We added a few new whiskeys to our repertoire this week. A new scotch and bourbon. Not a big turnout as most folks are running around New Orleans for Siggraph drinking giant Slurpee's filled with everclear.
The first contender is a scotch from the Isle of Jura, Jura Superstition. Not sure how old this is. Its a single malt. Thats about Ill I know. There doesn't seem to be a lot of info out there on it.
UPDATE: Apparently this is a blending of a young Jura and and Older jura trying to give you the smoke and the smoothness in one go. Doesnt really work for me, but...
Just did a quick finger over ice, so I can't say that this is a definitive tasting, but here are my impressions. I find it a bit too smokey. Jura is supposed to be about big peaty and smokey flavors and this one is even supposed to be the mild variety, but damn. Guess I'm partial to my Speysides. Everyone I know who likes scotch keeps telling me to give this one a try. Ok I did. Ill give it a second opinion but for the moment it tastes like I put a charcoal briquette in a glass of Vodka with some honey and herbs.
The second contender is a 12 year old Van Winkle bourbon. Quite nice but on the lower end of the high end bourbons if even that. If you get a chance to to try a Pappy Van Winkle 23 jump at it. Its awesome. This one is good but only in the ballpark of say a Michters or Noah Hills. I still prefer Black Maple Hill.
It starts out medium bodied hitting all of the palate at once. Not real big here but some nice hints of sweetness. A bit of nutmeg and cinnamon tempered with a little almond. Its almost got a smokey quality. Its missing the Vanilla and honey sweetness I like in most of the other high end bourbons and just doesnt finish off as smooth I think this one is a price/performance issue. Its a good bourbon, but for the same cash you can get a lot better. Definitely seek out the higher end Van Winkle bourbons though... They are worth every hard earned penny.
BOUBON:
Van Winkle Special Reserve 12 Years Old: 6/10
Jura Superstition: 4/10
Decided to grab an impromptu diner at Oinkster in Eagle Rock. Had the burger and Belgian fry combo with a Stone pale ale on tap. 
While waiting for said burger the proprietor saw fit to supply me with my ale.
This review may be biased due to the fact that it was just such a beautiful evening. The kind where its just hot enough that you really want an ice cold beer, the condensation crying its happy little tears down the side of the cup, but not so hot as to be uncomfortable.
The burger is a nice juicy patty just the right size for the bun. I'm not a huge fan of the mega 1" inch thick patty so this was perfect. 
It comes with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, and thousand island on a grilled bun.
I've always been a fan of Thousand Island on burgers so for me this is awesome. (Think In-N-Out x awesome). They also serve a garlicky version of the sauce with the fries. Both housemade.
When you bite into the burger you get a subtle hint of smoke that lights up your palate. The smoke comes almost more from the bun then the meat. Next you get the Angus flavor, with some pepper, then a flood of richness from the fat in the beef and dressing.
The meat is cooked a medium rare, pink inside, and delightfully juicy but not in that oily undercooked way lots of places try and pass off as gourmet. The homemade 1000 island compliments the burgers subtle angus and smokey flavors. Fresh tomatoes and crisp lettuce round out the flavor and texture. Overall this is one of the best burgers I've had in a while even after hitting up the Counter on Monday.
The fries are light and delicate. They have that texture that not many places get right (McDonalds being one of them). Slightly sweet as are most belgian style fries. The savory garlicky sauce really brings all the flavors together. Its hard not to just eat the whole batch in one go before you even touch the burger.
Throw in the nice summer evening, setting sun, the stone pale ale and you get a really satisfying dinner.
A solid 4.5 starts in my book.
-- I know it's from an iPhone even though I said I'd never get one.
Went to Lucille's BBQ in the OC last night with the parents and Bella. Not to shabby. Lucille's is a mini chain with shops in and around Los Angeles. There are 14 or so at last count most of which are in the O.C.
They Have a pretty full menu with most of the BBQ treats you would expect. Brisket, Ribs, Tri-Tip, Pulled Pork, Chicken, etc. They even pull out some New Orleans favorites like the Po'Boy and Gumbo.
One of the highlights of a meal here is the fresh hot buttermilk buscuits with honey butter. Little nuggets of buttery creamy goodness that melt in your mouth with a delicate texture and just a little crust to bite through. I can eat a whole basket of them. I have to do it fast and sneaky and it generally pisses everyone off when i do.
