Plain Old Wednesday Turns Into Ice Cream Shangri-La

[Reader note: One of my classes this semester is a Social Media Lab. We blog for class, and this is my first class post. It's still about the best topic ever (um, food) so belongs here too! More to come through the spring...]

It was a plain old, regular Wednesday when a very special Tasting Table: LA email arrived about Carmela Ice Cream, a company known for selling organic ice cream only at local farmer’s markets. The news? They opened a store! I’d heard of this elusive ice cream, but I’m the type that goes to IKEA over a garage sale because I don’t want to hunt for the things on my list, I just want to buy them! The company website listed retail locations for a quick pint pick-up, though why do that when you can simply visit their week-old “artisan creamery” in Pasadena?? Life on Wednesday suddenly brightened, so I sent a friend the news and she replied, “Wanna go tonight?” We calculated the timing—it was more Sierra Madre than Pasadena—and as they were only open until 8:00 p.m., any thoughts of dinner would have to wait until after our ice cream appetizer.

Aloha! Hawaii Food Adventure

Aloha!

So here I am, back from my first visit to Hawaii & posting my first blog entry in five months (!). All that writing for school in an enforced "less casual way" hopefully didn't supplant my blog voice, at least not in the long term. We shall see :)

School starts up again in a few days, so let's get crackin'. First up, a quiz question:

Which of the following three things did I NOT eat in Hawaii:

A. Crab

B. Pineapple

C. SPAM

Hint: One of these things I didn't eat at all, and the other things I ate twice. What is your guess? The answer will be revealed as you read of my various food finds on the islands of Oahu and Big:

Coffee – Trying Kona coffee was big on my list, and there were two general kinds: 100% Kona and 10% Kona. The cheaper kind is what many restaurants serve. Hey why not, it’s cheaper. The best Kona I experienced then, the 100% kind, was from the local swanky coffee shop Island Vintage Coffee. That Kona sang in a smooth, lusty baritone. The town of Kona is on the Big Island, and the town of Hilo is too. I visited Hilo yet found no Kona for sale. However, a person on my island tour received a gift of Hilo coffee from the Hilo Coffee Mill, and the smell emanating from those coffee bags hinted at the glories of coffee dreams. Sadly there was none for sale at the airport, but thankfully they do mail order.

Croissants – Ok sure, this is not an item indigenous to Hawaii. But, the croissant I had with my Island Vintage Kona coffee was 20x better than the "you-claim-this-is-a-croissant" croissant I get once a week in Los Angeles at Starbucks (their croissant is the only pastry they sell without sugar painted all over it). Dear Los Angeles, you are closer in distance to France than Hawaii. Maybe you should visit Hawaii to learn a thing or two about making good croissants. Thanks for listening.

McDonald’s!

As you may know, whenever I visit a new town/city/country I always check out the McDonald’s to see what's unique. In Hawaii there were two such things:

1. The haupia pie is a standard hot pie like our apple and cherry, filled instead with a coconut-style cream. Interestingly, the flavor wasn’t very coconutty. Who cares though, it was pretty addictive, like a faintly tropical white pudding fried pie and I meant to stop eating halfway in but before you know it, all gone.

2. I never made it to the second unique thing. That would be their kind of "big breakfast." They replace the standard starches of English muffin, pancakes and/or hash browns with white rice (the starring starch of a Hawaiian "plate lunch"), then add scrambled eggs and either SPAM, Portuguese sausage or a combo of both. I did have a Portuguese sausage with egg and rice at this Zippy’s chain on the way to the airport. It was fine except I couldn't eat all the sausage: too many fat pieces in it (on purpose). As for SPAM, you’ll soon see I did experience that a few times during the trip...just not at McD’s.

Longans – After my tour group left the top of a live volcano (with real magma flowing in the distance!), our tour guide passed around a bag of “dragon eyes,” or longans. This translucent golf ball-sized fruit contains a lone black seed in the middle about the size of, um, a pupil actually, so the fruit in its entirety does kind of look like an eyeball. You eat them by lightly breaking the thin beige skin with your teeth, peeling off the skin, and popping the fruit into your mouth (just don't eat the pit). The fruit felt like eating a litchi/cherry combo, just without any extreme sweet or tart flavor. Or it was like eating a more exciting green grape.

Coconut Wine – This is something I saw in shops but didn't try and have no regrets! Would you try something so scary sounding for $20? I tried to taste it in my imagination and that's all it took for my superego to say no (thanks for watching my back, SE). Here's my thinking: besides a cost to my palate, the coconut "wine" would really cost $45 to purchase... $20 for the wine and an additional $25 for the bag check to fly it home for sharing. By the way, a recent Tweet on the subject said: “I can't commit to it but I'm relatively sure this Royal Chief Coconut Wine is the worst wine I've ever tasted.” All right!

