Pasadena PinotFest Returns Feb 9

The Pasadena PinotFest Grand Tasting returns on Saturday, February 9 to the Altadena Country Club (preceded  by a kickoff tasting and kickoff dinner at Noir the weeks before). The event runs from 1-4:30PM with over 200 pinot noir wines, food, and live jazz. Tickets are $89 for general admission and $119 for VIP tasting (starts at 11AM), with portions of the proceeds benefiting Hathaway Sycamores Child & Family Services.

Last year's tasting featured a lot of wineries from nearby Santa Barbara County like Hitching Post, Brewer-Clifton, La Fenetre Winery and many more.

The Altadena Country Club is a beautiful space for the wine tasting, with wonderful views, although the tasting room can get pretty crowded as the event goes on.

Joshua Klapper from La Fenetre Winery

I found a couple of new wines (new to me) that I enjoyed, including Sojourn from Sonoma Coast, who provided a great vertical tasting. There will be quite a few vertical tastings at the grand tasting, which is really the best way to taste what a winery has to offer.

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Doma (Beverly Hills)

The owner of Dan Tana has branched out of the old school Italian with Doma, a modern Mediterranean Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills. It's a casual but elegant space with a focus on seafood. The chef, Dustin Trani, grew up working in his family seafood restaurant, J. Trani's in San Pedro. He has also trained in Europe and worked in Thailand, and he brings these influences into his menu.

I got to the restaurant too early for my media dinner, so I sat at the bar and chatted with the bartender. The cocktail menu during the opening was simple, but he said that they will soon be expanding the menu to include more complex drinks including a barrel aged Negroski (Cynar, Campari, basil infused vodka).

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He let me take a peek at the upcoming menu, which was definitely a lot more interesting than the opening menu. I ordered the Mexican Grill which was mezcal, Chartreuse, and peppers. Spicy and smoky!

After everyone else arrived, we sat down for an extensive tasting that started with some fresh Japanese hamachi sashimi, ginger soy, ponzu caviar, carrot, cucumber, scallion, sesame tuile ($18, the portion shown is for a tasting, probably not the full portion)

The ponzu "caviar" is a fun touch here

I won't show you everything I ate that night, but here are some of the many many highlights:

Local crispy calamari and rock shrimp, sweet and spicy Thai aioli, balsamic reduction, micro herb, $16)

This is an example of how Dustin's training in Thailand his dishes. The spicy aioli is a nice and unique departure from the usual tomato based sauce.

Baked eggplant and ricotta involtini (grilled eggplant, filled with ricotta and basil, baked over tomato sauce, $12)

A lighter counterpart of the eggplant parmigiana, this is a simple and comforting dish.

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8 Flavors of Pork Belly at Palsaik BBQ in Koreatown (Los Angeles, CA)

I was recently involved with a project to review a few Korean restaurants in Los Angeles, and one of my assignment was Palsaik Samgyupsal Korean BBQ. I was pretty excited since I had never been to this restaurant which boasts eight flavors of pork belly. The set menu with the 8 pork belly and stew ("Palsaik Set Menu") was $49.95. I asked around as to how many people the set would feed and got answers ranging from "two, but when you get to the rice you won't be able to taste anything" to four, so I settled at three, which seems to have been the perfect number.

Compared to other Korean BBQ places, Palsaik is decidedly more modern looking and cleaner (though the service wasn't any better)

The presentation was also quite impressive. A long wooden board held eight plates of the pork and underneath each one the flavor was printed: Wine, Original, Ginseng, Garlic, Herb, Curry, Miso Paste, and Red Pepper Paste.

On the wall they also display the "health benefits" of each flavor, which I thought was pretty funny ... I mean, we're eating eight slices of fatty pork belly here! I don't think the "benefits" of the red wine marinade would really cancel out the effects on your blood vessels.

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Playing with DRY Soda Cocktails at Sadie

DRY Soda is a Seattle based company that produces colorless sodas with less sugar and great flavors like lavender, rhubarb, blood orange, and the like. While originally they were made to be drank straight from the bottle, they soon realized that bartenders like to use them as mixers, and they jumped on the opportunity.

The DRY Soda Co. owner then traveled to Los Angeles and held a cocktail pairing dinner at Sadie in Hollywood, where the main barman Giovanni Martinez created four cocktails made with DRY Soda.

Our welcome drink was a refreshing, lower alcohol cocktail, Rue and Barb made with strawberry, lillet rose, lemon, DRY rhubarb soda

The drink was paired with watermelon, grilled romaine, blood orange vinaigrette

Our second drink was the aromatic Lavande, made with scotch, honey, lemon, Lavender DRY soda, light absinthe spray. This was my second favorite cocktail of the night. The lavender soda works well and did not become overpowered with the strong scotch and absinthe components.

