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Discovering Torbato


I believe eating and drinking to be a kind of journey. It requires attentiveness and observation. Beyond physical fulfillment, eating can lead to the discovery of unique flavors, myriads of textures and the gathering of cultural insights.

Culinary adventures can happen at any moment and occur in the most unexpected of places. And when I do have a great culinary discovery, I feel the exhilaration of a world explorer claiming a small (albeit valuable) new territory. Which is exactly how I felt when I discovered the delicious flavors of Torbato, a supremely rare white wine varietal native only to a small plot of land in Sardinia.

Thought to be imported by the early Greeks and the Catalans in the sixteenth century or a native, ancient grape of Sardinia, Torbato has almost completely disappeared from the winemaking scene. Wine making powerhouse Selle & Mosca, however, plan to change all that. As the sole owners of land that still produces this truly rare and delicate grape, the wine makers hope to popularize this little known grape and bring its delicious flavors to wine drinkers beyond the little island of Sardinia.

Grown in Northwest of Sardinia, Sella & Mosca’s Torbato is briefly aged in oak for six months and bottled under the name “Terre Bianche.” This rare, straw yellow white wine offers surprising aromatics of hay, grapefruit zest and almost earthy petrol notes of a German Riesling. The flavors are crisp, refreshing and dry like a wet, flinty Vermentino– perfect for seafood, poultry and light pastas. Torbato is a good wine and serves as a fascinating link to Sardinia’s somewhat mysterious vinous past.

I found this wine on line at Wine.com and, if you live in the Hollywood area, you should try a refreshing glass of Torbato at a lovely new Italian restaurant on Hollwood Blvd. (near Cahuenga) called Melograno. Chef Alberto Lazzarino’s Italian menu is both rustic and elegant.

Beautiful and approachable, this Hollywood eatery feels like a secret getaway from the hustling boardwalk populated by star-struck tourists, the well-heeled and the homeless. This intimate Italian restaurant offers delicious Italian fare that appeals to the timid and the adventurous. The wine list offers many great deals as well as amazing finds like the Torbato we tried. We enjoyed perfectly cooked asparagus with a porcini mushroom ragu (a sort of creamy mushroom sauce), cheese fondue and quail egg—a perfect dish for Torbato! For our entrée we enjoyed a delicious white barramundi with a pomegranate and Arneis gastrique as well as a deliciously succulent Cornish game hen. Melograno is a perfect location for any culinary explorer.

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Friendly Advice: Great cheap date restaurant


Los Balcones del Peru
1360 Vine St. (between De Longpre Ave. and Afton Place)
LA, CA 90028
323 871 9600

The friend: David, Sommelier/Manager

The advice: “If you want to save some money and have a great dinner, you’ve got to go to Los Balcones Del Peru and order the ceviche and steak.”

Were it not for the striped, brown awnings and the exact street address scrawled on a piece of paper, one might easily pass by the hidden Peruvian restaurant, Los Balcones del Peru. Just one block south of the bustling corner of Sunset and Vine, Los Balcones del Peru is a perfect pre- or post-movie meal at the Arclight Theater.

The dining room is disarmingly simple for a culture known for its brightly colored textiles and golden Incan gods. The space is sparsely decorated (a couple of carved-wood candle boxes hang from a wall) and black, pin-cushion styled booths found often in retro diners, line the perimeter of the dining room.

The food here is fresh, full of flavor and is incredibly appealing for meat and seafood lovers alike. Familiar flavors of garlic, cilantro and lime are present in many of the dishes, along with unfamiliar tastes like potato-like yucca and meaty Peruvian Corn.


Lime-soaked seafood ceviches are a popular starter at Los Balcones. We tried the Camarones a La Piedra ($12.75), a sunshiny-yellow shrimp “ceviche” that came out warm. The dish had a generous helping of moist shrimp served with the tails on, swimming in a lime juice and a slightly spicy aji amarillo sauce with Yuca, moist Peruvian corn and an impossible to stop eating lime-marinated julienne of red onion.

The warm southern California weather inspired us to order the Choclo Con Quezo , an ancient breed of Peruvian corn that has oversized kernels (the size of marbles) and are filled with a fascinatingly dense, semi-sweet corn meal. The dish is served with a delicious side of dipping sauce made from cilantro, lime and garlic and cubes of a South American style of feta.


