low, particularly in the North.

Why? Because real BBQ has nothing to do with grilling. It is, in fact, the opposite: real BBQ is made by cooking meat NOT directly over a low and slow fire. Good Texas brisket takes at least 16 hours to cook–and you can see evidence of the cooking time in the melted-collagen nature of the meat, the red “smoke rings” that develop, the striations of melting fat, meat, fat, meat, etc.

The good news is that many northern cities finally have real BBQ: your job is to find the good ones.

PHO

I am crazy about the big Vietnamese bowl of beef and rice noodle soup called Pho–and, apparently, so is everyone else these days. But once again…with popularization comes bastradization. When I had first had Pho, many years ago at at a really authentic joint in Honolulu, the most exciting thing about it was the forest of herbs served alongside the bowl of soup. You were supposed to submerge those herbs in the hot soup, creating what is perhaps the world’s most compelling version of a soup-and-salad hybrid dish. I can’t even think of another one!

Today, sadly, as I watch Pho-philia grow–and even as I watch more Westerners find their ways to Vietnamese restaurants–I am finding a real diminution in the amount of herbs served. New Pho-ites are getting the idea that the herbs are a garnish, as you’d have on top of many global soups. But they’re not–they are meant to be piled on!

If you are served a Pho with only a modicum of herbs on the side–demand your herbs! And use them!

VINDALOO

This is not exactly a new menu item in the U.S.–but the field of Indian restaurants is growing all the time on these shores, particularly Indian restaurants that purport to be “regional.” And, no matter what the purported region, most every Indian restaurant offers a version of “vindaloo.” We are definitely over-vindalooed in 2013.

The reason they all offer vindaloo is simple: the word is now code. Menu code. It means “the hottest dish on the menu.” It almost never means “a fairly spicy, authentic specialty of Goa.”

For one thing, the chile-gorged monstrosities we endure in our Indian restaurants are almost always “lamb vindaloo,” or “chicken vindaloo,” or “shrimp vindaloo.” But, with the occasional exception of chicken, in Goa you will not see these headlining proteins in vindaloo dishes.

Goan vindaloo is pork vindaloo. Yes. Sweet-and-sour pork, of the highest order. Spicy, yes…but, in Goa, “vindaloo” does NOT signal “our hottest dish.”

The word itself, “vindaloo,” has Portuguese roots; “vinha de alho” was the name of their dish, and it meant “wine with garlic.” Goan chefs today do like to add wine to their vindaloo, sometimes…but the “vin” of vindaloo has come to stand for vinegar much more often than it stands for wine. Wine itself was just not that available in Goa, over the centuries–but the local version of vinegar was. And their version of vinegar is a key element in a true Goan vindaloo–the vinegar derived from tapping the high branches of the coconut palm tree.

Believe it or not, the taste that it lends to vindaloo reminds me of something from my childhood. This is really bizarre–but a good Goan vindaloo has overtones reminiscent of the BBQ Pork Sandwich that they used to serve…at Nathan’s!…a Coney Island institution most famous for its hot dogs!  And I know they weren’t using fresh coconut vinegar from Goan trees on Coney Island. But don’t despair; without Goan coconut vinegar, you can still get a good Goan taste in your vindaloo…just as long as you stay away from the “lamb vindaloo” recipes in cookbooks that are just as inauthentic as the “lamb vindaloos” on restaurant menus. If you can’t get Goan coconut vinegar…use malt vinegar as a substitute. And do everything you can to make your vindaloo porky, sweet-sour, and NOT numbingly hot!

Photos Via: David Rosengarten, BigStockPhoto