From the Gutt

A beginner's guide to flawed wines

2011-12-09T18:15:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, the bottle of wine you open at home or order at a restaurant is flawed. That doesn't mean you made a poor choice and bought a crummy wine. As a delicate, living product, wine can go bad, like milk, produce, meat, or anything else. People feel enough anxiety about wine to begin with, and deciding whether a particular bottle may be flawed could enough to induce a panic attack. But just as drinking wine is as simple as going with what you like, picking out flawed bottles isn't too tough. While there are a litany of possible defects and, as with anything involving wine, geeks can parse the nuances of each flaw until it induces you to drink even if the wine is spoiled, it is worth being familiar with a handful of common signs that a wine is defective. You'll grow more comfortable once you've encountered some of these bad characteristics, but hopefully you don't run into them too often.

1. "Cork Taint"

This probably is the most common flaw you'll run into. You may hear it called "TCA," which is an abbreviation for the chemical compound that causes cork to ruin wines. No need to bore you with the science; you can read more in-depth information for general audiences at the Wine Spectator. "Corked" wine is also among the easiest flaws to pick out. Have you ever smelled a cardboard box that sat in a garage during the humid, rainy Houston summer? That is basically what cork taint smells like. It makes the wine smell musty or like damp, moldy cardboard.

Your first indication that a wine might be corked is by smelling the cork itself. It is that plug of cork bark itself that imparts the TCA bacteria on a wine and ruins it. (A side note: it is possible for a cork to smell corked but for wine to be untouched.) If you smell that musty aroma coming from the wine in the glass? Send the wine back at a restaurant, which should bring out another bottle at no charge. Or put the cork back in and return it to where you bought it. Any self-respecting merchant will honor your return, even years after a purchase. You should get your purchase price refunded, receive store credit, or take home a replacement bottle of the same wine from a recent (if not the same) vintage. This is the same resolution a restaurant, retailer, or winery should give you for any flawed wine.

2. "Brett"

"Brett" is short for "brettanomyces," which is a bacteria that, not to be rude about it, makes a wine smell like crap. Literally. Some diplomatically refer to the aroma of brett as "barnyard," but make no mistake: brett is, at its core, a flaw. Some might argue a bit of brett in wine adds complexity -- and, indeed, it can be nice to have a hint of brett in wine. The French wines of Burgundy and the Rhone are most commonly linked with (and even renowned for, in some cases) moderate brett levels.

But brett is, without a doubt, a bacteria that can destroy wine. Perhaps you have a threshold for enjoying brett, which is most often found in red wines; perhaps you are as intolerant to it as you should be of cork taint. If a wine is too full of brett for you? Send it back.

3. "Cooked"

Cooked wine is a unique problem among wine flaws. This is one instance where, in most cases, you can't blame the winery. Whereas cork taint, brett, and the other faults listed here are without a doubt imparted at the time the wine is made or bottled, a wine is cooked somewhere in the supply chain -- either during delivery or storage. When a wine is cooked, it takes on aromas and flavors that are stewed and, yes, cooked. This can be somewhat difficult to ascertain in an era when wines are riper than ever before, but a wine that is cooked as opposed to simply overripe will display a dull, blunted palate presence.

Another sign that a wine may have been cooked somewhere between the winery and your glass again comes from the cork. When wine heats up, as with other liquids, it expands. Sometimes, the wine will saturate the cork or even seep out the top of it if the wine has been exposed to extreme heat -- like you might remember we get in Houston on occasion.

You can avoid cooked wines by paying attention to whether wine has seeped out of the top of the cork or capsule. In addition, think twice if you walk into a wine shop, and they're touting a "new arrival" in the summer months. Ask if the distributor or winery shipped the wine using climate-controlled delivery methods. If not, you may be set up for a cooked wine. Also, if buying wine direct from the producer, they should not ship when temperatures are 80 degrees or warmer. As a courtesy, most wines will hold your wine for shipment until the weather is suitable.

4. "Premature Oxidation"

You might also hear the term "maderized" to describe a wine that essentially has aged before its time. Maderized white wines -- the most common victims of this flaw -- are easy to spot. They'll generally have a surprisingly dark yellow or even brown color. And they will smell and taste like Madeira. This flaw is a particular problem in the white wines of Burgundy from 1996 to the present, but any wine can suffer from oxidation. You shouldn't have to drink a wine that has died before its time, so send it back.

