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SubscriptionsSites I Read
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| Just read about this new ramen joint in Torrance... hell yeah! I want to try the Marsala Curry Ramen!
http://www.rameniac.com/resource/comments/ramencalifornia_torrance/
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| I looooooooooooove pizza... this article just gave me a whole list of places to try:
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-pizzawars25-2009mar25,0,1748919.story
From the Los Angeles Times L.A. area's new pizza revolution It started with Spago and has mushroomed into a full-on battle of the best toppings and crust. We look at Pizzeria Mozza, Angelini Osteria, Gjelina, Pizzeria Ortica, Riva and Huckleberry. By S. IRENE VIRBILA
Restaurant Critic
March 25, 2009
Who didn't grow up wolfing down pizza slathered in tomato sauce and gooey cheese? And yet the dominant pizza aesthetic in L.A. seems to get reinvented from time to time just like everything else in this constantly changing city. In 1982, Wolfgang Puck changed the game when he installed a wood-burning oven in the little pizza and pasta place he opened called Spago.
In the south of France where he trained, such ovens were an everyday thing, and even he didn't think his "gourmet" pizza would turn out to be such a huge deal. But for legions of Angelenos who'd grown up on Shakey's and Pizza Hut, that humble pie, in this case, made with real mozzarella instead of the commercial grated stuff, garnished with Michelin star-worthy ingredients and cooked in a real wood-burning oven, was a born-again moment. Who knew you could enjoy pizza in an authentically glamorous setting -- with a view of Sunset Strip, and serious wines and stars galore?
Fast forward 25 or so years, and that kind of gourmet pizza has become a cliché, with a California Pizza Kitchen in every airport. Even at Spago (now in Beverly Hills), it's relegated to lunch only. And yet what did Nancy Silverton dream of opening after she left Campanile? A pizzeria.
And Pizzeria Mozza, the place she opened in 2006 in partnership with New York's Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich -- one of the most anticipated restaurants in the last few years -- has started another pizza revolution.
Restaurants are adding pizza to their menus so fast it's hard to keep up -- Reservoir, Saluté Wine Bar and Boho, to name a few. It's a veritable pizza war out there. Here's a report from the field:
Last week I went back to Spago to see how that original gourmet pizza held up after all those years. Just fine, actually. The smoked salmon pizza (a.k.a. the Jewish pizza) was and still is a brilliant idea, like eating Nova on a thin, crisp bialy. Except instead of gummy cream cheese, it's spread with a lovely, loose dill crème fraîche -- and the satiny salmon is house-smoked. The pizza of the season, though, is spring vegetables with ochre chanterelles, asparagus, sweet cipollini onions and roasted baby artichokes. A velvety, lightly smoked bufala scamorza cheese ties it all together.
Riffs on the genre
At Pizzeria Mozza the crust is billowy and yeasty, darkened with a pinch of buckwheat flour and the ministrations of the roaring pizza oven. The pizzas aren't "authentic" to either the Italian or New York traditions, though Silverton has had plenty of experience with the real thing. These are her riffs on the genre, heady, freewheeling pizzas based on a killer dough, a finely tuned knowledge of the wood-burning oven and sheer invention. They're pretty much all terrific. Never over-embellished, just flat out delicious, whether it's her pie topped with radicchio, escarole, guanciale and a molten-centered fried egg or one with graceful tomato sauce, burrata and squash blossoms. Though I have to say, I've yet to try pizza allo Benno, which features speck (smoked, raw-cured ham) with fresh pineapple, mozzarella and jalapeño and was dreamed up by her son Ben.
At lunch, the most Italian pizzas in town issue from the oven at Angelini Osteria. Last week I had a flawless pizza, or rather two -- a thin, crisp crust blistered from the oven and topped with mushrooms and slices of rosy prosciutto. Sometimes he'll do a wonderful burrata pizza as a special with fresh cherry tomatoes and that creamy fresh cheese, it's as good as it gets. And since Angelini is a full-service trattoria, you can also get bowls of pasta e fagioli, his irresistible penne all' Amatriciana made with house-cured guanciale and for dessert, an affogato (vanilla ice cream drowned in a cup of espresso).