Pineapple – This is the answer to the quiz question: I did not eat any pineapple in Hawaii. Why? It was never really offered. But wait, didn’t I visit the Dole Plantation? Why yes I did. The tour guide told us they don’t really grow pineapples much these days (thanks South America). If I’d wanted some pineapple—besides buying the cute Hello Kitty pineapple marshmallows which I didn't buy because I really only do marshmallows in S'mores—all I had to do during my 30-minute Dole tour stop was wait in a very long line and get me some Dole Whip, a.k.a. pineapple soft-serve ice cream. Ha to THAT! If I want to stand in a line for my Dole Whip then I’ll just go to Disneyland and stand in line there, as I have done many, many times. It's my favorite way to eat pineapple.

Crab – I ate crab on two occasions, but both were at chain restaurants. So as not to be judged by readers, I will only say that the crab was decent but not on par with crab enjoyed at other places, i.e., at a certain wonderful seafood place on a dock in San Francisco.

So yes, Hawaii does serve crab but from my recent experience best to stick with its local specialties, like…

The Loco Moco – This is an island favorite of a burger patty on rice topped with gravy and an egg. It was touted as a true national dish of Hawaii, sort of like the “plate lunch.” Ok, the plate lunch is some kind of fried meat (your choice) with two scoops of white rice and one scoop of macaroni salad. I like meat and rice, but not macaroni salad so sorry there, I never tried a plate lunch in Hawaii. The loco moco, to me, is better! (No macaroni salad.) If a place is fancy they may top all that decadent loco-moco-ness with fried onion strips too. As much as I would have enjoyed onion strips, my loco moco lunch in the picture was just fine without. This is a once every two years dish…delicious but not at all healthy!

Fresh Coconut Juice – Picture it…we just left the black sand beach with new coconut tree plantings and had a half hour before leaving for the volcano visit. Found a little area walking back with a café and farm stands. And then, I spotted the coconut lady. “Pick a coconut!” she said, surely high on life from living in Hawaii. I picked the smallest young coconut she had since I wasn’t too thirsty, and for $2 the husks were hacked off and a straw poked through. Good deal. The only down side was the juice was a bit ripe for its own good. They call this phenomenon “the champagne,” where the juice is fizzy and not quite fresh-tasting. Can't complain, the experience itself trumps any taste expectations. When the juice was gone (and I had help from a friend), the coconut lady scooped out the remaining young, almost jelly-like coconut meat for my late afternoon snack, which I didn't realize at the time was an early dinner.

Spam & Egg Musubi – What? Why? Because at the end of the day of black sand beaches and visits to steaming craters and live volcanoes, my tour boarded a plane going from one island to another at 10:00 p.m., and it occurred to me I hadn’t eaten dinner yet! (Young coconut meat and juice notwithstanding.) Hey, I do not like not having dinner! Nothing available at the airport, and back in Waikiki the only place nearby and open was the ABC Store (what would be the offspring of a 7-11 store and a rabbit, as there are so many and they are everywhere). For $1.89 I grabbed this Hawaiian bite for my better-late-than-never dinner. It is a hunk of rice topped with a scrambled egg square and then SPAM, wrapped in some sushi-style nori and sealed in cellophane for storage in a heat box. Apparently SPAM became popular in Hawaii during WWII, as soldiers had it as a part of their meal rations and it somehow stuck. The SPAM on top of my egg musubi tasted, how you say, just as old as that fact. Back at my hotel room with my "dinner," I did not quite delight in the musubi's SPAM element but of course ate it. It did the trick, that's what really matters (and that I didn't get sick). I probably won’t eat it again.

Macadamia Nuts – We know that Hawaii grows macadamia nuts, but who knew they came in flavors other than salted and chocolate covered? I didn't. Lucky for me one of my tour groups visited the source, a place called Tropical Farms that grows and flavors their own macadamia nuts. And they give out free samples!!! (You know I like that.) Flavor options include Kona coffee glazed, honey glazed, cinnamon, and my favorites were the caramel and maui onion & garlic. Many restaurants chop em up to add to things like meat breading or pancake batter, but my fave is when they're chopped up on top of waffles. Macadamia nut waffles with coconut syrup are especially scrumptious (thanks Vit's Hawaiian Steakhouse). Mmmm, so simple yet my best meal on Oahu. Yum!

Spam & Macadamia Nuts – You're probably thinking, if she didn't eat pineapple that means she ate both crab and SPAM twice. But why?? I'll tell ya why. Because sometimes two completely opposite foods—one not edible, the other extremely delicious—can be joined together successfully. Such is the case with the illustrious SPAM-flavored macadamia nuts. It was against my instincts when a lady at the Hilo Hattie souvenir store offered a free sample. I ADMIT IT ... I tried it and I liked it. The thing is, it really didn’t taste like various pig parts and fat when done up as a powder coating on a nut. It only tasted of smokey salt. And what's wrong with that? It was good. Just in the end not $4.95-per-can or ridicule-for-life good.