We shared an entrée of Tacu-tacu Con Bisteck a La Parrilla ($11.50), a deliciously earthy, charbroiled steak served with the tasty lime soaked red onion julienne and a dense and comforting mash of re-fried Peruvian beans mixed with rice. Reminiscent of a skirt steak fresh off the bbq, the tacu tacu begged for a good dousing of the garlicy green sauce and a crisp Peruvian beer.

Los Balcones del Peru has a number of delicious beverage options, including crisp, Peruvian beers (all $4.00).

Cristal is a light and fresh beer and Cusqeña is a light, smoky-sweet malt lager. The non-alcoholic Chicha Morada ($2.00), is a deliciously sweet and floral drink made from an infusion of red Peruvian corn, fruit juices and spices.

The first of many visits, Los Balcones del Peru is the perfect spot for Arclight movie goers and hungry, Hollywood Farmers Market fanatics alike.

Los Balcones Del Peru on Urbanspoon

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Gettin’ me the Zankou


Zankou Chicken has been on my mind a lot lately. Call it an unhealthy obsession or a fast food craving flare up—whatever it is, I’ve suddenly become inflicted with the need to eat some take out hummus and chicken. Fast.

It all started when I drove by the original Zankou Chicken on Santa Monica Boulevard on my way East to Silverlake Wines a few weeks ago. As I spotted the classic red and black sign in a non-descript mini-mall, my sensory memory was flooded with the exotic tastes of Zankou Chicken. I could taste the tart pickles, moist chicken, creamy hummus, nutty Tahini and the soft bite of the velvety garlic paste even though it had been years (seven to be exact) since I had been to a Zankou. When I discovered my husband had never tasted the food, our fates were sealed. We were going to Zankou sooner than later.

Just last week, Hans and I were able to take a leisurely mid-day break and head east for an inexpensive lunch at Zankou Chicken. For those unfamiliar with the Middle Eastern fast food chain, Zankou Chicken is a Lebanese and Armenian family-run restaurant specializing in fresh ingredients and spit fired meats. Their mission, according to their website, is to serve fresh ingredients and authentic family recipes at an affordable price to their customers.

And serve great food for a low price, they do. For less than ten bucks you can get a soda and a Chicken Tarna plate with the works: marinated and flame-broiled chicken, sliced up and served with pita bread and sides of tahini, oil and paprika-topped hummus, fresh radish pickles and a side of their famous secret garlic sauce*.

For $8.50 there’s the Shawerma plate: marinated, spit-fired beef sliced up and served with all the fixings. For anyone looking for a great meal for a low price, Zankou chicken is an excellent find.

Zankou Chicken
1716 S. Sepulveda (Santa Monica and Sepulveda)
310.444.0550

*For a great description of what people have gone through to find out the ingredients of Zankou Chicken’s secret garlic sauce (and get the behind the scenes information on the “Zankou murders”), be sure to read this months’ Los Angeles Magazine.

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Mind-blowing candy


Fleur de sel caramel

Boule Bakery
408 N. La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90048

It’s amazing when something so small and seemingly insignificant can push your day in an unexpected direction.

A good-looking stranger smiles at you and puts a spring in your step. You find a twenty-dollar bill on the sidewalk and suddenly feel flush with cash. You get an unexpected message from a friend and suddenly you’re in your car alone and laughing so hard you’re nearly crying. And then sometimes, you take a bite of a single ingredient and inspires you to make a journey across the world.

Such is the case with Boule Bakery’s Fleur de sel caramel. Small and life-changing, a single bite of this buttery, salty, crunchy candy makes me want to pack my bags and move to the Northern shores of France. The simple and balanced flavors of browned butter, caramelized sugar and sea-side salt come together in this tiny little candy to create a sublime treat that costs only a dollar a piece.

This isn’t a rip-your-fillings-out-of-your teeth kind of caramel. This is a soft, mouth watering, real-deal caramel that’s painstakingly made from fresh ingredients by master pastry makers. And priced at a dollar a candy, this mind-blowing, sugary morsel is totally worth every penny.

And don’t just take my word for it. Oprah, queen of all things great, named this caramel the “finest (she’s) ever come across.”

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Feelin' it at Froma

Ask anyone that adores food what their secret passion is, and they’ll most likely tell you they long to open a restaurant of their own. They stumble upon a charming little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in the middle of nowhere, party in a great bar, see a cute white-tile bistro in France, or shop at a charming little cheese store in Napa and think with a gushing sense of pride, “I could do this.”

And lots of people with money do.