5. "Reduction"

Have you ever stuck your nose in a glass of wine only to be greeted by an unpleasant burnt rubber smell? That is reduction. Often a side effect of a wine not being exposed to enough oxygen during the winemaking process, reduction also seems to be more pronounced in wines sealed under screw caps. Screw caps seal the wine almost flawlessly, causing reduction to take much longer to resolve. (And most of the time it does resolve with time in bottle.)

But the truth is that a reduced wine is as much fun to drink as a grilled tire is to eat. Reduction dominates a wine's bouquet and blunts the palate. It makes it undrinkable, and you should send it back.

How to handle returning the wine

It's understandable that you might feel apprehension if you believe something is wrong with a wine. If you're at a restaurant, you should be able to consult a sommelier for his opinion. Be mindful, though, that sensitivity to cork taint, or any other flaw, is individualized. Even very experienced, passionate, and knowledgeable wine drinkers may have less keen sensitivities to these flaws. Trust your own palate. If something seems amiss, ask for a second or third opinion.

You may encounter an unprofessional wine shop or waiter or sommelier who refuses to acknowledge an obvious flaw or tries to belittle or bully you about a bad bottle. Good wines are sometimes bad. Anyone in the business consumer knows this. Flawed wines also are returned or sent back with regularity. Depending on which estimates you trust, between 3 and 8 percent of wines are faulty, and wineries, wholesalers, retailers, and restaurants know that dealing with flawed bottles is a cost of doing business. Ultimately, it is your discretion and any important circumstances on a given occasion that determine how hard you push the issue, but bringing an establishment's attention to flawed bottles is nothing to be embarrassed about.

Houston Restaurant Weeks: More than just food

2011-08-04T19:58:00.001-05:00

You find a number of divergent opinions on Houston Restaurant Weeks. The hip position seems to be one of begrudging acceptance mixed with condescension. It's easy to pick out the event's weaknesses -- a gimmick to lure customers during a traditionally slow month for restaurants, getting them to eat high-margin meals. But, aside from the notably worthy purpose of supporting the Houston Food Bank, some restaurants and consumers miss the tremendous opportunity that this high-profile event presents.

From a food standpoint, the benefits are obvious. Chefs get to show off their ability to craft cohesive menus -- something that's too rare in Houston, even if only for three or four courses. A restaurant also gets the chance to showcase its food to parades of new customers with limited risk. The set menus are designed for easy success; they're short and sweet and ought to be easy for a professional kitchen to crank out consistently. HRW has the hallmark of a golden opportunity to expand the customer base of Houston restaurants for the long-term.

As a result, the hemming-and-hawing about HRW is head-scratching. Recent debates online have focused on whether HRW customers deserve the same level of service as those ordering off the regular menu or whether it's valid to base a Yelp review on a HRW visit. That's the wrong discussion. There is nothing to be gained in knocking an event that brings new customers in the door and, therefore, creates an opportunity for a restaurant to show its best.

A more valid criticism, however, might be that some Houston restaurants don't embrace the potential value of HRW. Plenty of keen observers have noted a few half-hearted menus. Other restaurants simply lack imagination. What is often missing are respect for HRW customers and, more frequently, smart beverage pairings. An important way to view HRW is that it showcases the whole restaurant, not just a chance to come in and eat a set menu at a value price. Wipe that feeling away -- a paying customer is a paying customer. What's more, this month provides a superb opportunity to educate new diners and turn them into regulars.

What better way to educate than with showing off how complete the restaurant experience can be? Houston has been full of craft beer and cocktails dinners in recent months, but only a handful of restaurants have bothered to devise beverage pairings with their HRW menus. This is a missed opportunity to showcase an imperative skill for restaurants and their staffs: to come up with wine, beer, and cocktail pairings that enhance and elevate their food. Hugo's and Backstreet Cafe have come up with menus where complementary beverages are an integral part, no surprise given the deft skill of sommelier Sean Beck in elevating food by finding the right drink to go with it. Mockingbird Bistro and the Glass Wall, along with too few others, also offer thoughtful pairings with their HRW offerings.