Ive been to Lucille's a few times, usually at the behest of my pops when I'm down in the O.C. I do enjoy the experience though. It's casual almost lo brow food, albeit a bit pricey for all that. They do a pretty good job of capturing a southern BBQ feeling especially if you sit outside on the porch on a hot summer night. Its usually way to crowded to do that, so we almost always end up eating in the bar.
I should try more things on the menu and they definitely have a few that always catch my eye, but what I always end up ordering is their pulled pork sandwich. The pork is juicy and tender with a nice smokey flavor. This perched on a homemade bun similar in texture and feel to thier biscuits. Even with its soft texture it holds up well to the juices flowing from the pork. The throw a bit of spicy mustard horseradish tasting sauce on it that complements the pork quite nicely. Its pretty damn yummy.
As for the sides, I went with the mashed sweet potatoes which are way to sweet. They taste like pie filling. I have a few of the other sides on the menu notably the baked beans, corn on the Cobb and macaroni and cheese. All of which are passable but not memorable.
The sandwiches are a decent deal in the 12-15$ range just enough to fill you up comfortably. The entrees can run upwords of $25 which is a little pricey for this type of eatery.
The ribs are excellent as well. Very tender and juicy. Lots of big smokey flavor that is complented with the tangy BBQ sauce. If you like ribs at all you'll definately be down with these.
Bella gives it a hearty thumbs up.
On Sunday I made my famous (well at least in my head) Toast Baskets for dinner. Little bites of goodness that is white toast shaped into a cup and filled with alternating layers of whipped egg whites, bacon, a sofrito like mix of onions, fresh heirloom tomatoes, and garlic, more bacon, more egg white, and finally topped with the yolk.
The flavors are mostly there, but I'm still not happy with the toast baskets. I've tried to make them a number of ways.
First I just tried to make them by rolling out white bread with the crusts cut off into flat sheets and placing them in a greased Ramekin. Since it takes more than one piece of bread to fully line the ramekin, they tend to fall apart after baking. My second attemp which is the most succesful was to soak the bread in a little butter, roll them out, and mold them to the ramekin. These hold up fairly well in the baking process, and have the added benefit that they pop out of the ramekin easier and with less damage. For last nights attempt I tried more of french toast route and with with milk as the softening agent. Not bad but not as good as the butter. I didnt use enough butter so they fell apart a bit when i tried to pry them out of the ramekin as you can see in the picture.
With a little bit of further ado here is the recipe:
Ingredients: (Makes 2 Servings)
4 Slices good white bread with the crusts cut off (the larger sandwich size)
2 Eggs
6 Slices good applewood smoked bacon (I like Niman ranch from Trader Joes)
1/2 Medium sized yellow onion fine dice
1 Small heirloom tomato (about the size of a tennis ball) fine dice
2-3 Cloves garlic finely minced
Milk or Butter for basting the bread.
Juice from 1 lemon
A few generous pinch's of salt
A dash of peper
A dash of cayene powder
A dash of a good red wine vinegar (optional)
Since the bread baskets need to toast we'll start with them first. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of this process mostly because I'm not happy with how they have turned out so far. I will make an addendum once i perfect it. If you have any ideas feel free to share them in the comments.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Generously spray the inside of your ramekins with non stick cooking spray. I like the pure canola oil spray you can get at Trader Joe's. I think Pam and such tastes like chemicals.
Cut the crust of your white bread. Using a rolling pin gently roll out the bread as thin as you can get it but are still able to pick it up in one piece, generally 3/16" or so. Brush the bread with either melted butter until damp but not soggy. Gently push your bread into your ramekin trying not to break it. Its ok if it rips a bit since we can patch it latter. Take a second piece and prepare it in the same way. Once rolled out and soaked cut it in half. Take one half and wrap it around the top inside of the ramekin to form the top portion of the toast basket use the second piece of your cut bread to line the other half. I'll also post a diagram of this later to help clear up any a confusion. Line the other ramekin in the same manner.
Place your ramekins in the over directly on the rack. Toast until golden brown. Around 10 minutes. Check on them once in a while as your cooking the other elements.
Preheat a medium to large skillet over medium heat.
While your toast is toasting, cut 2 strips of bacon into fine dice (1/8"). Cut the remaining strips in half. Fry up your finely diced bacon until crisp. When done remove with a slotted to spoon to a paper towel lined plate and reserve. Fry up the rest of your bacon strips to your liking. I like mine crispy so this takes a few minutes.
Dice your tomatoes, onion, and garlic while your bacon is crisping.
Once your bacon is done pour off all but 2 table spoons of the fat.