Britney Spears

(via ddbraves)

Famous people like Eva Longoria, Phil Rosenthal of Everybody Loves Raymond, and Jeri Ryan open up their wallets and empty them (Jennifer Lopez, Brittany Spears and Wesley Snipes) in order to prove they actually can do restaurants, at least on some level.

And then there are the underdogs–the kitchen help, the service staff and the dogged managers–that save every penny they make working in restaurants in hopes of opening their own little place. These hard working people (Jason and Miho Travi of Fraiche, Karen and Quinn Hatfield of Hatfields, and Neil and Amy Fraser of Grace and BLD) take out impossible loans, gut their savings, mortgage their homes and sell anything they can think of, in order to make their dream of restaurant ownership come true.

FROMA ON MELROSE: Purveyors of fine foods
7960 Melrose Ave.

Owned and run by a chef and husband and wife that have dedicated their lives to the service industry, Froma is the kind of specialty food market that so many people dream of opening one day. People like me.

So when I stumbled across the newly opened Italian market, Froma on Melrose recently, I was overjoyed. And, truth be told, a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong. Froma is amazing. But maybe it’s a little TOO amazing. The sandwiches taste as good (if not better, sometimes) as the ones I had in Italy. The cheese monger behind the counter loves to give me samples of the newest cheeses! The bags of gourmet chips taste of sausages or horseradish. And just when I think that maybe my idea of opening up my own place is still viable, I look around me.

With its long glass display cases filled with beautiful imported meats and cheeses, hot panini presses grilling up authentic Italian sandwiches, shelves of gourmet ingredients lining the store and a little seat by the window where I can enjoy a glass of wine, Froma makes me think that maybe my time to open my own little wine and cheese shop has come and gone.

Designed to appeal to the home chef and demanding food lovers, Froma offers hard to find ingredients like specialty sugars and International salts, bellini flour, carmelized black figs, Italian Parmesan, artichoke honey, radicchio pasta, Osetra caviar and Italian pasta flour. Francine Diamond, managing partner and General Manager, offers a broad range of imported and domestic olive oils and an area in which customers can try them all.

The cheese selection is diverse with Cow Girl Creamery cheeses, Chateau La Tur from France and hard cheeses imported from Italy. Diamond, also a sommelier, has put together an impressive, albeit limited, wine selection. From a $20 Morgon to a $100 Barolo, Diamond gives customers incredible values and amazingly delicious wines from California to Italy.

What I find most appealing about Froma (other than its proximity to my house) are the delicious, panini-pressed gourmet sandwiches.

The ingredients are fresh, the breads (from the Bread Bar) are undeniably perfect and the combinations divine. As a matter of fact, the first sandwich I ever ordered from Froma (a proscuitto and Robiola panini), required me to pull my car over and stop driving, for fear I’d crash into something because my eyes were closed in pleasure.

After that, my Husand and I went into a full-on binge and ate only at Froma for four days straight. In that time we made friends with all the nice people behind the counter, drank a few glasses of Morgon and tried nearly every sandwich on the menu. We haven’t made our way through the Crostini and all of the soups and salads…but we still have time!

Our favorites:

The Francese: Saucisson sec, a French cheese of the day, tomato, basalmic and mixed greens. $10.95
The Alpino: Bresaola, chevre, thinly sliced lemon and arugula. $10.95
The Castagno plus proscuito: Bosc pear, saint Agur blue cheese, chestnut honey. I ask them to add proscuito. $9.95 plus proscuito’s cost.
Plat de Fromage: a plate of ripened cheeses, dried fruits (fig, blueberries), candied pecans, and Savannah bee honeycomb. $12.95
A bag of Tyrell potato chips. Either Cider vinegar and salt chips or the Ludlow sausage with whole grain mustard.
A cappuccino afterwards. The Danesi Italian espresso is some of the best in town. Freshly roasted, pulled on an Italian espresso machi
ne, the drinks taste delicious.

Based on how many times I eat and shop at Froma, I don’t think I’ll be opening my store any time soon. But that’s okay. It’s nice to let someone else do all the hard work and be able to enjoy the bounty.

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Get Out of Dodge


Four years ago, back when Hans and I started courting (and WAY before the movie Sideways popularized wine tasting in Santa Ynez), we began a tradition of spur of the moment weekend getaways to Santa Barbara. We’d gas up the car, fill the trunk with a stack of New Yorkers and a weekend bag filled with casual clothes, grab a couple of latte’s to-go, and get on the 101 north before 10 AM. Once we make it the 1.5 to 2 hours up north, the specifics of the weekend are usually improvised. One necessary stop, however, never changes.