The bottom line, simply put, is this: Restaurants in Houston offer more than just food. They offer an experience, an escape from your own kitchen, and a chance to enjoy one of the most exciting restaurant scenes in the country. In the first tier of restaurant cities in the United States -- New York, San Francisco, Chicago -- part of the joy is that you bask in the escape of the full dining experience, of which food is only one (very important) part.

To maximize a customer's exposure, Houston establishments need to put their arms around HRW and give it a big bear hug. Ensuring service is spot-on and the talents of their beverage experts, in particular, would be a good start. Show off the menu you've put special thought and effort into and get customers to come back by making them feel at home and, maybe more importantly, help them carry on merrily with the right glass of wine or other drink in their hands.

Lessons from Paris

2011-07-03T10:45:00.003-05:00

It's easy to get caught up in the humdrum of everyday life, getting tunnel vision and too comfortable in your daily existence. Every once in a while, it's essential to get out and remind yourself what the world at large has to offer. It's easy to forget in a food city as diverse as Houston that there is much to learn from the broader globe. A recent trip to Paris reinforced that. Here are some lessons learned, perhaps running the danger of veering into generalities. For ease, exceptions to the general rules are left out.

1. Seasonal still rules the day, from Michelin Three Stars to bistros
Paris in April? Prepare for showers of morels and asparagus. But the refreshing thing is how deeply entrenched seasonal eating is in this culture. Restaurants don't trumpet the fact that they're serving what's local and of-the-moment. It's understood. This is the level of food appreciation -- an innate devotion to the freshest and best -- that has defined French food since the time of Marie-Antoine Careme and even earlier. (For a terrific discussion of this subject, and generally good writing on an array of topics, consult Mike Steinberger 's excellent book Au Revoir to All That and his blog.)

This dedication to seasonality and freshness is the foundation of an admirable respect the French have for their food and the act of dining. And it is this fundamental and powerful building block that arguably is France's greatest culinary export right now. Take, for example, the two dishes pictured below. First, a glorious salad of fresh morels and asparagus from Le Bristol, the stunning three-star Michelin restaurant on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. It is a testament to seasonality, the finest ingredients, and artistic presentation.

Second, an equally delicious and seasonal preparation of morels, this time from the superb Bistrot Paul Bert. It's nothing more than fried eggs with morels and mushroom cream. Simplicity on a plate, yet providing a depth of flavor that, without supreme freshness of ingredients, would come across as heavy and plodding. Seasonal cooking doesn't only allow a chef to honor place and freshness; the right ingredients at the appropriate time inform the texture and weight of dishes.

2. It's about technique, not gimmicks
Look back at those stunning fried eggs from Bistrot Paul Bert above. It's all well and good to have the best ingredients, but they won't be worth a damn if you can't cook them properly. To cook simply and to showcase your ingredients is a risky proposition because, without expert technique, the food doesn't stand a chance. One striking thing about restaurants in Paris is their unwavering adherence to technique. You expect and demand perfect execution of basic preparations in high-end restaurants like Le Bristol, but the high quality of technique across the board is impressive. Just because a dish may be humble doesn't mean it isn't worthy of respect that borders on reverence.

Take boeuf bourguignon, the king of peasant dishes (now that's a paradox). Shown here in a faultless preparation from Christian Constant's inviting Les Cocottes, there was notable care in crafting a pure sauce that spoke of the beef without being tarted up with any gimmicks. The meat was cooked to that easy-to-know but hard-to-reach point of being fall-apart tender without the chuck toughening up again. Too often, simple dishes like this come out with tough meat, as if the cook has assumed he could braise it indefinitely without fault. Or by needlessly cooking the beef sous vide for days to make a splash by writing "72-hour boeuf bourguignon" on the menu -- there are places for advanced techniques, but they aren't always necessary.

Another good example of the triumph of technique over gimmicks comes from Chef Jean Louis Nomicos, whose Les Tablettes recently opened in the 16th arrondissement. This appetizer course has several moving parts: a glorious mushroom puree that relies on just a hint of richness that doesn't interfere with its pure flavor, perfectly sauteed white asparagus, freshest morels, and gloriously crisp sweetbreads.

