Prix fixe - excluding tax

The menu is $48, excluding tax and gratuity. Why not just say, "Fifty-two dollars (includes sales tax) + gratuity"? It's not like the sales tax is optional. What, you're going to dine out wholesale? Who will you sell the uneaten food to?

Looks like another sneaky way to "lower" the price, although technically this isn't deceit because only an idiot would imagine that there would be no sales tax. Or can you get the thing to go, and exclude sales tax? Who would do that?

What would be so wrong with $60, includes tax and 15% gratuity (you're welcome to tip more if you like). Or you could be precise, putting the tab at $58.92. A paltry $3.92 more than the fundraiser base price.

Yes, that fundraiser, the one I just wrote about. At the fundraiser, you could eat the equivalent of four or more hamburgers, listen to live music, have all the drinks you want and contribute to charity. The fundraiser included everything in the price, no ups no extras. Even parking, bless their hamburgery hearts.

Now I'm really confused. One special event lumps everything into one simple, yet higher, price. Another splits everything apart to make the price appear lower, but when all is said and done it comes out a bit more than the "expensive" price of the fundraiser - except it's almost certainly not all you can eat. I'm not even sure you can sample all the plates, or have to choose.

What's the best pricing strategy? A simple yet larger figure, or a smaller figure that will auto-inflate? Too bad I won't have data on the events. I'd be curious to see which sell out - although there would have to be some kind of factoring in the huge capacity of the fundraiser vs the low capacity of the restaurant.

Peru comes to Roseville

I really like Peruvian food, and was surprised to see an elegant new Peruvian restaurant opening in Roseville. Normally this is a cuisine that I have to enjoy in Los Angeles, but now I hoped I'd have a new favorite local destination.

This is where I need to say that being in a restaurant management program is definitely not the route to take if you want to enjoy dining out. You see glaring errors by the service, lack of training, bad hostessing, bad management, missed opportunities, dashed expectations, plating errors... all stacking up with a single purpose: to destroy your chances of enjoying all but a very few restaurants. These things can be overlooked at inexpensive dives; plating a burrito or torta ahogada really isn't that critical. But in fine dining, plating a lamb shank with half its meat gone swimming in the sauce in the kitchen becomes a reason never to return. Likewise serving oxidized wine for tasting, opened who knows when. Blowing a dessert by masking the star ingredient in favor of flour and strawberries... not so fine.

This was one of those times where I think of the Turing test when dealing with a wait person. This is the test where you plunk down a human at a terminal and give him or her a few minutes to converse with someone or something at the other end of the line. If the person can't tell if he or she is talking to a machine, it passes the test. Both the waiter and the hostess might have struggled to pass, sometimes giving what seemed like incoherent answers.

The "free wine tasting" poured from a bottle containing perhaps an inch of wine at the bottom. Against my hopes, it was indeed oxidized. Transformed from fragrant wine into something less good, not indicative of its true character. What else can you expect, when the bottle contains 90% air and 10% wine? So, naturally I said something too complicated when asked if I liked the wine: "I don't know, since it was opened too long ago, oxidized and no longer tastes of itself."

What would a good waiter do? He'd say, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize that this had been open so long. I'll open another bottle so you can have a fair taste.". This didn't happen. He just walked away, mumbling something that lowered his Turing score, or just proved that he didn't know spoiled wine from Gatorade - or maybe didn't want to waste house money by opening a bottle that I might not order. So, bad management (not authorizing the wait staff to open new bottles when necessary), or badly trained wait staff? I don't know. Maybe both. One demerit.

Carnitas by another name does indeed taste as porky. It's apparently called "chicharrón" in Peru, but it's made the same as carnitas, from pork butt or pork shoulder - not pork belly. It's simmered then fried, just like carnitas. The sauce and finish are different, but basically it's four or five (I wasn't counting, so let's say five) one inch cubes of pork. Lined up on a plate, each glued down with a dab of pureed sweet potato and topped with a squidge of aioli. Sweetish pork, sweet puree, sweetish onion, a bit of garlic. No acid to kick things into a higher gear, but a price worthy of Campagnolo (expensive bike parts... never mind). That's something that probably runs, what, four bucks a pound or less. Five cubes, lots of negative, aesthetic and empty space around it. Good deal for the house, but it seems the Mexican restaurants can make a profit on carnitas plates that are much more generously endowed and come with rice, beans, salsa and chips to boot. Hmm. Not trying for repeat, non-special occasion business here, are we?

Every time I've eaten a lamb shank, it's had meat going all around the bone, just like it was on the animal. Muscle groups come in opposing sets so the beastie can bend its hoof this way and that. Since muscles only pull - they don't push. This lamb was apparently a mutant, since it only had meat on one side of the bone. Where did the other half go? Presumably it's still in the pot, where it came off the bone during the long braising process. The problem is, from a management point of view, that nobody verified this. It just got plated and served. Nobody cared. Maybe I'm wrong, and they used that piece of meat for something else (I couldn't find lamb anywhere else on the menu, but this proves nothing). So, here I am, surprised to discover as I turn over my shank, that lunch is over. The waiter's attitude was not exactly of service - he didn't care that the wine was long past its prime. There was nobody else in the place who interacted with customers, save the hostess, and she wasn't into smiling herself.

In culinary arts, we learn that if something is based on a principal ingredient, it should actually taste like said ingredient. Our "Passionfruit piece of heaven with forest fruit didn't. With a name like Pedazo de cielo de maracuya con frutas del bosque (if I remember correctly), the passion fruit should jump up and shout, like that paleta I ate in Mexico. Instead, it tasted primarily of strawberries and mint. This was another instance of taking what should probably have been one medium-sized flan-like thing and plating it with some garnishes, maybe even fruit that actually comes from Peruvian woods. It was instead divided into three slider-like mini-things. Pretty, but not a lot of dessert mass for the money.

I wonder what Peruvian forest fruits could be. Peru runs from the Pacific Ocean, over the Andes and into the Amazon rain forest. Lots of opportunities for fruits, so how did Peruvian forest fruits become field-grown strawberries? Perhaps they were grown in Peru, but still... I was expecting something more exotic. A quick search yielded interesting things. Camu camu, cherimoya, maracuya, dragonfruit (Pitajaya)... but not strawberries. Some are available as frozen puree, so presumably they could have made a coulis out of a couple of them and gone wildly Peruvian.

There were two examples of a red wine varietal available by the glass. The waiter did not ask which one I wanted - he merely poured the most expensive, saying that it was the bottle we'd tasted. Our fault? No - it's his job to ask whenever there is more than one price point for the same varietal. Sneaky, sneaky - but we should have paid more attention. Why? We're hoping that the house wants us to come back and won't sneak around. It was a $4.00 difference, not really enough to matter in the monetary sense, but enough to create a strong perception of profit maximization at our expense. Badly done!

Managing expectations is a key term here. You want to exceed expectations, make the customer feel special, cared for, honored. Avoid at all costs making your guests feel like marks in a carny show. 

It's all about perception, not necessarily reality. This creates happy customers who will likely return later and spend more money - part of other key terms like frequency. The basic goals are to get people to come more often and spend more money. Either or both works. Neither is not great, since it leads to bankruptcy after the novelty of the place wears off. These guys set expectations high, then failed to meet them. Tasty food but expensive with small portions. Spoiled wine and perceived indifference by the wait staff. Going for profit over satisfaction and hospitality by pouring the expensive wine while ignoring the more reasonably priced glass of the same varietal, with a perception of house greediness. Perceived missing food in the case of the lamb shank. Leaving the customer to wonder where the main dessert ingredient went, after suggesting the dessert as better than another (more expensive, too - so perception of upselling). Perception of lack of hospitality when the hostess seemed annoyed or worried that I would abscond or otherwise ruin a culinary book set out for display (if you don't want the books touched, but them in a glass case!).

So, here was the result: we felt somewhat swindled from the combination of high prices, small portion sizes, the wine switch and the missing lamb. This was compounded by the waiter's lack of action over the spoiled wine offered for tasting and his failure to ask which Malbec we wanted to order. We didn't feel cared for, since every time we mentioned something wrong, we were met with a mumble, an excuse, and no action whatsoever. Problems arise. Failing to deal with them can be fatal. Fixing them can turn them into assets and create avid, faithful fans who will return.

The final clavo en el ataúd was the hostess as we were leaving, who looked ready to defend a pristine cookbook at the entrance with tooth and nail - but not find out if the house desserts came from its pages. She asked if I had a question. I did. She had no answer. Instead of smiling, finding someone, creating an interaction, a link to the person preparing the food, maybe a reason to return, she ended the conversation, question unanswered. In an empty reception area, she was too busy. Missed opportunity.

I posted the following review elsewhere on the web, where the restaurant might see it and possibly improve things - or start ranting and send nasty PMs... hopefully the former.
__

La Huaca Restaurant

This could become a really great restaurant - or vanish, but only time will tell. The food is generally quite good, but everything else... read on!