Dim Sum – Jade Dynasty Seafood Restaurant from Hong Kong opened their first and only U.S. location in Honolulu two days before I got there. This would explain the very low chairs at the bar—I didn't want a big dim sum table for myself—and that's why the bar was level with my neck. The bartender explained that the wrong chairs were ordered and new ones were coming, but in any case this explains why I was the only person sitting there. On to the food: either this restaurant is really good, or dim sum improves exponentially the closer you get to Hong Kong. Either way, my mochi rice, red bean & coconut mochi balls, and shrimp look fun rolls were some of the best I’ve had. So if you ever happen to be in Honolulu and on a rainy day make a stop at the Ala Moana mall, go ahead and skip Romano’s Macaroni Grill and Bubba Gumps to go to this place.

Kalua Pork – Besides the waffles, another new favorite thing I was lucky to try is kalua pork. What is it? It’s pretty much just pulled pork, and what happens when a pig is roasted at a luau and shreds of tender salty meat are pulled out. Not that I would know since my luau was rained out. But it's ok, kalua pork is served everywhere and I tried it first at a restaurant during a day tour (really good), and again on my last night in Hawaii at Duke’s Waikiki (super good). At Duke's, BBQ sauce was added, making it taste like a high-end pulled pork, and it was ingeniously served on a taro bun. That’s right, a soft and purpley taro bun. Delicious. A pilot on layover who was sitting next to me let me try his kalua pork nachos, but eh, all the other stuff on there blocked the pure, rich flavor of the meat. That's why in my opinion it's best to eat this specialty straight up or in a sandwich, and not covered up with other gunk.

In summary, I adored being in Hawaii—SPAM encounters notwithstanding—and hopefully I'll get a chance to visit again soon. In the meantime, there are a bunch of casual Hawaiian places in L.A., including King's Hawaiian Restaurant & Bakery in Torrance. Kalua pork and loco moco, here I come!

Until we eat again,

Marly

Graduate School

My how time keeps flying by. You'll have to forgive me for not posting a real post in some time now. It seems a real post may not happen in the near future, for I have just started graduate school (again).

Last time graduate school was related to the topic of food. This time graduate school is not specifically targeted to food but if I get my way it eventually will be. Kinda like this blog post...

What I'm hinting at is that there are readings to do. And papers to WRITE. And I'm here to tell ya this woman can only write so much :). I fear that school—and the return of the prime time television season—will hinder my allocation of time for blogging. Instead, I offer excuses and ideas for the future.

But first, a quick digression to my employer and school's official mascot, Tommy Trojan. His statue is located on campus and looks like this:

During the big enemy, I mean, rivalry game of USC vs. UCLA each year, Tommy gets covered up with garbage bags and tape while couches are set up on all sides so young students can watch guard. This is so the UCLA students don't ravage Tommy. Last year we (when I say we, I mean a USC student I am not associated with) spray-painted the Bruin Bear statue across town with red paint. It was a big deal. Thankfully, there was no revenge taken on Tommy. He still looks like this.

What is cool is when Tommy is at a football game, he magically comes to life! And he looks something like this:

I love when Tommy stabs the field ceremoniously before kick-off. It's one of the most exciting times of the game! Missing this part of the game because you're waiting in line for a turkey dog really stinks. Last year Tommy had a goatee, which I thought worked, yet Tommy himself posted an online poll for students to vote whether or not he was misrepresenting USC tradition by having a goatee. I voted "keep it!" however the majority voted "shave it!" And he did.

Now there are other Tommy's in Los Angeles, specifically this one (see I told you we'd eventually get around to food again):

The original Tommy chili burger is aMAZing. The fries are great too! When you're in Los Angeles, don't be fooled by any Tommy's restaurant that doesn't look like this. Because there are MANY imitations and you have been warned!

See, it's not as if there aren't things to talk about in the days and months before another real blog post occurs! Here are some ideas for future posts:

1. "The new mysteries of soy milk!"

You know, this would be about my recent discovery of soy milk and the differences of the brands and flavors and what about almond milk... Eh, that sounds dull, yeah?

What about...

2. "Why I still love McDonald's!"

A true story, and one that I've been longing to tell, about how working at McD's as a teen influenced my love of food and friends (and Chicken McNuggets).

There is also this one I've been meaning to write for at least four years:

3. "Danish Danish"

This one would be about the time I once read how incredibly different Denmark's real Danish pastries are from what we call Danish pastries here in the states. The reading of the article spurred on a pilgrimage to Copenhagen in 2005 and life hasn't been the same since. It's as if you lived your whole life without Santa Claus, then one day as an adult you found out there is a Santa Claus! (Does that analogy work at all?)