3. A meal is an opportunity to be exploited, not an obstacle to overcome

How many times have you eaten a bowl of cereal or a sandwich while standing up? Maybe had lunch at your desk? That's not enjoying your food. Sure, sometimes it might be necessary, but it is hardly any way to live. It's important to realize that just because you won't necessarily eat high on the hog doesn't mean you can't eat well. The dish pictured below, "Best of Cod," is another superlative creation from Le Bristol. Essentially a sauteed piece of fish with a bit of citrus over it, this is an over-the-top example of how basic food can become a celebration, even an exercise in genius. The cod was cooked perfectly. A parsley jus and shellfish surround the plate. On top? Nitrogen-frozen pearls of lemon and orange and slices of spring onion, which give the dish an uncanny bit of texture and temperature -- all simply enhancing the fish as easily as a squeeze of lemon would.

Meals are a great social occasion. You can spend twelve hours at the office, but at least do yourself the favor of, once a day, sitting down to a proper meal to reconnect with friends or family. Shoveling in a bowl of pasta or wolfing down a 24-ounce steak to refuel the system isn't living anymore than eating a sandwich standing up. Take a moment. Have a pan-seared filet mignon with a slice of lightly sauteed foie gras on top and savor the people around you. You don't have to geek out about the food. Use the food as a vehicle to connect with those you love and your own life.

4. Like writing, food needs editing

So many dishes suffer from too many flourishes -- a gastrique that muddles the overall flavors of the food, an extra dose of potent and unnecessary ingredients give a plate an overinflated sense of self-importance. Too many ingredients in a sauce end up competing with one another, rather than allowing the sauce to sing and complement the food. There is a powerful temptation to believe more is more, particularly in this Super-Size-It society. Once again, Christian Constant -- this time at his Cafe Constant -- demonstrates the opposite is true. A simple roasted chicken with sauteed potatoes and a bit of lettuce as a garnish is satisfying, utilizes the best ingredients, and doesn't try to be more than it is: good, hearty food that lets you nourish yourself and enjoy the company around you.

More to the point, if you are cooking with the best ingredients, they need very little to bring out their finest qualities. Bistrot Paul Bert again serves as a fine example, with the roasted root vegetables and braised beef cheek with bearnaise pictured below. Basic, even humble, ingredients cooked with fine technique. You rarely need more ... well, maybe some wine.

5. Humble wine is just fine
The American wine press always seems to be abuzz about the next "cult" wine from California or futures prices of increasingly out-of-reach classed growth Bordeaux. There is talk about value, but it's surprising how few true value wines come out of California. When is the last time you had a meaningfully good wine for $10 that was produced domestically? It tends to be the exception rather than the rule. There's Two Buck Chuck and Gallo plonk that predominates supermarkets. But why isn't there something the equivalent of French vin de pays coming out of American wine regions? Even reasonably good, less expensive wines on Houston wine lists tend to be from Spain, New Zealand, and Italy.

One of the beauties of restaurants in France is that, for 15 to 20 euros, you get a solid wine with genuine varietal character. It's not laden with oak or trying to pretend to be more than it is. Sometimes it comes to the table in a multi-use bottle that has no label and no cork. It's refreshing and enhances the food -- and epitomizes that wine is an indispensable part of the meal.

There is a beautiful sense of security about wine consumption that the French have on a daily basis. Wine is part of setting the table, like a knife and fork, a social lubricant and celebration all in one.

It is the ease with which the French still approach their meals that can give Americans a goal to strive for: slow down, enjoy your food. It's a good thing to appreciate your food -- the quality of what you put in your body and also the manner in which you consume it.

Wine of the Moment: Numanthia Termes

2011-06-29T20:26:00.003-05:00

Spanish wines have gotten a pretty good amount of press the past few years. There are those, like Alice Feiring, who push the supremely traditional wines of the Rioja made by Lopez-Heredia -- and very few others. And there are those like Robert Parker (or, more truthfully put, his ethically questionable employee, Jay Miller) who trumpet highly modern, highly oaked wines from the Priorat, Ribera del Duero, and Toro.