My star-losing complaints are that I feel like there's a fair amount of portion size sleight of hand going on here relative to the price points. Compounding this, the wait staff seemed more intent on maxing out the check. It seemed like there was no chef in charge, nobody to care for each plate to come out of the kitchen.

The portion size thing would be fine if the prices were lower - I'm all in favor of small plates, but only if they have small prices so I can sample more things. La Huaca likes  to put tiny morsels on one elegant, spacious dish with a lot of air in between. That's some expensive air!

They have a ceviche "bar". Although, it isn't really. See, at a real bar, people sit at bars, interact with the bar chef. Here you order from the menu; the bar maestro does his thing across the room. No interaction. The ceviche is nonetheless fresh,  like pieces of sushi grade fish tossed in a citrus-flavor mix and served, so that it doesn't really "cook" in the marinade so much as soak up the flavor.

Our pork appetizer was like Peruvian carnitas. One inch cubes of tender pork sitting on an orange sweet potato purée, topped with some onion and aioli. The flavors lacked contrast; everything had a bit of a sweet note that would have profited from some acidity to compliment the other flavors. At half the price, this might be worth getting.

The lamb shank sat buried in sauce, with a dab of beans at its side. The meat was indeed falling off the bone, for when I turned the shank over, there was no meat there, just a bare bone. Huh? Where's the rest of my food? A mistake? Or not? Half the meat? That's not fair! I paid for that meat. Didn't I?

When you name something "passion fruit piece of heaven with forest fruit" (my translation from the Spanish), you expect it to taste like passion fruit first and everything else second. Sorry. The star - maracuya - was almost a no show, drowned by strawberry and mint. Another plate of mostly air:  three small, cakey things arranged on a plate.

Free wine tasting is supposed to be an amenity, but my first taste came from a bottle that sat open too long: feh!. When I pointed this out to the waiter, he just walked off. He didn't return with a freshly opened bottle so I could taste the wine as its maker intended, but instead offered a taste of another varietal. Things didn't get better, either.

One varietal appears twice on the wine list: two glasses with a four dollar price difference. When I ordered that varietal, he brought the most expensive glass without even asking which I wanted. His excuse? "I poured out of the expensive bottle, so you should have known." Fail!

Oh, one more thing. Those beautiful cook books at the entrance? LEAVE THEM ALONE! I tried looking up the passion fruit dessert (not there) and the hostess came over to hover around and ask if I had questions. I did - but she couldn't answer them. She was there to Protect the Book. I noticed from outside that she carefully checked the book for damage (none) and carefully put in in its place on the table.

Panchito's El Tepeyac Cafe departs Northern California

Apparently due to pernicious exhaustion of funds, Panchito's El Tepeyac Cafe has bid adios to Northern California.

For fans of this L.A. institution, it's back to the 400 mile drive to get a Hollenbeck Burrito or some good SoCal machaca.

Perhaps they'll find a solution and return north in a better location, bringing their unique burrito expertise. For now, though, it's back to Evergreen in Los Angeles.

Chez Camille, Arnay-le-Duc | 23 May

“Let’s go there - they have a menu du terroir!” Annette said as we walked up the street in Arnay-le-Duc. 

I’d been tempted by another, smaller restaurant, but when we peeked in the lights were off and the place looked deserted. So, Chez Camille it was. The menu looked decent, and better yet, they had a pastry chef in addition to the chef and sous-chef (pastry chefs are quite rare in restaurants back home, at least restaurants that I can afford).

After asking for a table for two, we were ushered into a small, dimly lit lobby crammed with furniture. We sidled between pieces of furniture, wondering if someone found too good a bargain to pass up, brought the furniture to the inn and crammed it into the lobby.

The chef, a tall somewhat gaunt man, greeted us as he moved to another room, where he was having his lunch. The kitchen would survive without him.

We were given menus. A small plate of amuse-gueles arrived. Charcuterie in aspic, more charcuterie en croûte. 

We ordered two prix fixe lunches -  “Menu du Terroir”   -  featuring an appetizer, main plate and dessert (or cheese).  Other people with reservations were ushered quickly into the dining area, no lounging required.

We remained in the lobby. 

“Um, this ever happen to you before, being stuck in a lobby?” I whispered. 

“Non, jamais,” my wife replied.

“So presumably we won’t be eating in lounge chairs with bent knees off a too-small table?”.

“No. I think not.”

Happily she was correct. The lounge interlude was just a pause before entering. The dining area lay under a twisted ficus benjamina, pruned artistically to crawl along the underside of the skylights. The kitchen, with large windows open to the action, nestled against the far wall. An ancient stone stairway led underground to the wine cellar, leaving the waitress about two centimeters of clearance between her head and the keystone. 

The tables featured white tablecloths with large decorative plates bearing an illustration of the restaurant. As soon as we were seated, the fancy plates disappeared. It’s normal to have expensive display plates, but usually guests get to enjoy the artwork prior to the plates going back to their niche. 

Another waiter arrived with a basket of rolls: bacon, normal and grain. Bacon in bread always strikes me as a bit American, a gimmick to spend less time developing the bread’s flavor by adding a bit of smokiness and fat that wouldn’t otherwise be there. The plain roll was competent, if not exquisite.

Our entrées were a lapin en gelée and a bouchée à la reine. The first was bits of cured rabbit put into a mold and covered with aspic and chilled. The bouchée is a columnar puff pastry filled with bits of meat and vegetables, typically in a béchamel sauce - although I think they might have used velouté here for lightness. Both were competent, with the edge going to the rabbit.

Our main course sautéed Charolais beef with scalloped potatoes and a somewhat sour version of Bordelaise sauce. We couldn’t drive by all those fields of grass-eating cows without dining on one. 

Dessert was a good Mousse au chocolate and a type of fruit mousse thing whose name I forgot.

The chicken will be for tomorrow. Placed on a bed of garlic, carrots and shallots and roasted, a sage-based sauce whipped up from the jus to drizzle over the meat. It won’t need anything more, since these chickens are bred and raised for flavor.

Museo Maya-whatever

Part of culinary arts training is how to make people comfortable in your restaurant. The motive may not be so altruistic - comfortable people "contribute" more and come back more often, but still. The alternative is worse.

We tried Museo Mayahuel, or Mayahuel Cafe, or whatever they're trying to call it. It's across from the Imax theater, kind of, on K street. It's not even clear where the front door is.

We arrived, and were warmly greeted by a fellow who put together a table for us. The next person was also friendly and helpful.

Then our waitress arrived. It was all crash and burn from there.

We ordered a sampler plate, then a combination. Oops. One of the dishes- the one on the combination - was not being made. Not clear if it was not being made ever again, or just not that day, but in any case, it was still listed on the combination plate. Oh. They just swap it for something else, but the waitress was not in any mood to run to the kitchen and find out what exactly the substitution was. Obviously, she didn't find out before her shift, either.  Bad.

Then she asked what if we wanted drinks. In culinary school, you never ask an open, vague question like that. It's "Hey, we've got some great margaritas and Mexican beers, can I tempt you...?" I asked if they had aguas frescas. "No", she said, in an irritated tone, like why would a Mexican restaurant pretending to be authentic have something like that? Never mind that it would likely be present in Mexico. So, we ordered water - we'd never seen a drink menu, so we didn't even have a clue what they were capable of providing. Nobody gave me a better alternative, so I cheaped out. What did they expect with an "I don't give a shit" attitude like that?

Then the food. Many things were dinner only. Some things were listed, but MIA. I don't know why. Nobody explained it to me.

We ordered some kind of ancho chili bruchetta. Like braised chilis on toast, not much heat, no acid balance, underseasoned.

Then the main course. No cochinita pibil. No fish - that's dinner only. So, despite their claims to Mexico City or wherever gastronomic delights it basically came down to enchiladas, chile verde, the usual gang of suspects. Yeah, they did have grilled meat - but I'd just been to Gallitos Grill in L.A. where they do that kind of thing to perfection and wasn't inclined to try a local version.

Chile verde. Something I could make as well at home. Washed down with water, surveyed sporadically by a surly waitress who could not have been trained in her job.

I really don't get it. You see, the waiter at the table next to ours did things right. He proposed drinks, people ordered. They laughed. It was fun. Their tab was probably at least $10 per person higher than ours, money in his pocket and happy guests willing to return.

Our grumpy waitress asked what dessert we wanted, while one of us was halfway though the main course, without bothering to even give us a dessert menu or describe what was available. "Let me eat my lunch, dammit!" is not something a waitress should hear, not if she wants people to give her a decent tip and come back another day. Not if she doesn't want them to write things like this on a blog where they can be found by prospective clients of the restaurant or - worse - her boss. But then, it seems she's not too enamored with her job anyway.

Needless to say, we won't go back. I'll look through my Mexican cookbooks - Diana Kennedy will not let me down! Then again, I could just go to a great local place - Chando's, Palenque, Lalo's... and get friendly service with great food.