And there's so much more! But for now my hands are tied and tired from typing a public relations paper due tonight and from the words I've written here (don't say I never did anything for you).

Until we eat again,

Marly

Chicken Scarpiello Recipe Redux!

It's here! Per my last post, the fabulous reworked Carmine's chicken scarpiello recipe has arrived. My sister, D, had to do some serious detective-like reworks to get the recipe just so. Why? Because some important steps and ingredients were left out of the cookbook version, and now with the mystery solved we can all sleep again at night.

Chicken Scarpariello

(from the Kitchen of Michael Ronis, with D's moderations)

Servings: 4-6
Difficulty: Moderate
Cook Time: 30-60 min

Ingredients
1 3-4 lb. fryer chicken, cut into 12 pieces (2 wings, 2 legs, 2 thighs, each breast cut into thirds)
3 large lemons
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons fresh rosemary leaves
2 large heads of garlic
2 teaspoons fresh sage
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons fresh oregano leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
Splash white wine
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon shallots, finely chopped
1 cup of chicken stock
Salt and pepper, to taste
Cooked linguine and/or a loaf of thickly sliced Italian rustic bread

Directions
Begin by washing and patting dry the 12 pieces of chicken. Place the chicken pieces into a large bowl that will both hold it and allow for mixing. Chop half of the herbs and mix with the chicken. Cut two of the lemons in half, squeeze out all of the juice, and throw the squeezed lemons in with the chicken and herbs. Add olive oil, kosher salt, black pepper, garlic cloves and mix well.

Cover at least 24 hours although 48 hours will make it even better. Between two and three times a day, unwrap the chicken and toss thoroughly; return plastic wrap to cover.

Take a 12" saute pan and add the vegetable oil. While the oil is heating up over medium heat, take the chicken out of the marinade and shake off as much of the herbs and liquid as possible. These herbs will burn during cooking. Reserve the garlic cloves for later. When the oil is just about smoking, add each piece of chicken slowly, sliding them into the oil and cooking all of the pieces of chicken at one time. Squeeze the remaining lemon’s juice and reserve for later.

Make sure to use a pan large enough so that the chicken can sit in the oil without overlapping another piece. Do not turn the chicken over until it is very brown and crusty; this can take at least 10 minutes to 12 minutes. Once the chicken is very brown and crusty, turn the pieces over and continue cooking the other side until once again, all sides are all very brown and crusty. While the chicken is browning, throw at least eight cloves of the marinated garlic with the chicken into the oil, cooking them until they are brown and tender. Take out the garlic pieces and reserve. Remove the chicken pieces and place onto a bake-proof dish. Once the chicken is very brown and crusty, place into an oven and either continue cooking or keep warm on a low heat. With the saute pan that was used for browning the chicken, empty the oil or discard. Toss in one tablespoon of butter and slowly cook the chopped shallots.

Next, add the roasted browned whole garlic cloves, previously reserved, and add the remaining chopped herbs; lightly saute for one minute over low heat. Add a splash of white wine and cook for 30 seconds over high heat. Add the chicken stock and reduce until the liquid becomes dark and the taste is strong. At this point, on low heat, add the remaining butter, lemon salt and pepper to taste. Add more lemon according your palate.

Place the chicken onto a platter one piece at a time and then pour the sauce over the chicken. Recommend serving over linguine along with Italian rustic bread for dunking up the sauce.

Voila! I hope you try this corrected recipe, because this version of chicken scarpiello is one of the best chicken dishes out there! Thanks Carmine's and D.

Until we eat again,
Marly

Tidbits: A few recent food adventures

1. Minneapolis/St. Paul visit

Izzy's Ice Cream

The "Izzy Scoop" is a baby scoop of ice cream on top of a regular scoop, and to me it's kinda like an alien scoop. And not only that! Their flavors are modern and experimental, for example they had five types of strawberry the night we were there plus a few exotic chocolates, including Umeshu Chocolate made with Japanese plum wine. I couldn’t decide, so ordered a 5-Izzy scoop sampler of Mexican chocolate fiesta, cream cheese, coconut, graham cracker and the amaaazing salted caramel. When I was done with my 5 Izzy’s I did indeed want another scoop of salted caramel and my local friends (bless them for taking me here) talked me out of it. Balderdash! Not to torture you but here, take a look at the current flavor list and next time you're in the Minneapolis area run, don't walk, to Izzy's.