Spanish wines can be hit or miss. You definitely get a lot of value in them -- particularly the whites, such as Albarino and Verdeho. But often the reds shoot too high and miss, like a cheap California Cabernet. One of the most standout wines of Spain's new school, missing all the pratfalls of the heavily oaked, high extraction crowd is the Numanthia Termes. Current release is 2008, and it's a steal at $24 or so. You can find it at Spec's quite readily and, also most of the time, at Central Market in the Houston area. It's a wine that gives a bit of a nod to Russian River Valley Zinfandel: pretty, spicy fruit flavors with ramped up acidity and noticeable tannic structure. It will satisfy those who crave nice fruit and the drying sensation you get from the young Cabernets that are so popular yet so heavy for Houston's brutal summer.

Termes is aged in once-used oak barrels, meaning there is less toast and vanilla for the wood to impart on the wine. The result is a surprisingly fresh, vibrant red that stands up well to the grilled red meat and barbecue that comes across summertime tables. Have at it.

What will be the ultimate legacy of the "local" food movement?

2011-04-06T21:20:00.001-05:00

You can't pick up a fork without tripping over the hottest buzz words in food today -- the "local" food movement or "eating local" or any of the myriad variations on the theme. The essential elements of eating local seem to include (1) eating as much food as possible (not only vegetables, also meats, cheese, bread, etc.) from "local sources;" (2) preparing food that is seasonal; (3) purchasing food that is sustainably and/or organically farmed; and (4) placing a premium on knowing the sources of what you consume.

Obviously, there are a number of threshold questions to overcome in order to begin this discussion. First and foremost, how do you define "local"? Is it a 10-mile radius? 25? 50? More? Until the Industrial Revolution, this was easier to answer. Modes of transportation were much more restrictive, forcing food to come from relatively nearby. Railroads and airplanes have changed all that. Now you can get organic asparagus year-round, either from a farm down the road, California, or Peru.

But there are larger questions at hand, too. Is food sourced from a local source necessarily good simply by being local? What if you live somewhere without the possibility of thriving local agriculture; are you left out of the local movement entirely? How will "local food" evolve and sustain itself? In essence, what will the lasting impact of this local emphasis be?

It is that last question that holds the most interest. Fundamentally, the "local" movement, in part, is chasing a myth. It isn't practical -- perhaps, isn't even possible -- to return the United States to an agrarian ideal. That Jeffersonian moment has passed. So what, ultimately, will this movement become? This question is worth exploring because the local food movement has genuine value and will leave a meaningful impact on the way this country eats.

At some point down the road, looking back on what started as a revitalization of boutique food sources, these times will mark the true beginning of when Americans started truly caring about what they eat. For most of the twentieth century, culinary history in the United States was marked by technological advances: frozen foods, the microwave oven, fast food, ways to engineer "natural" flavorings, and other things that were meant to make eating easier. The problem with emphasizing technology in this way was that it resulted in the consumption of unhealthy, poor quality food. Instead of enjoying meals, they became obstacles to be overcome, met and discarded in the fastest, cheapest way possible. That results in a lot of issues, including creating a culture that doesn't value the food it consumes -- an odd situation when food, when it comes down to it, is the fuel to make our bodies go.

This lack of appreciation for food -- taking the easy way out -- has offered the local movement its greatest opportunity and in which lies its greatest hope. Eating well is not something for "foodies." It is not something for the rich. It is not something for the person who saves just to experience one meal at the French Laundry. It is for anyone who's willing to embrace it. Good food takes care and attention, which are two things that precisely are hamstrung by the prevalence of technological food, with its dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.

How does the local movement become the savior, pulling the country out of its grease-laden, deep fried, engineered obsession with packaged food? For starters, locavores care about what they eat. That is not a hallmark of technology foods, to put it mildly. With reflection, this desire to do well with good ingredients is the logical progression from Julia Child's grand (and deserved) legacy. Julia frequently preached doing better with what you have -- even if you had to use frozen spinach or come up with a substitute for French flour. Locavores, more so than foodies as a class, do not tolerate compromise. They are specific and passionate in their desire to acquire the best ingredients available.