Throw your onions in the skillet and sweat for about 2 minutes. Then throw in your tomatoes and let the whole thing cook down for about 6 minutes. Your basically making an almost dry mixture like a sofrito used in paella. It really concnentrates the flavors when you do this.
Check on your bread baskets. There most likely done.
You need to carefully seperate them from the ramekins. Hopefully you used enough cooking spray that the pop out easily. If not use a small paring knife around the inside edge. You can see mine didnt come out all the great.
Put them back in the oven upside down on a cookie sheet to toast the bottoms a bit more if needed.
While the onions and tomatoes are cooking down separate your egg whites into a large bowl and reserve your yolks for later. Seperate the yolk so you have one each in a small cup,etc. Using a handheld mixer or your powerful forearms beat the egg whites until no longer shiny and fairly stiff. Set the egg whites aside.
Now add your garlic to the pan and finish cooking down. Taste and season to taste with salf pepper and cayene. It's probably on the sweet side from the sugars in the tomato. I like to squeeze half of a lemon in to cut the sweet flavors and a dash of good red wine vinegar if the lemon doesn't cut the sweetness enough.
It should look something like the following picture. You can see how much it reduced down. I like to add the garlic near the end of cooking in to preserve more of the bright flavors.
You can see its reduced down to about a quarter of what it was. It should be chockfull of tasty goodness.
Take the sofrito off of the heat and reserve.
Now its time to assemble this frankenstein creation and do the final bakeoff.
Sprinkle a little of the bacon bits into the bread baskets then top with a bit of the egg white.
Add more bacon and half of the sofrito to each basket (this picture doesnt have the sofrito in it).
Top with the remaining egg white sprinkle a bit more of the crumbled bacon leaving the center clear for the yolk and place in the oven. Place on cookie sheet and bake for about 8 minutes or until the egg whites just start to brown. Remove from the oven make a depression in the top center of the egg white big enough to hold the yolk. Gently slide the yolk into the depression. Place back into the over for a few minutes until the yolk is done to your liking. I put them in for maybe 2 minutes enough to cook the yolk but leave it runny.
Pull out of the oven, set on your plates. Decorate plates with remaining bacon crumbles and strips of bacon and serve. Eat them up yum.
Our weekly gathering to enjoy spirts is once again upon us. This week I added a new bourbon "Elijah Craig" 18 year old single cask.
This is a lovely bourbon with notes of vanilla and honey. It has a big finish though. A bit of bite. Not as sweet as Black Maple hill, but definitely better than the Blanton's single cask. I find it hard to be objective about spirts. I love scotch but im partial to the big sweet flavors like MaCallan. I love big Cabernet's and dark strong beer. My somelier buddy claims it because my pallete sucks and i need these big flavors to get through to my taste buds.... this could be true. But hey its my mouth and I'm the one who decides whats gets put there. I think i'll be finishing off the Elijah Craig soon... and replacing it as well. I'm going for 3.5 star on it. Black Maple Hill still holds the coveted 5 spot though.
Stay tuned kiddies for more reviews... we still have to review the past weeks selections which include:
Blanton's Single Barrel Bourbon
Black Maple Hill Bourbon
Tomintoul 16 year old scotch
Oban 14 year old scotch
Pyrate Rum
Ron Zacapa 23 year old rum (Damn this one is good)
Same Bat time, Same Bat channel.
Decided to make a quick stop at Porto's in Burbank to pick up some treats for my departing office mates.
Hobo and skinnybitch are leaving my cubicle for greener pastures in a big fancy office tomorrow. As a treat I had to stop and pick up some of Porto's amazing cheese rolls. These things can be inhaled and indeed they will be. One dozen cheese rolls, one apple turnover, one french vanilla coffee, 8$ and change... the flavor explosion, priceless. Run don't walk and enjoy this goodness.
Had company over and didn't know what to make as one of them was allergic to wheat. Experimented ...
and made crispy herbed polenta triangles with goat cheese. All herbs and lemons from the yard. Turned out pretty good! For the appetizer, no I did not starve them with skinny bitch diet. But I did feed them ample amounts of wine to pair with my goat crispy triangles.
The noodles are always perfect because they put everything on a timer. The broth is rich and peppered with microscopic fat globules. The pork is fatty and flavorful and topped off with a generous portion of green onions. They even have Kirin on tap. What's not to love?
Well, an hour from your meal, when you're savoring an entirely too full stomach, you'll also probably notice that you're incredibly thirsty. I suspect MSG. I wish there was a definitive way of checking. Otherwise, I'd thorougly recommend it.