The Juicy Lucy

Another fantastic thing in St. Paul was the Juicy Lucy (a.k.a. Jucy Lucy) burger at Matt's bar. This discovery shared by a local friend made me pretty happy. It's basically two McDonald's-sized burgers sandwiched around a liquidy cheese sauce. No, not a gloppy Cheddar ooze as some photos suggest, but a nice mellow cheese sauce. The servers and the menus both warn to let the burger cool before chomping down, since that cheese sauce is molten and it wants to spurt all over your face! We waited a few and blew on our burgers then took a bite. Sure as heck if that cheese sauce wasn't dying to come out! It had a bonefide lava-like propulsion factor, and it was really yummy. Thank goodness the burgers weren't too big either, since too much meat-to-cheese ratio would have made the Juicy Lucy less humble, obnoxious even, in my opinion. This way was just right.

2. Carmine’s Chicken Scarpiello – cookbook vs. restaurant showdown

In my January 8, 2009 blog post “I heart Carmine's, and now you know,” I wrote about one of my favorite NYC restaurants and a fantastic dish there that I order all the time, chicken scarpiello. Many Italian restaurants make this but at Carmine's it is very unique and outrageously delicious. In my blog entry I described it as “heavenly, different from any other, with a sweet & sour brown lemon rosemary garlic sauce and caramelized garlic cloves.”

The reason this was written about in January 2010 is because my family and I had visited the Atlantic City Carmine's in December 2009, and there lo and behold I noticed the new Carmine's cookbook for sale. Celebration! Now the chance to make chicken scarpiello at home was mine!, especially necessary since Carmine's, for me, was no longer just a subway ride away.

A month later my friends came over for the recipe unveiling. Well it didn't turn out well at all :(, though my friends were pretty polite about it. The official planetmarly blog rating was, on a 1-3 scale: “1: bad recipe”. In the history of this blog, nothing's ever turned out THAT bad. Frustrated over wasted money – this was the main reason for my purchase of the cookbook – I slid my new Benedict Arnold hardcover onto the cookbook shelf and there is has remained. Until last week.

See my sister -- another fan of the chix scarpiello magic -- recently discovered an online recipe for the dish associated with the restaurant's chef. She made it and wanted to compare the recipe in my cookbook with hers to see if a match. Turns out my sister's version came out just fine, but that's only after she improvised. And when she sent me her online version of the recipe with notes, it became clear that the cookbook’s version was filled with errors:

1. Garlic – Cookbook said crushed garlic, which was awful on the finished dish and covered the chicken like little balls of soft tapioca. In the restaurant, the dish is known for its browned garlic cloves. No garlic cloves in the cookbook's recipe, a major faux pas which honestly I should have caught.
2. Recipe Liquid – This dish is also known for its lovely brown gravy. My cookbooked dish had none. My sister decided to up the wine quotient a little and also add a cup of chicken stock. Genius. There was only a 1/4 cup of wine in her recipe and no stock. This is why I’m more of a baker. I follow directions to a T and this recipe really needed some intuitive (and obvious) improvisation.
3. Laziness – My sister felt the recipe I emailed her from the cookbook was lazy. It often said to use the “remaining” of this and that (lemon, herbs and butter), without being clear of how much that would be, which would have helped out the home cook tremendously.

All in all, this episode reminded me that we shouldn’t automatically trust cookbooks just because they're published, since some of them are simply not good. I recently finished reading Julia Child’s “My Life in France,” and that chef took great pride and many years in the proofreading and testing of her recipes. I probably won’t make any other dish from the Carmine’s cookbook. But the Ghirardelli or Tom Douglas cookbooks? Oh yes indeed I will go to them over and over again.

By the way, the photo of the dish above is from “www.twofatbellies.com,” and the authors had a pre-theater dinner at Carmine’s. They wrote why this is a special version of the dish too, and I agree because it’s why I only order this dish at Carmine's and no where else. “The chicken is covered in a lemony, garlicky sauce that is flavored with rosemary. It’s different from other versions of scarpariello, which usually feature sausage and peppers, but I vastly prefer this version.” Exactly! So after my sister puts the final touches on her recipe redux, I’ll try again and also post it on the blog if everyone wants it.

That's it for now blog peeps. Next week I'm off to Orlando for a conference and will be dining at the San Angel Inn in EPCOT Mexico. This beautiful "Mexican village at night" pavilion within an Aztec pyramid is one of my favorite places to visit, cheasy like a Juicy Lucy and oh so festive. I ate my first molé there during a college spring break road trip. Let's see if the restaurant stands up to the test of time.

Until we eat again,
Marly

Food Friend or Foe

Rather than Italian or Sushi, my favorite cuisine has long been New American. Ever since my first time at Gramercy Tavern (or maybe even earlier), enjoying simply prepared, homestyle food from local sources has become a dining priority for me. In my opinion, restaurant items prepared in this style simply sing brighter.