At this point, you could run into road blocks. What if the best ingredient isn't available locally? Do you really have to stay within a 5-mile radius? Ten? More? To a certain extent, those issues are semantics. It's about what "local" means to you. But this emphasis on quality ingredients and caring about food are the the true heart of the local movement. It is about finding the best ingredients from people who are passionate and skilled. There's no need to go furtherthan that. The essential step is eating well and putting love and attention on your food. This is about rejecting the technology food culture that has given us blue raspberry flavoring, cheese in a can, and Kraft avocado-free guacamole.

Doing so pushes American food culture in a better direction, largely rejecting a look-what-we-can-do infatuation with technology (molecular gastronomy saved for another time) and toward an emphasis on quality and good food. Regardless of anything else, this is a genuine revolution and may determine the most significant legacy of the local food movement -- and a glorious one it would be. A country that embraces meals as an opportunity to be exploited, to bring people together on a daily basis and not just at Thanksgiving or Sunday supper? That is worth striving for.

Wine every day, part three

2011-02-02T18:19:00.001-06:00

Hopefully by now you think wine is something you want to try. But a basic task remains: how do you drink it? That’s a stupid thing to ask, isn’t it? Open up and swallow it down. Well, it’s not quite that simple if you want to maximize the enjoyment of this wonderfully layered and complex beverage, but it doesn't have to be overly complex, either. Tony Soprano put it right during season five of The Sopranos when, after he uncorked a bottle of Dom Perignon to celebrate reconciling with Carmella, he scolded Anthony Junior for gulping it down like beer. “You gotta savor it,” he said. One thing that makes drinking wine such a pleasure, as with many things we enjoy in our lives, is the ritual that surrounds it. By no means should the ritual subordinate the actual pleasure of swilling it down, but a few small steps can maximize the experience.

Opening the bottle

You’ve done this before, but there are a couple tips to remember. First, your corkscrew makes a difference. Much like wine itself, they come in a lot of varieties, from the cheap to the ostentatiously expensive. The basic styles include the waiter’s corkscrew. These can be a challenge if you don’t have a lot of experience, since they don’t always go straight into the cork. There is also the “drill” type, which covers the top of the bottle and screws into the cork while a pair of arms raise into the air. Push the arms down, and the cork comes out. This is a great corkscrew, but make sure you get one where the tip that goes into the cork first is straight, not curved, or you can have the same problem as with the waiter’s corkscrew.

The easiest entry-level corkscrew to use is a Screw Pull. It’s also sometimes called a “rabbit” style wine opener. A good one will run you about $100, but it makes opening wine — young and old bottles — a breeze. You can also get a solid one for $20, but expect to replace it in a year or two.

Once the bottle’s open, do this: Smell the cork. A lot of people dismiss this as pretentious and unnecessary, a relic of past, unenlightened times — just the sort of thing it’s important to guard against. But the critics are dead wrong. Smell the cork. If it smells musty or like wet socks or mold, it is the first indicator that your bottle might have “cork taint,” which is what winos say when a chemical compound known as TCA, found in corks, ruins a wine. There are degrees of cork taint, and the cork is the first place where the off aromas will show up. Consider it the wine bottle's canary.

Last, pour a small amount of wine into your glass and take a taste. The wine may well need to have more contact with the air (called “opening up” or “aerating”) to fully develop its aromas and flavors, but the initial sip will let you know if the wine is flawed.

What kind of glass?

The key word here is “glass.” Fundamentally, you don’t need to worry about anything else other than drinking your wine out of a real glass. It doesn’t matter what shape it is. It’s just important not to be drinking out of plastic. You’re not going to basement keg parties anymore. (At least not to drink wine.) Down the road, you’ll want to invest in some inexpensive but good wine glasses. Target carries an excellent line of reasonably priced Riedel glasses. You should certainly consider three varieties: one for red wine, one for white wine, and a flute for champagne.

You want wine glasses to be clear — no color at all, without etching or cut glass. You want the lip of the glass to be thin, not thick and clumsy, which will negatively affect how you taste the wine. Other considerations change depending on the type of glass. For example, for red wines, use a large glass with a wide bowl. This allows you to swirl the wine in your glass and aerate it, making for a more aromatic bouquet (as winos call the aromas). For white wines, the glass is similar but smaller, without quite as large a bowl. Champagne flutes are probably old hat. But when you pick one out, simulate taking a sip to see if the tip of your nose hits the side of the glass. Many flutes these days are made with too narrow an opening on top, and if your nose makes contact, the oil will come off your skin, and that will inhibit the bubbles. What fun is champagne with no bubbles?