First stop, Superica

La Superica Taco
622 Milpas Street Santa Barbara
Cash only

Named by Julia Child as a required stop in Santa Barbara, Superica is probably one of the best taco stands in America. Simple and unpretentious, this tiny white and sea green shack serves the freshest meat and bean tacos this side of Mexico to lines of dedicated customers that are, more often than not, lined up from the door to halfway down the block. No matter what day of the week or time of day.

Guests sit at picnic tables in a tented “dining room” while they wait for their number to be called. For anyone interested in good food, the wait is worth it. The ingredients are fresh, the combinations classic, and the soft, spongy tacos are made to order by hand.
The kitchen is just large enough to hold the cashier, the tortilla maker that forms each round of dough in her hands and presses them in an ancient looking press, and two grill men that flip fresh onions, chorizo and steak with a huge metal spatula on the flat top.

In some ways, the long line of customers out the door is a good thing. By the time we get to the order window, more than enough time has elapsed for us to discuss our order, memorized our selections (each menu item has a number) and organized by number in descending order. Hans and I definitely have some favorites on the menu, but we always try to order at least one new plate in hopes of finding a new Superica gem.

With our living room floor under the final stages of re-construction, we were forced to leave town for a day in order to allow our newly stained floors 24 hours to dry. Happy to take a trip north, Hans and I left our apartment in the morning and were at Superica by Noon.

With our stomachs growling and ready for food, we carefully planned our meal. We ordered some classics:

The #11: Lomito Suiza:

Grilled chorizo and melted cheese served between two tortillas.
A gorgeous sandwich of pork and cheese.

the #13: Queso de Cazuela,

a bowl of melted cheese flavored with tomatoes and spices and served with warm tortillas. It’s a warm comforting dish that, despite having nothing to do with artichoke, strangely tastes of one.

The #16 The Superica Especial:

Roasted chile pasilla stuffed with cheese and marinated pork. I usually have to fight to get a couple of bites before Hans polishes it off in mere seconds.

The #18 Guacamole:

Another dish I have to fight to get my share of. Straight forward and supremely fresh, this guacamole is all about ripe avocado, a squeeze of lime and a hint of tomato. Perfect on its own, or revelatory when paired with other dishes.

This trip we tried a few new dishes:

The #1 Tacos de Bistec.

Strips of grilled steak served on tacos, this dish was a little disappointing to look at, but once doctored up with a little guacamole and a touch of cheese from the Queso de Cazuela, I was in heaven.

The special of the day: Tamal de Veracruz.

Truly a life-changing tamale. Soft, moist and undeniable elegant, this tamale was unlike any of the dense (almost dry) corn tamales I’ve eaten at the Hollywood and Larchmont farmer’s markets, Superica’s Tamale de Veracruz is a love letter to the delicacy of corn with its juicy corn kernels, zucchini and onion in a fluffy bed of corn masa. I was surprised by how light the cream sauce was and how balanced all the ingredients of this dish was.

After a fully satisfying meal at Superica, we headed north to Santa Ynez for some wine tasting. Big fans of the tasting room at Melville, we decided to mix things up and taste the wines of two unfamiliar producers.

First stop was the tasting room for Longoria.
Longoria Wine Tasting Room
2935 Grand Ave. Los Olivos

Established in 1982, Longoria is a family run wine business located in Santa Barbara county. The tasting room is small and intimate, located in a tiny room in one of the oldest buildings in he
art of the village of Los Olivos. The tasting fee was $10 and unfortunately, the woman helping us had no personality and dribbled something like a half an ounce of wine into our glass–barely enough wine to swirl or to properly taste.

We were impressed by the acidity and complexity of 2004 Syrah (chewy, spicy and had great acidity) and bought a bottle despite hating the woman that sold it to us.

Our next and last stop on our mini-wine tasting tour was Bridlewood Winery.
Bridlewood Winery
3555 Roblar Avenue, Santa Ynez

A much more impressive tasting room, we were greeted by a knowledgeable and skilled employee. With a $10 tasting fee we were pleased by the reasonable pour (a generous ounce) and the quality of the wine. Balanced and true to the varietal, the Bridlewood portfolio surprised us both with their delicately nuanced flavors. For someone that tends to stay away from palate punching Zinfandels, I found theirs to be quite pretty and actually surprisingly light–especially for a California producer.