Several chefs adhere to this type of cooking, including the now TV-star Tom Colicchio (who was the original chef at Gramercy), my favorite Seattle chef Tom Douglas, and Chef Judy Rodgers of the Zuni Café in San Francisco. According to her website, Chef Judy “has been a pioneer of simple and casual American fare...” She once worked as lunch chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley (an excellent thing), and in 2004 she was named outstanding chef by the James Beard Foundation for her impressive Zuni Café cookbook. So it shouldn't be a surprise that Zuni was a place I wanted to dine at for ages, especially to try the chef’s acclaimed raison d'être, the roast chicken with bread salad (pictured above, oh and here's the recipe).

Probably around 2002, I visited San Francisco for a reason I can’t recall (oh well!). A few weeks before the trip I set up a night to see my pal Ed, formerly of Park Slope, Brooklyn. Ed and I met ten years earlier in NYC, where he was one of my clients during the Broadway days and we became friends. He’d recently moved to San Francisco so I looked him up.

Back in the day, Ed and I always had a grand time hanging around "the slope" and the city and going to parties with our mutual friends. He and his friend Dan were even the only two people to complete my last New York City clue hunt, “The Subway Hunt,” in its original form. These hunts usually took place above ground whenever I moved to a new neighborhood, but I hadn't moved in awhile so this one was in and around the subway system in two boroughs. Ed and Dan gave it a dry run for me on September 8th in 2001 since they’d be busy on the official hunt date of September 15th. The test went really well, they had fun, however since one quarter of The Subway Hunt was in the World Trade Center, the official hunt on September 15 was of course canceled; the route was reworked and occurred the following spring. But Ed and his friend Dan did run the hunt in the World Trade Center on September 8th three days before its demise, which we all thought was pretty interesting.

So when I flew out for a visit to San Fran about a year after Ed moved there he seemed quite happy to make a plan with me for dinner with his new California boyfriend. When we spoke I made one request: since they live in San Francisco, can we possibly have dinner at the Zuni Café because they have this chicken dish I really want to try….? Sure!, Ed said. Excellent, I replied.

We met at Zuni and had lots of long-lost hellos and hugs. The restaurant was lovely too, very inviting and open, modern yet homey. They sat us in one of the small rooms tucked away up some stairs so it felt like we were dining in someone’s House Beautiful beach house. The menus were dropped and there it was, the roast chicken with bread salad… for two? Oh. It’s a whole chicken for two people, hmm. And $45, woop! So I casually asked if Ed or his boyfriend would possibly be interested in splitting the dish with me, since it's for two, and since it’s amazing and the restaurant's signature dish and I’d heard about it forever, and I don’t live here and didn’t realize it was for two people. Ed looked at his boyfriend without missing a beat and said, “I’m going to have the halibut.” The boyfriend looked at Ed and said, “I’m going to have the halibut too!”

My incredulousness suppressed to a tic, I responded gently, “Really? If you both want halibut can’t you split one halibut entrée and then someone also share the chicken with me? I won’t have a chance to come to this restaurant again because I live in New York…” Ed's facial expression looked sort of like one of Cinderella's evil stepsisters when he said, “Why don’t you order the chicken for yourself and take home the leftovers? You can eat it on the plane tomorrow (chuckle).” “But I’m staying at a hotel. I don’t have a refrigerator.” He looked at the menu again and said regally, “Well I’M going to have the HALibut.” Ed’s boyfriend agreed.

This lead to some quick contemplation on etiquette and friendship and kindness. If the situation had been reversed, I would have automatically assumed that a friend of mine is also a food friend. However, if that friend turns out to be a food foe, doesn’t that mean that person isn’t your friend so much after all? I mean, without any explanation or attempts at trying for a middle ground. For instance, was the dish I wanted to share liver and onions, was it pickled pigs feet? No. Were these people vegetarians, vegans, pescetarians? Not at all. Did they just not like chicken, or me? Maybe all I needed was a little compassion or explanation, which did not come. Or could I have ordered that dish on my own for $45? I suppose, but I don't believe in egregious food wasting. Plus $45 for an entrée was a bit extravagant too.

I saw Ed with new eyes that night while eating some other entrée I don't remember. He must have stopped being my friend somewhere along the line, perhaps before that night--then why meet at all?--and I’ll never know why.

Even a year or so later back on Broadway at the end of the the Patti LuPone "Sweeney Todd" revival, guess who filtered out onto the street behind me: Ed and his boyfriend! How weird is that? In a happy sort of shock I introduced my friend to them, chatted away and oh no it took too long to realize that both Ed and his boyfriend wanted nothing to do with me. They seemed almost offended I talked to them at all! Once the new truth became obvious I said bye (which was ignored) and left promptly, promising myself to never make the same error in judgment again.