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Finally made it out to Church and State for my marrow fix. The good news? The marrow was great. Buttery, mellow and perfect on the baguette crisps they came with. The bad news? Whomever was on meat that day salted the crap out of everything. Luckily, my bouillabaisse, tarte flambé, and berkshire pork terrine were prepared by somebody else.
The rundown:
Ok I lied, not all the meat was over salted. But they let this one sit too long under the lamps. Fries were luke warm as was the steak.
Amazingly tender, but too salty. I imagine they brined the pork to get it that tender. The peas around it were great.
It was great. The only thing I would add would be some fish to this dish. For $26 dollars, I expect more than just prawns, mussels and some clams. The pork terrine in the background was great. Buttery, with a slight smokey bacon flavor with a mild sweetness.
The reason I went. It did not disappoint. It was superb. It's so good that I want them to do variations on it, maybe one with a crust to contrast the marrow.
Escargots. It was good. I'm so used to eating these drowning in butter that oddly I was thrown off by the more elegant individually packaged ramekins. Maybe throw in some slivers of garlic in there for an escargots garlic confit surprise? The bread in the foreground was also good. Not fresh from the oven like at Bouchon though, so not the best I've had at a bistro.
Tarte Flambe. Carmalized onions, cheese, bacon. You can't go wrong.
Some drinks, a modified whiskey sour on top and a green gimlet on the bottom. Both really good. Perhaps a touch on the sweet side. I think maybe for the skinnies.
All in all a good experience, and somewhere I'd probably have to revisit due to the oversalting fiasco. One image I didn't get a good snap of was with the short rib. Great flavor, but again, ruined by it's saltiness. The other crappy part is of course it's location. Here is where I parked:
Inside:
3 eggs
Hashbrowns
Gobs of oozing cheese
A giant fistful of pastrami
Top it off with what I consider to be the best salsa verde and you have the perfect breakfast. That is If you don't include the heart attack and the 5 extra pounds this meal will induce.
Hit up Tops at Allen Ave and Walnut Ave in Pasadena for your breakfast fix.
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Ate at cole's for lunch today as I was called in to do my civic duty as juror.
Fun I get to try new restaurants downtown, not fun I get to pay $10 for a really really well done French dip AND ruin my diet. At least I got to see the door of varnish as they are closed this week. No happy hour for me after court.
The classic recipe has no shallots or pancetta as far as I know. I think mine tastes better because of it.
Box 'o Linguini
2 lbs of manila or any small clams
One large shallot shaved thin
8 cloves of garlic (this is way more than normal)
2 cups of dry white wine (one cup for the pasta and one for the chef)
Hot pepper flakes
Two handfulls of chopped italian parsley
Good olive oil
Bit of butter
Kitchen timer - important!
Half a handfull of pancetta
Juice from one lemon
Boil your pasta water. In a large saucepan completely cover the bottom with evo, add the pancetta and pepper flakes when hot. Throw in shallots and dump your pasta in the boiling water. Set your timer to 8 mins. This dish lives and dies on the pasta being perfect.
Throw in your garlic for a minute and then dump in your wine, lemon juice, and clams and some of the parsley. Cover, shaking every once in awhile to make sure all the clams get cooked evenly.
When the timer is done, salt and pepper your clams, toss in your butter, toss in the pasta and fold it into the sauce. I also like to pop in a little more pepper flakes to add more depth to the "bite". One minute later you are done. Finish with some evo and the rest of the parsley before serving. The sauce should be good enough to drink. I should know, because that's exactly what I did when I was done.
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I starved all day to be able to fully partake in 4th of July yummy goodness; however our friends asked us to pick up the fried chicken..in our car...the aromas lofting thru the air.....me and the chicken alone together. It was everthing I had to not lick all of the chicken.
But I survived to partake in mojito's and pie n burger. Skinny bitch definitely got chucked out the window today
A hand full of wicked sweet watermelon blended and strained for the juice.
Pour some rum in a cocktail shaker.
How much? Until I say stop.
Add a kiss of Grand Manier.
Add another squeeze of lime.
Shake it like a salt shaker.
Pour a bit of soda water, or if you're a high class hobo try some Pellegrino in a martini glass. Fill the rest with your shaken mixture.
Finish it off with some cubed watermelon. If you're fancy go for 1/4" cubes. As you can see I'm not fancy.
If it doesn't taste good, it's because you made it wrong.
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Just add chicken and a grill.
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