Too bad - I'd hoped to find a real jewel of a restaurant, something that whisked me away to Mexico City to dine on innovative food that I hadn't eaten in some other version fifty times before.

_______

August 2012. Time passes into the future, two months' worth. To date, these words have never been seen by human eyes other than mine, at least according to Google. The restaurant's reputation, if any, remains unchanged. Nobody was warned to avoid our waitress. People will still eat the chili verde here instead of somewhere better and cheaper.


Some blogs get thousands of hits per day, even more. Mommy blogs are apparently the shiznits. So are "simple recipe" blogs. Well, I'm screwed. I'm not a mommy, and nobody goes to chef school to make "simple recipes" although we can. It's just that it's easier to go from complicated and understood to simple than the inverse. Sigh. I shall fade into the ether, remaining forever anonymous.

No fame for dish washers

There are lots of celebrity chefs, stars, women with cleavage who make food, loud people with equally wild hair, fancy chefs and other glitterati of the foodie world. They're in the limelight, hamming it up for the camera, bestowing grins on their admirers and sometimes excoriating their detractors. In all those hours of watching these people perform on television, did you ever see the dishwasher?

Imagine these shining stars trying to impress with no clean dishes at hand. Ah, truffled venison with sauce grand veneur on an grimy plate coated with last night's bisque? Ick! Their Michelin stars would disappear like hot beurre blanc through their fingers.

There's no celebrity dishwasher. No televised dish washing competition.

I washed dishes this week, a zen experience of dishes in, dishes out. Everyone is chef on rotation, and one week's chef is always the next week's dishwasher.

Washing dishes at this level is quite different than the chore given by the typical parent to their children. Everything arrives: giant mixing bowls, full size baking sheets, tiny pastry tips, bowls coated in fluorescent buttercream, fondant, pastry bags, cutting boards and the occasional sharp object like a knife or a food processor blade.

It's kind of like playing Tetris. You have to try sorting everything so that you can create a smooth flow between the trash can, the counter on the left (dirty), the detergent sink, rinse sink, sanitizer sink and the counter on the right (clean). There's a bit of grouping for things stored together, too. Nest the bowls, place the measuring spoons inside, carry them to their rack. Back to the sink. Cutting boards next. Then baking sheets. On it goes.

The goal is to smoothly, dynamically and cleanly juggle everything so that you can create a smooth flow between the trash can, the counter on the left (dirty), the detergent sink, rinse sink, sanitizer sink and the counter on the right (clean).

There's a bit of grouping for things stored together, too. Nest the bowls, place the measuring spoons inside, carry them to their rack. Back to the sink. Cutting boards next. Then baking sheets. On it goes.

We're not even a restaurant. We're a classroom. Still, twenty people working frantically to create their masterpieces go through a lot of dishes. Since the number of dishes is limited, this means speed is of the essence. One huge mixer bowl came through the sink at least five times, along with its assorted paddle and dough hook, all covered in various species of sticky food. Someone is waiting for that mixer, you're holding them up! Bowl first, cutting boards later! Accelerate! Wash, scrub, rinse sanitize, dry - out go the mixer parts. The suds are gone! Refill the sink with clean detergent, check the sanitizer, warp speed!

Perhaps someday there will be an Iron Dishwasher program, where we can watch the best of the best compete. I imagine it like watching a pit crew service a Formula 1 race car. Quick, coordinated movements that waste no effort, transforming grunge into shine faster than the eye can follow.

Eat here. Get on TV.

The restaurant posted on their Facebook page, inviting friends and family to come in for the taping, perhaps get interviewed (perhaps not, too - but most people are optimists). In a new restaurant, getting friends and family in to pack the tables was a great idea. The last thing you want is to tape a segment of a tomb-like space with one couple munching away in a corner. You want a full house, maybe even seat people all on one side of the dining area so it would look more full when filmed (they didn't do this).

We showed up at after eleven, when the TV Diva was supposed to arrive. She was late. TV Divas are always late. They're Divas, after all. Accountable to nobody, not even themselves. Divas are freer than the wind. A Diva, a cameraman, cruising through the Sacramento landscape in a plain, unmarked car, with only a production schedule to guide them. This segment would not air for weeks, so no rush.

This Diva seemed to have a kind of negative energy aura around her that discouraged anyone from approaching her. You don't approach the Diva. She approaches you. Or not. There's no warm fuzzy feeling here. All cold-eyed business. Get the segment on tape and move on. I don't think she smiled even once during the few times I managed to see her face.

It was a typical experience with TV people. They have this way of looking right through you as though you aren't there. Their eyes track across you, seeming to focus on some infinite point behind your head. Eerie and a bit creepy. Do they do this in their private lives, too? Like with their son's or daughter's new boyfriends or girlfriends?

We decided to order something, since waiting in a restaurant for a TV Diva to show up is not much fun unless the house makes it into an event. They didn't. There were no hors 'œuvre, no little plates, nothing that would have made waiting forty-five minutes for a Diva more fun, nothing to get food in people's stomachs so they'd look happy and well-fed for the Diva's grande arrivée.

So, instead of nibbling on a (nonexistent) free appetizer, we sat. We pondered who else they invited. Were any of them planted there, setup in advance for interviews? Celebrities in the making? People connected to the television station? Some were from a local chamber of commerce. A table of six women, a skinny blonde who looked like a model and was constantly fondled (in appropriate areas) by her companion. A man in a suit. A woman with a plastic badge, a couple of random diners, perhaps some friends of the owners.

Just another (rather slow) day at the restaurant, business as usual. Except for the Diva thing that would happen unannounced to surprise anyone who happened to walk in. Imagine you were an innocent, unknowing diner who came in, ordered, got food. Suddenly and without warning, the room would be crowded with a cameraman and a Diva, interviewing people at other tables, filming the hostess, interfering with your service and making you hesitate before taking a big bite lest the camera swoop down on you in mid-chomp, your cheeks bulging hamsterlike, perhaps a bit of sauce dribbling down your chin.

Finally the Diva arrived. She interviewed a table of six. Then, of course she interviewed the blonde. They always seem to interview blondes. It's TV. She interviewed the owners. They went in the kitchen. I don't know what she did next because after being there over an hour, it was time to leave.

I wondered about people whose orders weren't up, and wouldn't be until after the interview finished. Without free appetizers, the unlucky few would just have to go hungry. Divas don't wait for chefs!

Luckily, our food arrived before the Diva. We ate.

They interviewed someone behind us, so we might have been background extras. Is that camera pointing at us? Look natural! We talked. I took really small bites and smiled a lot. We paid the bill. We left, uninterviewed but yet possibly captured as fodder for the media.

___

This brings me to the main point of this blog. Getting a certificate in Culinary Arts, in the Hospitality Management program means taking advertising and management courses along with all that cooking. The point is that running a restaurant is a lot more than knowing how to cook. Conveying the right message is critical. Make enough mistakes - or one big goof - and your guests will flee, never to return.

I think the restaurant missed a lot of opportunities with the Diva thing. Free appetizers would have looked normal enough, but turned this into an event and turned hungry people into appreciative people who would probably smile more. They would have put more food on the tables, so nobody would be filmed without food. There were no table toppers, those triangular cardboard announcements that highlight favorite items - that would have added a bit of advertising to the video. There was no menu board on the wall, so the crew could not film anything with menu information. The check presenter (little book with the bill) arrived with nothing inside but the bill. No thank you / sorry for the inconvenience card, perhaps with a free soft drink at the next visit. It could have had a database trap (a database trap is the little card they ask you to fill out to give feedback and incidentally sign up for e-mail postings or join the house's Facebook page). There could have been a QR code link to the restaurant's web site and/or Facebook page somewhere, too.

The key is that you always have to be aware how your words and actions will be interpreted by your guests. Restaurants survive on more than just food; hospitality is key to making guests feel welcome, wanted and valued. It's also a large part of the dining experience, as important as the food. Sometimes even more so.

The waitress who walks by the table, mumbling, "Everythingfinehere?". Normal, right? It's happens almost every time we dine out. Wrong. We're taught that for people to think you care, you need to be more specific. "I'm just checking in. How is your Duck Fat Foccacia Bacon Burger, sir?".

Guests are not supposed to wait more than two fleeting minutes from when their food arrives on the table for a check-in, either. If the food isn't to their liking and they have to sit around for ten minutes to say so, your guests won't consider that a quality experience.

Several people probably went to the restaurant, following the siren songs of television and helping a restaurant in need. Some of these people probably would not have gone otherwise, the Facebook announcement worked and in they came.

So they went, they ate, some were interviewed while the rest were ignored by the television people who turned out to be quite dull. No introduction of the television people, no instructions. Do you act natural, wave to the camera, start a food fight (that would get some ratings!). Hard to enjoy your lunch when there's a guy with a giant camera attached to his shoulder, following a Diva who is interviewing the people who are supposed to be taking care of you while you eat.