A few months after that I moved to Los Angeles, where I started working at USC. Four years after that, or last month in April, I flew up to San Mateo, CA to attend a conference with a colleague. We decided to take an evening train trip north to San Francisco one night. During the conference my colleague said, “I don’t know what you had in mind for dinner in San Francisco, but there’s a place you might like called Zuni Café…” Do you know I hadn’t thought about Zuni since; probably blocked it out to keep some internal peace. I was thrilled to hear the suggestion, said as much to my colleague and set the record straight! “If we go, there’s this menu item I need to try, but it’s for two, the roast chicken and bread salad. Would you be open to splitting that with me?” He said yes. We booked a reservation.

At the restaurant, the official menu item is written as thus: “Chicken for two roasted in the brick oven; warm bread salad with red mustard greens, scallions, currants, and pine nuts 48.00 (approximately 1 hour).”

Bring it ON! We ordered the moment we sat down in that lovely space on Market Street, you know because it takes an hour. What to do while awaiting our masterpiece? Eat. Yes I ordered some oysters and we each had a salad. And what a big and filling salad! My scrumptious Caesar was much bulkier than my colleague’s delicate micro-greens since several long and garlicy crouton planks were not included in his.

I’m mentioning this only because when the chicken came, I was full. It was a lot of food yet, no surprise, it turned out to be better than I could have hoped for. This famous restaurant dish not only looked great, it tasted like your Mom's best chicken in a Thomas Kinkade painting on a cloud-train express to where all food dreams come true. The chicken was extra flavorful and tender due to brining, and the skin was crisp and sprinkled with herbs. The warm bread salad soaked up all the chicken’s savory juices, and tasting that soft artisanal bread with chicken gravy and greens mingled with the other accoutrements, I can’t tell you how good it was. Let’s just say it was definitely worth the wait.

Now at first when the dish arrived I believe my colleague took a chicken thigh, and I started with a piece of breast and a leg. Me already full does not compute! But post-chicken thigh and a bite of bread salad later my colleague announced HE was full! Ok see I am the Energizer Bunny of food-in-front-of-me-deliciousness-cannot-be-denied and can keep on going. But to him, full means full. Done! Done? With "the chicken”?! Hey dude that just means more for me, so I forged on, eating more chicken and more bread salad on and on. I wished my little glass of white wine would have magically broken down the proteins in my stomach quicker, but it didn’t do that, it just tasted good and lent a nice tough of acidity to the meal.

Ok, ok after a few more pieces I was done too. We sat, we smiled. There were two small pieces of chicken left, along with a big dab of sultry bread salad. We sighed. I felt guilty looking at the leftover chicken. I encouraged my counterpart to eat more, but he wouldn’t. Then the flashback came, the burning memory of my first visit to Zuni with Ed, that OTHER visit. It moved me to feel a bit petulant, that I had to wait all that time for this grand fabulous wunderbar chicken meal. All this time, all this travel. Well I couldn't stand it and refused to leave a piece of chicken, especially not two pieces of chicken, behind. And with that, I finished it. Every bite. We confirmed later that my colleague really did only enjoy one piece of that bird, which means I in effect ate the whole chicken (and warm bread salad, and a Caesar salad, and oysters, ok and a little bit of chocolate pots de creme). And I would do it again, damn it!

Second chances are interesting things. The weird part? The colleague who dined with me at Zuni last month was named Ed too. So I went to this restaurant twice with two different Ed’s, and with two very different results. This year the universe gave me a replay. It’s funny how life works out sometimes.

Until we eat again,

Marly

It's Tiki Time!

Hello!

This June I will be celebrating four years in Los Angeles. Wow! Time really does fly. Turns out sometime last year I stopped feeling the zing of being out here, until a dose of summery spring weather mixed with a box of See's chocolates and Saveur magazine’s “Special Edition: Los Angeles” reignited the spirit of this town for me and my excitement to live here was revived.

Sure, one of the coolest parts of being in LA is the weather (right by cool I didn't mean cold ;). That's only one of the joys. The west coast, particularly southern California, is also home to a slew of all things tiki.

Within the last ten days I've had the pleasure of revisiting the first bar I went to as a native Angelino: the Tiki-Ti, LA's most awesome tiki bar on Sunset Blvd. An ex-pat colleague in NY sent me and then how about that, the people I became friends with out here were already loyal "Ti" fans. A few nights after a recent visit there, I dined at a new Trader Vic’s up the street from my apartment in downtown LA. It's true, any time I have a chance to visit a tiki-themed place – with its exotic retro vibe, gigantic (and potent!) tropical drinks and enchanting music – I go.

According to Wikipedia, “Tiki culture refers to a 20th-century theme used in Polynesian-style restaurants and clubs originally in the United States and then, to a lesser degree, around the world...inspired in part by tiki carvings and mythology.”