We purchased the 2004 Six Gun Syrah—a silky red with nice tannin, a hint of spice and bright cherry with balanced acidity and minimal oak.

We drove back to Santa Barbara and checked into our favorite cheap motel, The Presidio.

Still under the final stages of a year long remodel, the Presidio has all the charm of a boutique hotel without a high price tag. The young couple that runs the place are charming and for under $100 ($89 to be exact) we stayed in a clean room with charming details.

We promptly hopped into bed, watched an hour’s worth of bad TV and took an epic nap before we headed out to town again for dinner.

The Hungry Cat, is, without a doubt, one of my favorite LA restaurants. Stripped of any fancy details, the Hungry Cat is dedicated to serving East coast inspired dishes (Maryland seafood is where it’s at), amazing wines, and incredible handmade cocktails. Now that Hungry Cat has a location in Santa Barbara, there really isn’t any other place we’ll go to. The cocktails are gorgeous, the food is fresh (we ate sea urchin so fresh and off the boat it practically walked on its spines across the table) and downright inspiring.

Thanks to the friendly staff and passionate kitchen staff, Hans and I had a memorable meal of off-the-boat oysters served with freshly grated horseradish and sea salt, Oyster chowder full of silky oysters and chunky potatoes, Tuscan Monkfish stew, a mind-blowing cheese plate and the I-can’t-believe-I’m-scraping-the-sides-of-this-dish-to-get-at-every-last-morsel chocolate bread pudding.

After a day of gorging and lazy napping, Hans and I return to the buzzing world of Los Angeles. I can’t wait for our next Get Out of Dodge.

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Knife Skills Illustrated

Sometimes when I pick up my chef’s knife I get a sort of stage fright. Everything will be going along just fine with my dicing of an onion and then all of a sudden it happens. I try to focus on the vegetable or the fruit I need to cut, and suddenly my attempts to clear my mind of judgement fails and I have to stop. I can’t cut a thing. Even though there’s no one in my kitchen checking my knife sills, I can feel the presence of a great chef judging me.

I think it was last year when my knife skills problem started.

It all began when I saw this one episode of THE NEXT FOOD NETWORK STAR. It was the show when Iron Chef Morimoto tests the hopeful TV chefs with a quick challenge. He hands the contestants a chef’s knife and a fish and tells them to filet the thing.

It was horrifying what happened next. In this pool of talented food professionals, most of the contestants couldn’t filet the fish. One or two skilled people were able to de-bone the fish in just a few minutes, but all the other kitchen jocks just destroyed the fish. It was embarrassing. One woman did such a bad job Morimoto couldn’t even look at her.

He just stared at the messy pile of wasted fish and frowned. “Uh, basically,” he said, “you have no knife skills.”

And that, as they say, was that.

Now every time I step up to my chopping board, I hear Morimoto saying the very same thing to me.

Over and over again.

“Uh, basically, you have no knife skills.”

No matter how swift (“Uh, basically, you have no knife skills”) or how uniformed my technique (“Uh, basically, you have no knife skills”), I feel Morimoto’s critical gaze checking my work. Sometimes, even my husband says the dreaded phrase (“Uh, basically, you have no knife skills”)—just to mess with me.

But all of that is over now.

Thanks to the Cooks Library and swell guy named Peter Hertzmann and his book Knife Skills Illustrated, I’ll be slicing my onions like a master.

This book is my new bible. Whenever I’m ready to slice and dice, I pick up my Knife Skills book and get reading. The pages are full of great illustrations that make learning knife skills from a book absolutely possible.


Like this illustration, for example. Basically, I had no idea I was holding the knife wrong. According to Hertzman, if you want to have great knife skills, it’s all about the pinch grip.

I’m so down with the pinch grip.


This is not the pinch grip.


This, my friends, is me doing the pinch grip.

I have to agree with my new friend Peter, the pinch grip gives me way more control over the knife. Holding the knife like this hurts a little at first (tender hands of a novice), but very soon I’ll get a knife-skills-blister just like the pros! I’m so excited!

I’m so excited, I even took pictures of myself cutting brussels sprouts. Because I’m a big fat food blogging nerd.

I’m beside myself happy. There are just so many vegetables to be sliced. Multitudes of onions to practice on. I can’t wait to perfect the art of deboning a chicken! Just you wait Morimoto. I’ll have knife skills yet!