After all that, all many guests did was eat in a strange situation. They weren't picked for an interview. Nobody autographed their menu. No event happened, not even a free mini-cup of the Super Sauce to go with their meals. They didn't get to shake the Diva's hand, ask who does her hair, get a recommendation for a plastic surgeon. They ate. They paid. They left. No thank you message from the restaurant awaiting them on Facebook. The "thank you to the people who were interviewed" message was not directed at them.

What kind of appreciation did that convey, to someone who might have driven twenty miles round trip out of their way that day to help fill a restaurant? Yeah, they might feel like the Chopped Liver special.

Did the restaurant ever even realize that they could have done better? I doubt it.

A chef instructor once said that the problem with Sacramento restaurants isn't their food. It's their management. Nobody trained the waitress to greet people with a smile, check on their food quickly to see that it was to their liking, and probably other things that I haven't even learned yet. In this case, the management neglected to thank all the people who came - thus missing a great advertising opportunity and a way to firm up their relationship with their guests.

A simple message, four little lines, and everyone would have felt appreciated. Something like this:

We would like to thank all of our fans who made a special trip to support us during the shooting of DivaDoesFood. We'd also like to congratulate those lucky few who were chosen by the production crew for an interview. I would have put you all on the show, but that's completely up to the crew. The episode will air on [date and time], so please tune in to see if you've gained a few seconds of fame.

That's it. Everyone thanked, people interviewed recognized, the restaurant's lack of control in this clarified. Something to take the sting out of being snobbed by some makeup-covered diva while eating in a strange situation.

If you want to really appreciate restaurants, culinary arts and hospitality management training is probably not a good idea. First, you become critical of the food, with the dreaded "I could have done this better at home!" syndrome infiltrating itself into your appreciation of the food. Then management training begins, and you notice a frequent lack of training. It's everywhere. Small places, large chains, upscale establishments - all have gaps. Some have chasms.

I'm only two weeks into the semester and I'm noticing faults that I always assumed were normal. Lack of a friendly greeting by wait staff, messages sent that do as much harm as good, total lack of organization or routines for handling things when the wait time is thirty minutes over what was quoted, coupled with total indifference... Where was management?

At another restaurant, after a forty-five minute wait - already fifteen minutes over the estimated time - nonchalantly informed us that there would be at least another half hour of standing outside the restaurant. In the cold. The chain was too cheap to build a waiting area large enough to contain everyone trying to get in. We left, dropping off our buzzer at the hostess station, staffed by three bubble-headed staffers who never made any effort to welcome us. Naturally, they had no reaction when we left. We went down the street to a wonderful little Thai restaurant that was more than happy to have our business. Rescued from the Outback.

_____

After reading this, you might surmise that I view television personalities, and to some extent their entire industry as a parade of puffed-up poseurs, searchers of sound bites who shun substance in favor of frivolity. That would be quite accurate. It's an industry that seems to fear truth, controversy, hard questions and presenting reality. They rush everywhere they go, never slowing enough to find what's important and present it to the world. Too much work. They'll often interview a restaurant but fail to really describe the food and how it came about - and why you might want to go there - in favor of a personal interest story.

As a potential diner, do I really care that the restaurant's name came from a drunken Scrabble game gone wrong, that the owner met his wife in a rest stop, that the waitress has twelve cats, all black and white, or that the owner's favorite colors are green and magenta because they remind him of Hawaii? No. Did I want to see some typical plates, learn what's in them, learn about the thought that went into their preparation? Yes. Will I see that? Probably not. Hard to show the food when you're doing head shots and sound bites.

The show title is fictitious, of course. The real title includes the Diva's name.

El Tepeyac Cafe arrives in Northern California!

El Tepeyac's logo, enjoying a burrito

I've been going to El Tepeyac Cafe since 1978 (more here), when I started college and was introduced to the place by a burrito-crazed friend. I try to eat there at least once every time I go to Los Angeles, 400 miles away. This was a good, safe distance since eating burritos that weigh almost as much as the typical house cat does not qualify as dieting. More like a burrito binge. Safe, if only done a few times per year.

The owner, Manuel, did mention something about an El Tepeyac opening in Northern California somewhere around Sacramento, but that was probably a year ago, and since the place didn't exist I figured that they'd changed their mind. Until last week. There is was, in letters big as the Internet: Panchito's El Tepeyac Cafe now open in Rocklin.

Rocklin? OhmyGodImgoingtobloatuplikeawhale! Three hundred eighty miles closer. A mere 25 minutes. A granny on a bicycle could go there and back in a day. Jump in the car, five stomach growls and I'm there, ordering a Hollenbeck or a Machaca burrito or taquitos or...

Saturday arrived, and I couldn't restrain myself any longer. As the lunch hour arrived, we sped to Rocklin, anticipating a significant wait. I thought we'd hang out in line with other fans, swapping burrito stories (...Remember the time you dropped the tray and scattered exploded burrito bits all over the patio..."). We arrived. Empty. The open sign glowed in the window. We approached the door. Unlocked. We entered. "Sit wherever you like," said Amanda, the waitress. One table was occupied by a couple. Everything else was a surreal emptiness.

In the L.A. restaurant, the wait is part of the ritual. Nobody just walks into an empty El Tepeyac Cafe and sits down. You stand in line, maybe say, "hello" to Manuel, chat.

Yet, here we were, in a booth,with menus in our hands, Panchito's El Tepeyac Cafe written on them. We were indeed in the right place.

I managed to avoid saying, "I don't need no stinkin' menu". Good thing, because Pancho added a burrito! Aptly named Pancho's Nightmare, it's picante. Five chili variety picante. I didn't order it, though. I wanted to compare So Cal to Nor Cal, so Hollenbeck it was.

When the luscious, steaming mound arrived, dripping with chili verde sauce, its tortilla bulging to the point of bursting, it was instant flashback to L.A. This is indeed a Hollenbeck! I sliced through the tortilla, its thin flesh yielding to the knife, exposing the first layers of flavor. Subsequent bites reached the bright green guacamole, the ingredient that really makes these things blast off. I popped a morsel of tender pork into my mouth. Heat. This burrito has a bit of chili in it. Could it be?

Thirty years ago, one friend would eat about a third of his burrito and begin to sweat. As he ate, his forehead transformed into a shower head as the chilis affected his metabolism. He hasn't sweated like that in years, and I found the East L.A. Hollenbecks tamer, too.

Now, here I was feeling the old bite like the Hollenbeck of the seventies, the once familiar tang of capsaicin-infused peppers returning like a long-lost friend. This was more like the burrito of my youth, a bit fiery yet balanced by cool guacamole and other ingredients into a whole that more than equaled the sum of its parts. This was the burrito I dreamed of while living in France, savory spicy cool and rich all bound together by a thin membrane of tortilla.

When I was twentysomething, I found that eating at Manuel's more than once per week leads to a noticeable increase in mass. I suppose I could have ordered lighter things than massive burritos, but I didn't. They were my first love, more faithful than that girl with the long hair who drove a two-tone Datsun 510. I probably went there with her, though. I probably went there with just about everyone I know in L.A.

Most of those people are forgotten, but Hollenbecks are eternal. They're not Mexico authentic, since they were invented in Los Angeles by a true master of the burrito craft. Authenticity? Who cares? I can get tacos al pastor, carnitas, buche, carne asada, chili verde and the usual gang of suspects just about anywhere nowadays. What I can't get is a Hollenbeck, unless I go to El Tepeyac. Only one restaurant on the entire planet where I can eat this. That's special.

It's funny though. Every Mexican restaurant has a combination burrito. Many have rice, beans, meat, and even guacamole, yet none come close to the flavor of a Hollenbeck. Maybe it's the sour cream, that Hollenbecks don't have. It's not something I generally want in my burrito anyway. It's cold. It takes up space better reserved for a big ladle of guacamole. Yeah, the guac is also cold, but it adds a lot more flavor and has a better mouthfeel than sour cream. There's also the chili blend, another unique to El Tepeyac flavor profile that happens to marry incredibly well with the avocado.

Don't get me wrong - I like sour cream. I just don't want it in my burrito, competing with an excellent dose of guacamole. It's fine on nachos, whatever. Just spare me the creamy stuff in my burrito.

Time will tell if Northern California, or more specifically Rocklin, will embrace this food as their new icon of delicious. They should, but then we're a long way from East L.A. If good food is indeed universal, they should be full in a month or two and packed soon thereafter. I certainly hope so, because I really don't want to drive 400 miles every time I'm jonesin' for a burrito.

Panchito's El Tepeyac Cafe. 6835 Five Star Blvd, Rocklin, CA 95677
(916) 625-0165

You can visit their web site here.

Chef vs. Critic. The pen is mightier than the toque.

I like reading restaurant reviews. Some, because the writing is so bad that it makes me wonder why the writer is still employed. Others more because of the writer's style and use of prose paint an enticing picture of a restaurant. Then there are those that give insight into the restaurant's approach, the plates, the flavors. Then there are pieces that really don't fit into any of these categories.