Well for some reason I’ve always been tickled by Polynesian Pop culture. This may have started as a kid while excitedly sharing a pupu platter at a loosely-Asian NJ restaurant with my family. But I know it especially gained steam when my dad took my sister and I to Disney World for a stay at the still-awesome Polynesian Resort hotel. That über-themed fortress is listed as one of the top tiki destinations in the country, complete with authentic luau dinners on the lovely artificial lake's shores. However, for the purposes of this blog – and selfishly because I live out here – the listing of top tiki places to eat, drink and shop contained in this post are well, all out west too. The destinations are listed in order of proximity to downtown LA (timed without traffic), and each place is linked to its own website.

So please enjoy this list, and feel free to add comments if I’ve missed any important place in the vicinity. Then I invite you to try one of these gems or try them all. Some serve food but all serve drinks. Some are better than others. I’ve tried a few as noted below, but certainly not many. And heck, discovering that "Don the Beachcomber" is still alive and well (even if not a true original location), and that it's only 36 minutes from home, means that particular stop on my tiki trail will soon be checked off that list.

1. GET YOUR TIKI DRINK ON ... and sometimes food too

(All locations are in California unless otherwise noted, distance is from downtown LA)

Trader Vics

Location: Downtown at LA Live, our pre-fab Times Square • Distance: 0 min.

Great atmosphere. Food and drink are hit and miss, with the hits being very good. Now a nationwide chain, the music piped into the dining room is more Applebee's and less Tahiti.

Tiki Ti

Location: Hollywood (per them; I say they're in Los Feliz or Silverlake) • Distance: 10 min.

Open Wednesday thru Saturday only, cash only, smoking allowed. No wine or beer. Profiled in the Saveur March issue. Don't let the rules scare you, it's a treat and an honor! The original proprietor, Ray Buhen, was one of the original bartenders at Don the Beachcomber. His son Michael and his grandsons Mike and Mark run the Tiki-Ti in Ray's memory today.

Damon’s Steak House

Location: Glendale • Distance: 15 min.

I was quite psyched to visit this restaurant in sleepy Glendale for its reputation of tiki decor and steak. Both were just okay.

Bahooka Ribs & Grog

Location: Rosemead • Distance: 22 min.

With a name like that, how can you not visit! A real trooper since 1967, when I visited two years ago their bar was cozy small, their decor looked a little worse for wear, and my friends as usual adored their baked ham steak.

Puka Bar

Location: Long Beach • Distance: 22 min.

Don the Beachcomber

Location: Huntington Beach (a.k.a. Sunset Beach) • Distance: 36 min.

"If you can't get to paradise, I'll bring it to you," Donn Beach – the founding father of tiki restaurants, bars and nightclubs – always said to his customers. His first venture was a bar in Hollywood in 1934. After an expansion of 16 locations, the original restaurants all closed and this lone location was repurposed in 2009 from an unrelated seafood restaurant. It serves only a handful of the 84 tropical drinks Donn Beach invented.

The Tonga Hut

Location: North Hollywood • Distance: 22 min.

Frankie’s Tiki Room

Location: Las Vegas, NV • Distance: 4.5 hours

Hula’s Island Grill & Tiki Room

2 Locations: Santa Cruz + Monterey

2 Distances: 6 hours, 2 min. + 5 hours, 51 min.

Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge

Location: Alameda • Distance: 6 hours, 6 min.

Kona Club

Location: Oakland, CA • Distance: 6 hours, 5 min.

The Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar

Location: San Francisco • Distance: 6 hours, 18 min.

Not your average tiki bar, this place is fancy and located in a Fairmont Hotel. It's practically Disney-esque! And that's okay, because the Tonga Room was one of the nation's first tiki palaces. It opened in 1945 and has since been refurbished. It looks amazing, and I definitely need to go there!

Kon Tiki Lounge

Location: Tuscon, AZ • Distance: 8 hours

Thatch

Location: Portland, OR • Distance: 16 hours

Looks like a place I would visit once and never leave! Next trip north, I am there. Oh and I'd be flying there, btw, not driving.

2. BUY TIKI STUFF!

Wacko

Location: Hollywood • Distance: 11 min.

This is a very fun store! Besides random tiki items, other wares include art books, crazy handbags and bacon-scented band-aids.

Lemon Tree Bungalow

Location: Santa Monica • Distance: 16 min.

Oceanic Arts

Location: Whittier • Distance: 25 min.

Bamboo Ben

Location: Huntington Beach • Distance: 43 min.

The Tiki Farm

Location: San Clemente • Distance: 1 hour, 14 min.

Shag the Store!

Location: Palm Springs • Distance: 1 hour, 50 min.

Opening May 8, 2010! This is great news for fans (like me) of this retro tiki-inspired art master.

All right now, that’s a lot of tiki! Enjoy it responsibly.

Until we eat again,

Marly