Though they're only a small part of the menu, the pizzas at Gjelina in Venice keep getting better. Six months in, chef-owner Travis Lett has his pizza mojo down. His pies have a graceful aesthetic, beautiful to look at, even better to eat, and farmers market all the way. Like the seductive vegetable dishes here from the wood-burning oven, the eight pizzas on offer shift with the seasons. A pie blanketed in Fontina cheese and bitter greens accented with bacon lardons or one that melds Taleggio cheese with dusky wild mushrooms and pea shoots may give way to a pizza topped with sweet porky guanciale, crushed olives and bufala mozzarella. The crust is very thin, very crisp. Pizza is such a popular item, though, you may have to wait for yours: The oven is only big enough to cook four pies at a time.
Dough's just right
Pizzeria Ortica in Costa Mesa puts more emphasis on the pizzas, though the menu also offers the gamut of antipasti, salads, pastas and main courses. This is Sona and Comme Ça owner David Myers' first foray into Italian, with Steve Samson, whom you might remember as chef at Valentino a few years back, as chef de cuisine. Samson has made it his business to get the dough right, using a 300-year-old biga or sourdough starter from outside Naples, Italy (wonder how he got that baby through customs?). The thin crust has wonderful flavor and picks up some smokiness from the oven. Consider the Calabrese with San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella, rapini, hot little Calabrese peppers and shaved bottarga (dried pressed roe). The Margherita is classic, and you can add prosciutto and wild arugula to it, or salami and mushrooms. But the most unusual is the pie topped with fresh ricotta, guanciale, scallions and a dusting of fennel pollen. The place also has some terrific antipasti, such as house-cured yellowfin tuna with borlotti beans, charred octopus with potatoes and celery or carciofi (artichokes) alla Romana. Note: On the first and third Saturday of every month, Samson will be teaching a pizza class at the restaurant.
At Riva in Santa Monica, Fraiche's Jason Travi is zeroing in on the pizza front, too, taking his inspiration from the Italian Riviera. The crust has had some glitches, mostly in consistency, but he's been working on it. You can see the wood-burning oven just inside the open kitchen -- not a beauty, but functional. He's got a winner with his Molto Maiale pizza, which is very much in the Molto Mario (Batali) style: More has got to be better. This one is topped with meatballs, sausage, pancetta and bacon. There's a simple potato, Fontina and sea salt pie and a Margherita made with bufala mozzarella. Mushroom, though, seems more like duxelles spread thinly over the crust: not a success. He may be trying too hard to be original.
If you go by the most basic definition of pizza -- bread with a garnish -- the flatbread that Zoe Nathan turns out at Huckleberry, her month-old Santa Monica bakery, definitely qualifies. OK, she doesn't have a wood-burning oven, which makes it even more remarkable what she does with a regular deck oven. I suspect her secret is to lavish the dough with olive oil, which crisps and caramelizes the edges beautifully. She features a different flatbread every day: I loved one topped with kale, onions and raisins. Another day, it might be potato and onion, or zucchini blossoms, or even sprouting broccoli. You basically get a 6-inch-by-6-inch slab of heaven. To go or eat in.
Back to traditional
If, on the other hand, you're looking for something more traditional, there are two places in Southern California that turn out strictly Neapolitan pizzas:
Peppe Miele, chef/owner of Antica Pizzeria in Marina del Rey, is a member of the Verace Pizza Napoletana Assn. You know he's serious when you walk in the door of this cozy upstairs pizzeria and find big bags of tipo 00 (a soft wheat flour from Italy) stacked near the wood-burning pizza oven. Miele is a classicist at heart and doesn't get too crazy with toppings. He does a beautiful Margherita (simply tomato, mozzarella and basil). But I'm also partial to his pizza del Cafone topped with smoked mozzarella, crumbled Italian sausage and rapini. I wouldn't put Antica's pizzas head-to-head with the best of what Naples has to offer, but they're very good. And they come out of the oven in a flash.