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A Tripel Tasting and Brewing Workshop at Wurstkuche Venice (LA Beer Week)

Tripel is perhaps my favorite style of ales, so when I had my choice of beer making workshops at the Wurstkuche in Venice during LA Beer Week, the choice was easy. They don't regularly do this but they had set up their small outdoor area in the back for the events.

The workshop also consisted of tasting a few Tripels (because why would you make beer while sober, right??)

We started off with the Westmalle Tripel, which was also the recipe we based one of our own brew of.

The Westmalle originally started in the 30s, and the monks took it over in the 50s. Westmalle is a classic, the original Tripel, so to speak. The number "dubbel" or "triple" refers to the number of fermentations the ales go through.

So, back to the homebrewing course. The first step is to steep the barley.

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Cognac Double Decker Bus Tour (Portland Cocktail Week)

Happy New Year everyone! 'Tis time for me to try and catch up on so many old posts, including ones from Portland Cocktail Week.

My favorite part of Portland Cocktail Week was the Cognac double decker bus tour, where a bright red double decker picked us up at the hotel and took us to three bars to sip cognac cocktails and had some great bites to eat.

Our first stop was Imperial, one of Chef Vitaly Paley's new restaurant with Brandon Wise as the bar manager.

We had Vieux Carre on tap and tasted an amazing hickory infused vermouth which really showed off the bar's strength.

platters of charcuterie to accmpany our Vieux Carre

Our next stop is Central, on Southwest Ankeny Street

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Willows Inn (Lummi Island, WA): An Unforgettable Experience

My favorite meal in 2012? Easy. Willows Inn at Lummi Island is a small inn on a small island in Washington, with a restaurant helmed by Chef Blaine Wetzel, a young native of the area who had worked at Noma (you know, the world's best restaurant). When they talk about local ingredients, they really mean it. It isn't just produce from the state, but really local. Chef Wetzel forages around the island. A lot of the fish used are caught in the waters around the island, just five minutes from the restaurant.

Willows Inn is a 2-hour drive from Seattle plus a 10 minute ferry ride, and it's not only worth it but the journey adds to the experience.

There's only one seating every night which is at 6:30. The ferry only runs every hour and we didn't want to be late, so we took the 5PM ferry and ended up with time on our hands when we got to Willows Inn. Time to sit on the patio staring into the sunset while sipping cocktails. The cocktails here had quite a few interesting ingredients. I loved the Pacific Gin Fizz (gin, wild pineapple weed, egg white - $14)

What is wild pineapple weed, you ask? I didn't know it then but apparently it's wild chamomile. Whatever it was, it was my favorite out of the cocktails we tried. We also had time to peek into the kitchen as they were prepping.

Finally we got called and seated in the small dining room.

The dinner is "five courses" with a lot of "snacks", which meant way more food than five courses. Our meal started with a small wooden box.

As you open the treasure box: a whiff of smoke, and baked sunflower root

Next is a Crispy crepe with salmon roe, sandwiched between green onions. The crepe was a thin crisped salmon that held everything in a perfect bite-sized morsel.

Pickled oyster with sorrel was beautifully presented on a bowl of rocks

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The New Year's Eve List List

I'd do a list of New Year's Eve dinners but other people have done a good job of it, but if you're still looking for options, here are some nice lists that other people have put together. Well, OK, I added a few of my own ...

For dinners, LA Magazine has 37 great options for a range of budgets.

Eater LA also just came out with a "complete" (maybe not, but definitely large) list of NYE dinners. PS. I was told that Slater's 50/50 had cancelled their NYE trivia plans though, so might want to double check that one.

Don't forget Open Table's list of their participating restaurants, plus with this you can find out which is still available. I'm eyeing n/naka's Japanese celebration with lobster, white truffles and wagyu beef. Now, where did I put that $200 ...?

Or if you're totally broke from Christmas shopping, Tom Bergin's is doing their Tuesday at Tom's special on NYE! Chicken Fried Steak with dessert is just $15 plus oatmeal stout for $4.

I don't really do clubs and parties so I'll direct you to HuffPo for that list.
I hate these slideshow type "articles" though, so I'll just tell you the what caught my eye was the party at The Edison and the Spanish Masquerade at The Bazaar.

Where LA also had a very comprehensive list from parties and balls to dinners.

Sassafras is also having a party with open bar for $70.