Instead of painting a picture of what someone might expect to find, enjoy, eat and experience at the restaurant, a local food critic embedded this data in a critique of what the restaurant's owner should have done. He griped about the architecture, how the place wasn't "Bohemian" enough, how the chairs were funky. Thus, I read the piece as more an attack on the restauranteur's failure to conform to the reviewer's expectations than a fact-based review of the establishment.

In the context of the review the dishes seemed disappointing, even though the reviewer apparently liked them. So, the overall review - although it got enough stars - seemed negative. Like the place was somehow a failure in the critic's view: too-serious waiters, predictable, just not fun enough.

Even with great food, who would want to dine in a stodgy, predictable restaurant run by someone who abandoned his vision, to eat food and quaff drink served by pompous waiters? Would you go, knowing it to be cursed with bad architecture and infested with ugly chairs?

I have no quibbles about the part where the critic actually reviews the food, despite a minor glitch over an ingredient. So it wasn't orzo. No big deal.

Understandably, the restaurant's owner did not take kindly to the review. So he replied, using Facebook. He made a lot of good points - notably that the restaurant is successful, he likes it the way it is (so do a lot of other people, apparently). There was a bit of an attack on the reporter of the "who is he to criticize, anyway?" variety.

Many people commented. Most, if not all, were supportive of the restaurant. Some went so far as to lambaste the reviewer, thereby incurring his wrath.

A few days went by, and the reviewer - who never bothered to reply in Facebook - wrote another article, this time expressing surprise at the reaction at the rancor over his review. A review he believed to be positive, in fact.

I didn't read it as especially positive. I thought it was strange to attack a restaurant based on what direction its owner did not take, setting the food reviews in a bed of criticism. I thought reporting was based on facts: interviews with the owner, direct tasting, all that stuff. This read more like an editorial piece, advocating change.

The critic's second piece devoted over 800 words explaining what critics do, what they know and how many restaurants they've been to. Apparently becoming a restaurant critic involves nothing more than being a reporter who gets the critic job. No culinary arts training, no superior knowledge of food origins, process or preparation. No experience working in an actual restaurant. I don't expect food writers to attend chef school, but what exactly is their path from no clue to Expert Critic? Taste buds and a nose? Read a few cookbooks and you, too, can be a Revered Critic (B.A. in journalism required)? That's it?

Isn't that like a science writer who can't tell a photon from a prion? Yes, a reporter can theoretically write an excellent piece using investigative techniques. But when something is set down in front of you for your dining pleasure, shouldn't you have some prior knowledge of how it's typically prepared, so you can better communicate the restaurant's style of preparation, its choice of ingredients? Saying something is yummy, tasty, bad or heavenly is not, after all, great journalism. More must be said, vivid descriptions of the presentation, flavors, balance; in short, make the reader experience what it's like to savor the food and revel in the atmosphere (or lack thereof) of the restaurant.

Before writing about what was presumably in the restaurant owner's head several years ago versus now, wouldn't it be better to interview said owner after all your tasting was done and your food reviews written? Find out what he's thinking, where he's going, what he loves and hates, why things are the way they are?

Yet, who am I to question established wisdom? Another journalist wrote that bloggers are not journalists. We're something else. Not necessarily bad, just not bona fide journalists. So I'm just an outsider howling in the wilderness. Ignore my questions, since they're from Outside the System. But I still think I'm right. Knowing a subject gives more insight, doesn't it? Interviewing the owner and chef would give insight, wouldn't it?

After the War of the Pens, the critic and chef allegedly talked on the phone for about an hour. The critic deleted some offending text that apparently was not kind to the chef. The chef deleted his entire original Facebook post (even the valid, non-insulting parts), then apologized in Facebook for things he said that were less than flattering to the reviewer. All is well. They're friends again.

Personally, I think the chef lost. I think that the critic, with free access to publishing to a large number of people, convinced him that argument was not in his best interests. Force won, again.

The critic also managed to promote a local blog that agreed with his review on all but two points. Not exactly neutral. Will he mention this blog although I'm critical of the style of the review?

The critic, who seems just as thin-skinned as the chef about people demeaning his skills or qualifications, managed to insult all who comment from the online community by calling them insincere and not credible. If the online community is not worth bothering with, why do they have a feedback/comment function on their web site? Oh. I'm not a journalist, so I have no right to question Established Wisdom. But still...

The moral of this story? If you're a restaurant owner and victim of a strange and perhaps unjust review, just let it slide. The critic has the entire power of the press to attack you. He may not be especially fair about it, either. Your defense will probably be quixotic at best; remember that Most Chefs Are Not Writers, and you're probably no exception. You're going up against Dirty Harry with a pop-gun. Give up now, unless you consider that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Another moral would be as a reviewer and critic, wouldn't it be normal to expect scathing attacks (or counterattacks)? Isn't that part of the process of free speech? Shouldn't staying calm when people query your competence be part of your professional demeanor? Wouldn't the weapons of sharp wit and scintillating prose work better than anger and revenge, if those emotions were indeed present?

A third moral is that you apparently really don't need to know anything specialized to become a journalist in that field. One size fits all. Know the right people, get the job, eat some food, start writing. You're now an Expert Critic! No wonder people frequent all those public review sites - the public may have greater knowledge than the professionals in many cases!

This could have been less rancorous on both sides, but maybe that wasn't the intent. Maybe rancor means excitement. Excitement means sales. Sales mean staying employed in difficult times.


Note: Any remarkable resemblance between the people in the illustration and the real people I'm writing about is just proof that I'm psychic. I don't know what either of them looks like, except that they're both male. I think.

Come for the patio, stay for the food

Is this a great space, or what?

Crispy Barramundi

Journeyman's lunch

Bourbon Chocolate Cake

Sometimes a place just grabs you and pulls you in. I was minding my own business, when I happened to smell something enticing, and this after I'd finished a filling lunch. Then I saw the space: an open, modern patio with a linear concrete fountain, bocce court, fire pits and tables arranged around the perimeter. At the rear of the patio, a modern structure with floor to ceiling windows showcased the kitchen, its staff busy prepping dinner. The main restaurant building stood to the left, housing the wood-burning oven from whence emerged that enticing fragrance of woodsmoke.

Today, when the question of lunch came up, an image of this place appeared. Never refuse a vision, especially when it might lead to an interesting meal. I didn't even know the place's name. There was no sign on the building, anywhere - a true Restaurant X.

I was expecting something Italian, after seeing that Bocce court. So, when the menu arrived, it came with a side of cognitive dissonance. Duck confit? Crispy barramundi, chicken with polenta... wood-fired pizza... Yeah, it's Italian, but a bit French, with a good helping of contemporary American in there, too. And I now knew the place's name: Union on Yale. Hmm. I almost liked Restaurant X better.

With choices like that, choosing something would be difficult. Confit, flatiron steak, wood-fired grilled scallops... I chose the barramundi. My companions chose the journeyman and a turkey avocado bacon sandwich.

The barramundi was as described: a perfectly seasoned fillet, topped with crispy skin, lying on a bed of greens surrounded by bean-turnip purée. Simple, elegant and tasty.

I had no idea what a ploughman's was. I thought it was a kind of sandwich, but instead it was a mix of clams and mussels in a tomato sauce. I thought the sauce tasted more French than Italian, maybe built on a base of mirepoix and stock, without the Italian basil-oregano flavor profile. I managed to steal a spoonful for a taste, but I have expert testimony for the freshness of the seafood. At the end of the meal, nothing remained but the shells; no piece of toast, no sauce.

On the sandwich side, the turkey-avocado arrived amid a mass of golden brown potatoes. They looked like half-length julienne fries, until I tried one. Instead of solid slices of potato, they were somehow formed from a purée, light and airy but less substantial than strips carved intact from a mother spud. The sandwich lived up to the turkey moniker, but the avocado was more a thin green line spread onto the bread than the expected generous slice that would stand up and proclaim its identity as co-flavor. The sandwich worked, due in large part to the support of crispy bacon slices and the full flavor of the turkey breast, brined and roasted on the premises.

They only had one dessert. Chocolate bourbon cake. "How chocolate is it," I asked. "Very," the waitress replied. It was. Flourless, with a deep chocolate flavor and a bit of sour-sweet crunch thanks to a liberal sprinkling of translucent pomegranate seeds. All that work on plating, a beautiful, edible piece of art wiped out in a rush of spoons.

Wine - any wine - is currently $10 per glass. They're working on getting their cellar up and running, move on to sell bottles, but for now they're working it out. The current wine list may or may not work; some wines are still around, but others aren't, but they did have substitutes for what we wanted. They're still learning about flavor profiles, so hopefully by the time their wine cellar is stocked they'll have someone who knows them well.

If you're more the cocktail type, they do have a full bar. During our lunch, it seemed that margaritas were the thing to get.