Over in Monterey Park, Bollini's Pizzeria Napolitana waves the pizza flag with honor. A graduate of Le Cordon Bleu who has worked around L.A. at some top restaurants, Chris Bollini had the idea to open his own pizzeria in Monterey Park where he grew up. To do that, he went straight to Italy to apprentice in the art of la pizza. The wood-burning pizza oven is fired up at noon ready to bake any of a long list of Neapolitan-style pies. He doesn't subscribe to the dinner plate-size pizza but makes them in two sizes -- large and larger. You can buy them by the slice, too. He's got the classics and some wilder ones, like the Papo (olive pesto, shrimp, clams, tomatoes, hot peppers) or the Steak Special (marinated steak, horseradish sauce, arugula). Though his crust hits the mark, upgrading the quality of the topping ingredients would raise these pizzas to another level.
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| I was so sure I was going to get laid off this week when the internet rumors began swirling of my firm doing stealth terminations. but somehow I got a pass. It was of course a relief to know that I still have a job, but the terror of coming into work each day, wondering how much longer I have, is still there. I'm pretty sure that if there's another round of layoffs that I'll be included in the next bunch, which makes it tough to sleep peacefully at night. Hopefully the economy will turn around by then that this won't be an issue, but who knows. I think I've got about a 6 month reprieve, but wouldn't be surprised if something happens to me sooner. C'mon economy... time to get goin'.
On another note, have you ever read or experienced something that gave you an epiphany entirely unrelated to what you were searching for? I was reading a random article in the NY Times about tips to make workplace meetings for efficient... and in it, the consultant talks about why our lack of appreciation for "time" is why meetings are inefficient. Reading that blurb about "time" was like hitting a light switch on in my head. I'm notorious for taking my time with everything I do. It's never been a problem because I've always had so much extra time to spare. If a problem took 2 hours to solve... I'd spend 10 hours to do it. Probably 3 hours of real work (so I would still do more than it needed), and 7 hours of surfing the internet prepping to do it. But these few sentences totally turned my mind around on this issue about getting things done quickly... I get it now. I get why I should do things as soon as possible, as efficient as possible. Not that this hasn't been told to me a million times before or that I didn't already know... but it just makes so much more sense in my head now. And now I'm finally trying to employ more time-efficiency into my life and sticking to it.You may read these words as "duh.... this is obvious", but like I said for me, it's been a life-changer lately (for at least one week so far ... =P).
I forgot to copy the article's weblink, but here are the choice words I've been referring to:
The main reason we don’t make meetings more productive is that we don’t value our time properly. The people who call meetings and those who attend them are not thinking about time as their most valuable resource.
In business, we like to convert time to money, and the reverse. But in practice, time and money are different. We can get more money, save it, move it between accounts and use it on demand. These operations don’t apply easily to time.
Time is the most perishable good in the world, and it is not replenishable. You can’t earn an extra hour to use on a busy day. Nonetheless, we usually have a vague feeling that there is plenty of time — somewhere in the future — so we waste it now and carelessly steal time from our families, friends or ourselves when we come up short at the end of a workday and need to stay an extra hour.
Probably most important, we are blind to lost time opportunities. When we choose where to invest our time, as opposed to where to invest money, we are more likely to neglect what else we could have done with it.
Random Note on Hawaii
You know, one thing that I really appreciate about Hawaii, is how everyone initially assumes I'm a local just from my physical appearance. It's nice being somewhere where everyone has the same face as you. I'm the majority.... I'm the norm.... it's the only place I can go and feel like that... not here on the Mainland, nor in any Asian country... only in Hawaii.
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| i'm getting killed at work right now. this year i've had months where i had absolutely nothing to do and then months like this where each day's goal is to get every possible working minute out of the day. i was planning on going on vacation starting on monday thru the beginning of next year, but i've been asked to stay thru at least christmas eve to handle a new client matter.
i've decided that i'm a whole lot happier when i'm busy at work, than when i go thru stretches where i have nothing to do. so i guess i shouldn't complain about the long days. and these days have been long..... verrrrry long. but there's something to feeling useful on a daily basis, and providing a service... and developing professionally....
... just wish it could be done without the sleep deprivation....