If you're looking for a show rather than just dinner, I'm personally curious about the Intimate Illusions magic show with Ivan Amodei (the 10pm show is sold out but 7pm is still available), or this Lucent Dossier party.  El Cid is also having a flamenco dinner show for $45 ($65 late seating)

Tasting Ora King New Zealand King Salmon at Nobu

There's a new salmon player in the US and it's called Ora King. They culture sustainable king salmon in New Zealand in 5 sea farms and hatcheries in Marlborough Sounds. Supposedly it's the longest and most sophisticated selective breeding program in the world (they've been breeding since 1994), with every fish individually tagged by hand and tracked (that's over 200,000 fish) so that they can control in-breeding.

Ora King's salmon goes from harvest to airplanes within 12 hours and a few of restaurants in Los Angeles have started carrying them, including Nobu and Craft. I was invited to a tasting at Nobu of appetizers and sushi made with Ora King salmon. With the eating local movement going on, the question is: is the taste of Ora King salmon worth the miles traveled from New Zealand? The answer is yes!

At Nobu, we tried different preparations of the Ora King salmon. The most representative of the texture and flavor is certainly the sushi and sashimi, and I think I had seven pieces of sushi that night ...

Ora King salmon has a rich flavor and a wonderful firm, oily texture.

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The Ultimate Roast Pork Sandwich at Paseo (Seattle, WA)

Before we went to Seattle, we did quite a bit of research on where to go eat, but of course there are still a few places that the locals love and we don't know about. Lucky for us, the chef at Mistral Kitchen was a Seattle native (who worked in Long Beach prior to Mistral Kitchen) told us about the place he takes every visitor to: Paseo Caribbean. So, the next afternoon, we searched for the tiny shack that is Paseo (well, they actually have a couple of locations, we went for the closest to us on Fremont).

There was no big sign, but we could just tell that the little red shack with the line outside the door was the place.

We were told to get the #2 sandwich here, which was also starred on the menu with the note "Most Popular" next to it. It's this succulent, slow roasted pork shoulder in their special "Paseo" marinade on toasted baguette with cilantro, caramelized onions, pickled jalapenos, romaine lettuce. It's this amazing, amazing sandwich.

The $8.50 sandwich was huge, but at the end we all regretted sharing, just a little ... even if we have another lunch stop coming at Shuckers. (As an aside, the plastic Chinese plates and bowls are pretty funny..)

We're so glad to have found out about Paseo right before we had to go back to LA. I'm definitely coming back here next time I go to Seattle! This one's a must visit.

Paseo 
4225 Fremont Ave N
Seattle, WA 98103
(206) 545-7440
 

Hands On Tamale Making Class at Ortega 120 (Redondo Beach)

I LOVE tamales but I have a hard time to find ones that are just right for me. I want them filled with things I like, for example I'm always looking for a blue corn tamale but the ones here are usually only filled with cheese. So, when Ortega 120 offered me to attend one of their tamale making class, I thought it sounded fun. The tamale class is only held in December since tamales are apparently a holiday tradition. The chef said that his family would always say that way you will always have something to unwrap for Christmas!

The hands-on tamale class was completely full (and they were all women, which was kind of expected)

The $40 class also includes a glass of their house margarita and food 

Ortega has their own masa, made with Canola oil so it's healthier but still moist. You can buy their masa to go at the restaurant, or you can also buy traditional masa at Mexican bakeries. They had prepared the masa for us and the filling which included chicken and beef tinga, chili and cheese. They provided the recipes for these fillings, but during the class all we had to do was assemble them.

Spreading the masa on the corn husk was harder than I expected at first, since you don't want it to be too thick, though eventually I got used to it.

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Gourmet Three Course Meals, In Your Freezer

What's for dinner at home? Caramelized pork belly with steamed kale. Think I made it from scratch? Nope. This was frozen and delivered, by Pop Up Pantry.

There are many meal delivery services in Los Angeles, but for the most part they are too health focused (and healthy tasting ..) and expensive! Pop Up Pantry is neither. These are gourmet three-course meals, pre-prepared and shipped to you frozen for as little as $17.50 per person.

You order your meals and the date you want them delivered, and it will be shipped in a box via FedEx (they note that you have to freeze them by 8pm that day). Oh, and the good thing about using FedEx? You don't have to live in LA to order these, unlike the other meal delivery services! You can live in the middle of nowhere and still get them.

Inside the insulated box will be these frozen pouches of the prepared food.

Preparing them for the most part is easy. Most of them you just boil in water, or stick them in the oven for 30 minutes (your meals will come with detailed instructions, don't worry).

I tried out the Master Chef dinner, which was the two dinners created during the last Master Chef's finals between Christine Ha and Josh Marks.

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