You can eat, hang out or perhaps even play a game of bocce at Union On Yale at 232 Yale Ave in Claremont. Just look for the place with a great outdoor space, at least until they get their signs installed.

Thirty-three years of burritos

All that fancy gourmet stuff is fine, but sometimes you just have to go back to your roots, bathe your tongue in thirty year old memories, remember the times you spent in that very spot, and wonder what happened to the people you knew back when...

We'd stop by El Tepeyac on the way back from school in 1978. I'd just started college, and my friend Mike decided to give me a valuable education in burritos. We'd go in his beat-up gold Chevy Nova, its black cloth seats smelling of time in the sun, early morning fishing trips and stale tobacco smoke. We'd inch forward in line, awaiting our turn at the order window, then the pick-up window. With a shout of "Hollenbeck! Machaca!", our burritos were handed out, creaking on sagging cardboard trays, rapidly passed out the window in a frantic moment where the price of failure would be the splat of several pounds of burrito hitting the concrete. Balancing them as best we could, we'd return to our table to devour them in the reddish-gold light streaming through the colored glass of the patio. All this fit well within a student's budget at around four bucks per burrito.

Phil and I loved the Hollenbeck, even though it made his forehead drip sweat. Mike's favorite was the machaca burrito, from which he'd carefully remove every trace of green lest a fiery jalapeño leave him gasping. We even tried a Manuel's special, a sleeping bag sized invention of the restaurant's owner. Once. One burrito, three people. I think we might have even finished it. Maybe. Then there was the machaca burrito. Shredded beef, eggs, sautéed onions, cheese and chunks of those incandescent jalapeños, now bred out of existence.

My friend Mike is now departed, but Manuel is still at the door greeting people. There have been some changes at the restaurant, too. The menu is a bit longer, and the Hollenbeck burrito is available with chicken and asada along with the traditional pork. The Hollenbeck runs almost ten bucks, the machaca a bit more. The silly little pile of lettuce no longer comes with the Hollenbeck. The machaca burrito now adds rice and beans to its former meat, onions, egg, fresh jalapeños and cheese. Those screaming hot peppers are but a memory.

What's in a Hollenbeck? Mass, and lots of it. Take a tortilla big enough to cover your entire head and face. Throw in some slow-cooked chili verde pork, then some freshly made guacamole, some rice, some beans. Wrap everything up like a small pillow, then pour some tomato-chili sauce over the top and drop some more chunks of the pork on top. Serve steaming hot. Eat fast, before your stomach realizes what you're up to. Don't drink large amounts of fluid for at least an hour - your stomach needs to work uninterrupted.

As for the Manuel's Special, just imagine the Hollenbeck. Double it. No, bigger. Triple it. This burrito is indeed larger than the average human stomach. The last time we ate one, it took four people. Just seeing a burrito that large is something that should be on everyone's bucket list. Put it last on the list if you plan on eating the whole thing at one sitting.

When we go, we look at our shadows, reaching back thirty years across the worn concrete of the patio. We have wives, families, responsibilities, retirement. We talk about old friends who've disappeared from sight. Mammon is more likely to be the focus of conversation than Venus. We think of playing outside under the sun instead of on computers, talking instead of texting; of times when driving a car meant freedom instead of obligation.

We don't bring our wives. They don't approve of this kind of mass consumption.

El Tepeyac Cafe is so famous that I probably don't need to even list the address, but journalistic integrity requires that all the information be here: 812 North Evergreen Avenue, Los Angeles.

In through the Open Door

Do the words, "Berkshire Pork Fat Mochi" give you any instant cravings? Or do you wince in disgust, thinking that only a pork-addled fool would even consider ordering such a thing? I hope it's the latter, because that leaves more for me!

The pork fused with the mochi by some alchemical magic, creating a smoky, umami mouth bomb accented with confetti-like nori. That shishito is more for looks than heat, since this is December after all: the plants need heat for heat. Dribbled over and around this marshmallow-shaped ball of doctor-scorned wonder lies a light ochre sauce. Maybe it's miso based. Maybe not, but it's the grace note that really makes the dish happen. This is not a regular menu item, so if pork is your thing be sure to order some while you can.

The scene is the Open Door Restaurant, a tiny izakaya nugget encrusted in a thick vein of mini-mall. Their take on this cuisine is fusion French-Japanese-everything else. You might find bone marrow logs sliced down the center and roasted. Perhaps duck confit tacos. Maybe something involving foie gras, maybe paired with sea urchin. You never know, but the odds are that the dish will indeed work, no matter how strange it may seem.

Whatever isn't on the menu gets scrawled in multicolored chalk on a large blackboard. Right now, Christmas lights provide most of the illumination, so diners would cross the dark room, squinting, to find their amuse-guele nirvana. Like those pork fat mochi balls. Heaven.

Adventures with small plates is what this place is about. Go ahead, mix it up. Everything is à la carte. Take some risks. If you don't like something, odds are someone else at your table will. There are twists on Japanese street food. Truffle butter edamame, takoyaki, inari... but they're elevated to fine dining status by an inventive twist where a sauce drizzles in, an extra step is applied. Often they pair ingredients, juxtaposing something unknown to your typical Samurai with something his obaa-san would have served.

We typically start with our favorite sashimi, white fish yuzu. They don't specify the fish - a wise move allowing them to pick the freshest white fish for their menu without getting locked in to a particular variety. The plate is a simple fan of thinly sliced fish, dabbed with something green, drizzled with yuzu, accented with a shiso leaf and a pickled cherry. At least I think it's a cherry. It's red, sour, and has a pit.

Then something perhaps a bit bolder, building up to bigger flavors. Chawanmushi arrives in a heavy bowl heated hot enough to burn Asian symbols in your arm, the custard inside heaving like something from Yellowstone. Hints of fish and vegetables infuse the soft custard. Another bite, a piece of shrimp this time, another.... shiitake. Another? Nope. Empty.

More food arrives. Takoyaki: little balls of something resembling pancake batter, topped with a bit of sauce, bits of seafood inside. Spicy weiners, really spicy. Hotter than those shisitos. Then eggplant miso cools things down again with simple eggplant rounds tossed in some kind of miso-based sauce and sprinkled with roasted sesame seeds. Then the yaki onigiri, triangular rice balls, fried, sitting on a sheet of seaweed (nori), topped with ume (pickled plum), shredded salmon or nothing at all. Break off a piece of the rice, wrap it with nori and enjoy. Yes, you need to eat the nori or the thing will taste flat. Besides, nori is good for you.

They don't stop with the food, either. Japanese micro-brews? How about a beer made from rice, like a gently bubbling very light sake? It's here. If you can pronounce it, it's yours for the tasting: koshinikari echigo. Say it just like it's written and you'll do fine. Don't expect big, bold flavor. It's extremely subtle, light and ever so sake-like. Some fools have called it bland, but pair it with delicate food and you'll find that it's the perfect foil to something like sashimi where you don't want an Arrogant Bastard who will grab all the glory.

Or, if you'd like a white ale that's a bit more Belgian, just say Hitachino Nest White Ale, o kudasai. There's even a cute red owl on the label. Sugoi!

Yes, they have sake. Probably more kinds than the beer, so if sake adventure is your thing, you'll be happy. But you get more beer for your buck.

Service is very attentive, and they will happily tell you of their current favorite dishes. You could get a comment like, "not many people dare to order that." Don't worry - if you like the main ingredient, you'll probably love the dish. My wife still talks about that bone marrow log, months after the meal (it's off the menu now, alas).

They don't allow photos of their food. There's a big sign on the door, then a notice in bold on the menu. No photos of any kind, not even blurry low-light grainy out of focus horrors snapped by cell phones. I would think that photos posted all over the place would be free publicity, but since those photos rarely if ever look appetizing they may have a point. They didn't say anything about doing an illustration afterwards, so hopefully they won't send Hideo* after me for retribution.

The Open Door sits in the back corner of a mini-mall at Atlantic and Garvey in Monterey Park (on the southeast corner if you're approaching from the South on Atlantic). Their address is 122 South Atlantic Blvd, but that may not help much unless you're just using it to program your GPS.

* Neuromancer.

It's Greek, but not as you knew it

serious chops!

the moussaka

The Great Fry Mountain!

Greek food's on the foodie map. Hot new cookbooks, restaurants that move away from soggy gyro sandwiches into things you might really find in Greece. Variety, freshly prepared ingredients: fish, lamb, beef, chicken. Grilled, baked, braised. Time to find out what all the fuss is about.

The Los Angeles Times wandered into Orange County and found Kentro Greek Kitchen. I followed a few weeks later.

This restaurant is a bright, modern space painted black and white instead of the typical blue and white. You order at the counter, take a number and they bring your food. Like the space, the menu is no-nonsense. Simply grilled meats, copious sandwiches. Salads, including beet.  Appetizers, even charbroiled octopus. Greek wine, Greek beer, Greek coffee (more on that later).

Yes, they have pita bread sandwiches, in new guise. Gyro sandwiches are gone, replaced with charbroiled pork, roasted and pulled chicken, braised lamb. I didn't eat one, though.