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| Okay, so this was my first time writing an entry since xanga switched over to it's new format. it took me about 15 minutes here just to figure out how to post an entry.... I was about to give up until i realized I didn't want to be defeated by stupid xanga. i've been really busy lately and this was the first weekend in a long time where I actually didn't have to do any work. It's become the norm to work at least one full day out of my weekend, and not unheard of to work both, and so it was nice to finally have a weekend to chill out, relax, and attend to some errands around the house. and with such a great weekend behind me, i thought nothing would put a better exclamation point on it than to post a xanga entry for the first time in 2 months!! So, here's a recap of the recent:
- taxes - oh taxes, you would think as someone who was a CPA in a former life that I would be more comfortable doing these than the normal citizen. but oh no! taxes suck for me too. so, after neglecting them up until the last weekend before they're due, I cranked out both my taxes, and helped kristen with filing hers. I'm so glad I won't have to think about them for another year because there's nothing fun about doing taxes.
- lasik - yep, finally got lasik surgery, and am so glad I did. for those who didn't know, i had crazy-bad vision. before the surgery, my left eye was at around -10, and my right eye was -7 something. it really bothered me that i was essentially helpless without corrective vision. I kept worrying about a "what if" scenario that i would be in a plane crash that got stranded on a desert island with no glasses and my contacts only working for a week before they too would fail me, leaving me blind on a deserted island!! (think Castaway meets Ray). and i really hated those mornings where I couldn't find my glasses first thing and would end up crawling on the floor to find them. so, took the plunge, and got lasik. because my vision was so bad, I had to get a different kind of lasik than most people get. same results, but the recovery time is a lot longer and more unpredictable. i ended up having blurry vision for about 2 weeks after surgery which totally sucked. couldn't read anything (no internet, no books), couldn't drive anywhere, and really couldn't watch tv or movies (i could follow them, just not watch them the way i would with normal vision). so initially i was frustrated because i had to take an impromptu 2 week break from work during a time when everyone is worried about their jobs because of economic slowdown, and i thought i was going to be out of commission for 3-4 days, not 2 weeks. but now, vision is back to normal... and i no longer have to deal with contact lens solution, glasses or any other crap like that.. which is soooo awesome!!! i've wanted to get the surgery for awhile, but last year was the first time I worked a full year since 2002, so i finally had the money to get it done... and i'm so glad i did.
I  Macs - i switched over to a Mac desktop after Windows crapped out on me for the last time. I hate, hate, hate the Windows operating system for it's lack of stability. and for an individual like me that has no real computer know-how, it's nice having a computer I feel so much more comfortable with and doesn't break down out on me every other time i try to use it. now i'm a mac enthusiast and would highly recommend it for all. it's great!
Water Filter- okay, i know this isn't some big event. but it was to me. it really stood out to me with how much better i am now at taking care of the little things (like getting a water filter installed for the sink). I'm still lazy with cleaning up after myself and putting my clothes away (ask kristen, she'll tell you), but things like the water filter, or any other projects that I would always say to myself that i would get done but never do, i finally do. and i've pimped it to others and have mentioned it on my journal before, but have to say it again, the "Getting Things Done" system (wikipedia it!) has absolutely impacted my life in terms of accomplishing goals. Something like lasik would have been pushed off forever, and the water filter, forget about it. but now, things never slip through my fingers.... i feel like i'm always making a little progress towards my big goals, and my little goals never get lost in the confusions of day to day. and that feeling of accomplishment of any goal (big or small) is a good feeling to have. even if it is just a water filter.. =)
so, up above is life this year.... lasik, water filter, taxes and a new computer. no mention of crazy night this, or crazy experience that.... i think i've really grown into myself as a homebody, who usually looks to his free weekends to maybe read a little something here, watch a DVD from netflix, catch up on my DVR shows and maybe catch a good meal with a friend if time permits. i was considering waiting a bit to announce maybe some other big stuff that may happen in the near future (and it really is big stuff!), but really, i thought those events would deserve their own entry.
hopefully i'll update this more than every 2 months (where I'll be updating you all on my next round of exciting adventures of buying work slacks and getting a key made for my apartment), but who knows... xanga is nice to visit now and again (and i still check it every day for other people's updates), but in terms of me writing stuff, i think it served its purposes for me a long time ago. but every now and again, i get the itch to write... so who knows.
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