I didn't eat the flatbread, either, kind of like Greek mini-pizzas with things like arugula, figs, honey (all on one pizza).

I did taste the faques soup - lentils, tomatoes, celery and carrots punctuate a light herbal tomato-based broth. The lentils support the overall flavor; they're not the central focus here, so you get a progression of flavors as each vegetable gives a nod as it passes.

The loukaniko sausage - available as an appetizer or on a flatbread - comes sliced on a platter, grill smoke mixing with the meat and herbs for a savory bite just waiting for a dip into some fresh tzatziki sauce. The mezzedaki (appetizer) plate adds kefalotiri cheese and a couple of lamb chops. And that wonderful, tangy dill-infused creamy tzatziki sauce.

I suppose they'd lose their Greek cred if they skipped the moussaka. You can lose the gyros, but axe this dish and Helen of Troy will roll in her grave. This version is lighter, airier than most. Its flavors mingle, yet remain distinct without collapsing into a dense mass in the oven. It builds on thinly sliced potatoes on the bottom, adds eggplant and tomato sauce, then a thin layer of béchamel over the top. You can pick and choose between layers. You can have one bite dominated by eggplant and tomato; the next thinly sliced potatoes lightly graced with the béchamel. Or, you can try to smash three inches of moussaka layers into one all-encompasing mouthful and hope for the best.

I didn't go there. It wasn't my moussaka, and a containment failure would be embarrassing, to say the least.

My choice was lamb chops. They arrived in a generous pile, nestled next to a virtual mountain of fries, accented with a dollop of that luscious tzatziki. Ah, that was a marriage made in heaven: bistro-style fries flavored with kefalotiri cheese, dipped in olive oil infused yogurt tzatziki with its hints of dill and cucumber. Then a bite of the lamb, rubbed briefly in that sauce so its rich herbal flavor could counterpart the acidity of the sauce. Then a sip of Amethystos red wine.

They were out of galaktobouriko. Wait. No, we were in luck, a fresh batch was just coming out of the oven. Dessert would make an appearance after all. After allowing fifteen minutes for the dessert to cool, it arrived at our table. Flaky phyllo over yellowish custard, with not-so-flaky phyllo on the bottom that worked hard to prevent cutting the dessert. Despite the bottom phyllo layer, the dessert was a success due to the great job they did on the custard. Again, light and well-seasoned.

The final dot at the end of the meal was the coffee, Greek style. Elleniko, to be exact. Kind of redundant, like Greek Greek coffee. Interesting. Like espresso with sugar, but made differently. Somehow the grounds, a bit of sugar and water are combined in some brewing device, heated in a manner involving a bubble, then served in a small cup, like espresso. Except for the flavor, and the quarter inch of coffee grounds in the bottom of the cup. Brewing coffee this way really changes the flavor profile, not at all like adding sugar to already-brewed American coffee. Kind of a surprise on the first sip, then a bit of doubt: "do I like this". Another sip. Well... Another sip. Yeah, I think I could get used to this stuff.

There are still a lot of things waiting for me on the menu, calling my name in seductive Helen-like voices. Flat breads, octopus, dolmades, spanakopita, grilled fish with dandelion greens...

It's really too bad stomachs don't hold more food.

Kentro lives in a kind of "restaurant mall". Parking is strange - the closer you park to the restaurant, the less time you can stay in the space. Not a problem if you don't mind walking across a parking lot as a price you pay to enjoy a more leisurely meal. They're at 100 South Harbor Boulevard  in Fullerton. If you're coming from the 91 freeway up Harbor, turn before your GPS tells you that you've arrived. If you go straight, you'll miss the parking lot and have to circle around. The Amtrak station is across the lot from the restaurant, so you could even arrive in style by train.

Banh Mi!

It was a long, hungry drive from Sacramento to L.A. Although it's great getting here early, it also means no In-N-Out stop for lunch, since they don't open until 10:30 am. Nobody would likely call glass of orange juice and a banana hearty fare for the road, healthy as it may be.

So, upon arrival I headed to Banh Mi My Tho in Alhambra for a very tasty grilled pork sandwich. In case you've never heard of them, banh mi are a Vietnamese-French hybrid sandwich: French baguette, Vietnamese grilled pork, fresh hot chili slices, cilantro, shredded carrots, green onions, cucumber, vinaigrette. They're a great deal - a sandwich maybe six inches long won't even cost you three bucks.

These guys make the sandwich to order while you wait in a crowded, tiny market-like space, surrounded by Asian language newspapers, a large refrigerator full of all kinds of drinks, packaged foods, a display case full of egg rolls and some kind of meatballs, and other people waiting for their orders.

There's nowhere to eat inside, although there is a bench outside, more for waiting than eating, I'd guess. So, away we went, a sack full of sandwiches in hand.

After starving half a day, I grabbed my sandwich at the first red light and took a bite. The baguette crunched, yielding to softer dough, then the chewier meat and fluffy veggies. I took another bite, as the banh mi's mix of sweet-sour and savory flavors filled my mouth. Hunger began to abate. Another bite - this time with a big hit of fresh chili flavor, then feel the burn. Then cilantro... A very interesting sandwich and a great way rescue myself from the clutches of road trip hunger.

In case you're in the area with some cash money (they don't do plastic) you can visit Banh Mi My Tho at 304 W Valley Blvd in Alhambra.

How to amortize a deep fryer and make some pizzas in the process

We backed out of the driveway. The button pressed, the garage door lowered. What is that? Some jerk had stuck an advertisement on our garage door. There must be some school of marketing that says obnoxiously sticking ads on people's garage doors is more effective than simply stuffing mailboxes. Now I have to get out of the car, rip the thing off the door, and dispose of it properly.

What kind of jerk would do this kind of thing? A pizza place, strangely enough. Looking at the ad, this place looks like they have a big freezer full of ready to cook kibble, a deep fryer and a pizza oven.

They have eleven "delicious appetizers" on their menu. Seven look like things that come in bags, get dumped into the deep fryer and served. The others look like they come in bags, get stuffed into the pizza oven and served. But I could be wrong. Some could come in a box instead of a bag.

They have cinnamon rolls, too. They don't look appetizing in the ad, and even though they're easy to make, my psychic powers tell me these aren't made in house (although my powers been known to be wrong from time to time in the past).

They have ten pizzas on their flyer. No mention of fresh ingredients, home made dough or other words that indicate quality. Lots of low prices, though. Their pies are pretty much the usual gang of suspects, only heavy on the chicken, with four bird-based pies. There's a Hawaiian 'za, presumably "delux" because it has both Canadian and regular bacon - but thankfully no chicken.

One or two have ground beef. Why? Do I ask for pepperoni, mozzarella and tomato sauce on my hamburger? No! It's even combined with sausage, basically ground pork with spices. So, ground beef plus spiced ground pork but still sort of separate. Why not just make meat balls out of the beef, slice them, and keep things Italian?

Call me opinionated, but there are only a few kinds of meat that belong on a pizza: pancetta, prosciutto, pepperoni and sausage. If we expand the term to mean "animal protein" then I'd add shrimp, mussels, anchovies and maybe even oysters (imagine parsley, cream sauce, chives, oysters, garlic, chili flakes, lemon zest and you'll get the picture... damn. Now I'll have to make this and see how it turns out). Probably not mainstream enough for Main Street USA. But ground beef and Canadian bacon don't add much flavor, especially when overpowered by spicy things like pepperoni, sausage and linguiça.

Linguiça? No, that really shouldn't be there. I love linguiça, but it's really something that should be grilled so that the grease can run out of it and go away instead of running all over a pizza. Think next morning here. Congealed white fat mixed with tomato sauce. Breakfast, cold? I think not.

Two garlic-based pies, a strange thing if you stop to consider that garlic is normally a flavor enhancer and not the star ingredient. Unless you drizzle some olive oil over a bulb, add salt and pepper and bake it slowly until the garlic is meltingly soft and mellow. Not likely to happen in a 600° pizza oven in ten minutes or less.

Wisely, no eggplant on their vegetarian pizza. Eggplant pizza is usually a disaster. Eggplant doesn't cook in ten minutes, even in a Vesuvius-hot oven. It needs time, preferably spent in hot oil. If you do that first step, it works fine on a pizza.

One pizza lists salt as a topping. Salt? Why not list all the other stuff, too? Like oregano, pepper, chili flakes... you could probably top out with fifteen more ingredients that way. Like there's no salt in the meat pizza, loaded with cured meats, each packing a hefty dose of NaCl?

Since when is salt a pizza topping? Bet you'll never see this on a menu: Five salt pizza, featuring French gray sea salt, Himalayan pink salt, Hawaiian black and red salt and my personal favorite, Spanish smoked sea salt. Also features tomato sauce, onions, potatoes, egg and anything else I can think of to mellow out that dose of salt. They could call it the Medusa because if you eat enough of it parts of you could very well turn to stone.

They have four almost identical photos describing their salads. All look like they came in a bag, à la Trader Joe's. In fact, the toppings on the pizzas all look like they came in bags.Uniform cut, sprinkled uniformly over the tops of the pies. Artists, they're not.

They say their pizzas are hand tossed. They also say they're gourmet, but until someone puts gormeh sabzee on a pizza I'll just consider that a hollow marketing term. (yes, that was an Iranian food joke. Feel free to laugh or not, as you please). The real question is why bother to hand toss a pizza if the ingredients really fell pre-cut from a frosty bag delivered in bulk from some wholesaler? Maybe they take a pre-formed, frozen crust and toss it like a Frisbee. Would that qualify as "tossed"?

Could they actually make their own dough, in house, shape it and adorn it with wholesome locally grown produce, artisan meats and natural cheeses? It certainly does not look this way in their ad. Sticking the thing on everyone's garage door definitely does not make me think they're a class outfit that cares about quality. More like a pizza mill that buys in 95% of everything they sell pre-made, so some uncaring pimply-faced minimum wage slave can put it together without ever pondering what would happen if they made a real effort to create wondrous pies to the delight of all.

So, here's the Big Question: does buying in 90% of what goes out the door, presumably at the lowest possible cost, truly maximize your profit margin, more than if you created everything fresh, from scratch, with love, striving to bring forth unique pizza variations that could draw the faithful from miles around (or let's face it, fail due to it's nonconformity but live on forever in your die-hard fans' memory)? Does serving something that everyone familiar with the cuisine in question has seen dozens of times ensure your profitability? Or does it cause your establishment to fade into the background of "me-too's" and disappear? I guess I'll find out if no more ads appear stuck to my garage door.

Lunch at the Crocker Art Museum

Real food bloggers obsessively haul their cameras around, snapping typically washed-out, poorly focused images of whatever sits on their table. I happen to think this is going too far, and refuse to transform a convivial table into a food porn stage. Besides, sketches are more fun since I can alter reality a bit. Put the soup next to the burger when they arrived sequentially. Add art where there was none. Remove the other diners. Change the burgundy blend wine into a rosé that they didn't have.

I'd heard about the burgers, made from high quality beef, prepared under the watchful eye of someone from Mulvaney's, their buns a perfect balance of sponginess and structure. The meat beefy and succulent; the sauce dripping with blue cheese with a few strips of smoky bacon appearing randomly as the burger is devoured. The fries, recently whole fresh potatoes, now succulent and crispy.

The truth is, the burger was well executed. The rather sparse bacon hid like a shy pig, then resisted being bitten through. The meat and cheese played well together atop fresh leaves of lettuce. The bun indeed held it all together without being tough or disintegrating into sauce-laden stain bombs. So, despite the light bacon dose, one of Sacramento's better burgers.

The fries were more of a mystery. Although sculpted from fresh potatoes, flavorful and fresh, they lacked crunch. They lay on the plate, golden yet limp and relaxed, yielding to the teeth without that all so important initial crunch. Were they not pre-soaked to reduce their starch content? Were they fried in a single dipping instead of having a rest between dunkings? My friend asked if I was going to inspect the kitchen, but I resisted. Sometimes ignorance is, if not bliss, at least more conducive to an enjoyable lunch with friends than on the spot investigation of arcane french fry gastronomy.

Today's soups were sausage and gazpacho. I happen to love gazpacho, but initially received the sausage instead. It smelled wonderful, but back it went. Summer calls for at least one cup of gazpacho, when all its ingredients are at their peak. It arrived with a flourish. Mellow red, cool as a cucumber with a bit of spice coming in like castanets in a flamenco serenade, it soothed yet stimulated as tomato tangoed with cucumber, garlic and chili heat.

Overall, the prices were reasonable, considering that the cafe is located in an art museum - a locale known more for high prices and mediocre food. The burgers cost about what they'd run in a more upscale burger joint. There were some quirks, like one diner receiving about half the portion of fries as the others - but overall the service was prompt and professional. The high point was the gazpacho, not by any lack in the burger, but because it's not something I eat often and this version was done quite well.

Marché Moderne, Costa Mesa

When they told me that the restaurant is in the Penthouse, I imagined a spacious entry filled with voluptuous leather armchairs filled with scantily clad yet fashionable women hobnobbing with someone with a strong resemblance to Hugh Hefner. Getting there did nothing to reduce this feeling, since the place is located in the billionaire wing of South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. Almost all the stores are French, although nobody working in them is.

Instead, it just looked like the typical upscale restaurant. Hostess at the front, bar along the right side, open kitchen in the back separated from the main dining area by a low wall. A patio garden through the back doors. No high level interior design anywhere evident. The thing that struck me was how un-bistro like the place looked. Are we in a steakhouse or...? Is this truly the home of what some critics are calling the best French bistro food in Southern California, perhaps the entire state?

Some people equate French food (and the French in general) with snobbishness. Although it's totally untrue in France it seems to be a pernicious evil here in California at least as far as French restaurants go. In France, if you're willing to adventure into the food, fall backwards into the arms of the chef and let his food carry you like the crowd in a rock concert, you'll be fine and will likely be treated more than well. Our first impression was an unsmiling hostess who made every effort to avoid eye contact, as though we were some sort of soul stealing gypsies instead of simple voyagers in search of a great meal. She led us past the open kitchen where people were plating in front and cooking behind, with a glowing wood-burning oven taking center stage. Our table sat in the garden area, served by a waiter whose job was to keep forty people happy, an amazing feat of front house juggling if there ever was one.

After being seated, we noticed that the menus, housed in not especially hygenic looking holders, were placed directly on our clean napkins. So, a potential smorgasbord of microbes was sitting there, atop a formerly pristine napkin, just to achieve an effect of what? Adventure mixed with anxiety perhaps? Why not just lay the day's menu on top of the napkin without the unwashed, padded holder? We looked at each other, thinking the same thought: is this the microbe du jour?

Eventually, the waiter managed to stop by our table and answer some questions. At this point, I was already thinking that the back of the house would have to carry the day. Luckily, the waiter was well informed and able to guide us in our selections.

Two of us chose the prix fixe menu du jour: an emulsified salad mixing greens and fruit heavily laced with tarragon. One of us skipped the first course, instead opting to take occasional stabs at my charcuterie plate: rilletes, country style paté, dry salami, Spanish style chorizo, prosciutto. The rillettes were ground silky smooth, not the more chunky rendition typical of France. Kind of like a porky foie gras, but without so much four spice. The best item was the country style paté; enough texture for a good mouthfeel, rich with flavors that evolved on the palate.

Since the wines were more on the pricy side of things than not, we opted for a Cremant d'Alsace. If you're going to pay for a decent wine and you're celebrating, might as well go with something bubbly that will complement most dishes.

Our main courses would be fish with a curry sauce, scallops in black butter, duck breast with a gastrique sauce and a tagine with preserved lemons, merguez sausage, mint, crème fraîche shrimp and couscous. The duck breast was served with fresh morel mushrooms, baby turnips and spring onions, all coated in a gastrique sauce to perk things up a bit. The scallops came with sautéd brussel sprout leaves, the nuttiness of the sprouts playing a counterpoint to the richer beurre noire coating the seafood. The white fish with curry was, well, forgettable. Just white protein from the sea lacking any of its own assertiveness or flavor, carrying the curry sauce yet not taking part in the melody. The tagine brought different flavors with virtually every bite, since you could opt in or out of the mint sauce, spear a shrimp or a piece of merguez, perhaps rub in a bit of preserved lemon...

As the meal progressed, we chatted more and more with our waiter. As it turned out, he was from Durango. Not the ordinary place in Colorado, but the Durango near Copper River Canyon in Mexico. It turned out that the staff was mostly Spanish speaking, although the chef/owners are indeed French. It's always fun to go to a French restaurant and speak Spanish with foodies from far away lands. We also talked about restaurants in D.F. (a.k.a. Mexico City) and current trends in Mexican cuisine in Mexico.

The fancy, main menu desserts were an apple tart, thin-sliced apples served on crispy puff pastry, painted with a translucent glaze and something like a chocolate lava bomb. It arrived looking like a simple cocoa colored cylinder. When cut, flowing chocolate pahoehoe spreads onto the plate, solidifying as it cools. The prix fixe desserts were... I forgot to note them since they just couldn't hold a candle to the lava bomb or the apple tarte.

As we left, the chef-owner arrived. We ended up chatting a bit in French - he's from Fontainebleau, not far from where my brother in law used to live. A genuine French chef! So, a trilingual lunch that mixed the cuisines of France, Morocco (the tagine), Spain (the chorizo) and India (the curry). Fun.

Overall, it was an interesting meal, and worth the money. Any meal where I come away with at least three ideas is educational money well spent, and at the rate tuition is increasing in the community college, more and more a bargain. I've already used the salad dressing and gastrique, albeit in modified forms to work in different menus.