Pouring

This isn’t hard, but promise to keep one thing in mind: Don’t pour too much wine into each glass! Two or three ounces are plenty. This allows you to enjoy the wine and see how it develops as it has increasing contact with air. Many restaurants, if a party of four orders a bottle of wine, will empty it in one round of pours. What good is that? Pour in moderation, please. It’ll still be left in the bottle.

Drink up … but be sure to sniff first

Let’s be frank. Wine enthusiasts often are at their most obnoxious about giving advice on how to drink wine. There are three basic factors to examining a wine: looking at the color, swirling it in the glass and smelling the bouquet, and taking a sip. Look at the color for signs of age and to note how widely varied the colors are for different grapes and different wine styles. But remember: darker does not mean better. It is mostly an indicator of age and grape type.

Smell the wine to ensure there are no warning signs of cork taint (that musty aroma), as well as to get an idea of what the wine will taste like. Almost all our ability to taste comes from the olfactory. So inhale, then take a sip. It’s what you’ve been doing your whole life when it comes to drinking. Go with what works for you.

There is a terrific three-part tasting method printed in Gourmet magazine decades ago. After your initial look at the wine’s color — done by holding it toward white light or against a surface that is as nearly white as possible — and first sniff (which doesn’t have to be over-dramatized like Miles in Sideways; just a good, regular sniff), take a sip and work it around in your mouth. This doesn’t have to be loud or overt, either, like a child reaching the end of the soda he’s drunk through a straw. Just try to get the liquid to coat your tongue. Swallow. You’ll get an expanded array of flavors from the simple effort of holding the wine in your mouth for a few seconds.

Second step: take another sip, but this time just swallow it down. No coating your mouth. Just drink it on down. Final step: take one more sip, move the wine to the back of your tongue, then lean your head back and take the wine into the back of your throat. After you bring the wine to the back of your mouth, return your head upright and let the wine come to the back of your teeth. Inhale over your tongue. This will give the wine serious aeration. Swallow. This is the best way to get a total view of the flavors in the bottle. All the wine's flaws will be exposed, but all the good things will be amplified as well.

This three-step tasting method is pretty simple, once you have a little practice (particularly on that final sip), but it’s not pretentious. It allows you to taste the wine fully, and it is a terrific way to find out what types of flavors you like. You don’t need to do it on every glass. Most of the time you’ll probably just want to drink away, like normal. But this way you can bond a little more with the beverage.

Final thoughts

See, that’s not so hard? There aren’t rules, merely suggestions. In the end, the best way to experience wine is to drink it. The more you drink, the more your knowledge will expand, the keener your palate will become, and the less daunting the whole experience will feel.

You might have a final question about serving temperatures, which is something to consider. Serve red wine at room temperature, perhaps with ten to fifteen minutes in the fridge during those sweltering Houston summer months. White wine is fine at fridge temperature, same with rosés and champagnes. But you can experiment with this, too. Maybe put more of a chill on high-alcohol reds to dull some of the alcoholic burn on the back end. Maybe drink a white wine at room temperature to see if it really is as seamless as it seems to taste. The bottom line is, nobody has to drink the wine but you. Conventions are mere guidelines, but the ritual of drinking wine adds to the romantic notion of it. Personalize that ritual however you like — it’s all about pleasure and getting out of wine what you want from it.

Wine of the Moment: Holiday Edition

2010-12-18T09:13:00.004-06:00

The holidays are one of the best wine-drinking seasons of the year. The festivities and food demand it. Plus, it's a great way to counteract the artery-clogging effects of a Christmas roast. So in lieu of a Wine of the Moment, here are several quality examples, at varying price levels, of excellent holiday wines.

$10 to $20
These are good times to be a wine drinker. There is more value out there for consumers than ever before, particularly in light of the worldwide recession and recent strengthening of the U.S. dollar compared to a few years ago. The Las Rocas Garnacha, from Spain, runs about $10 and is a pleasingly refreshing, overtly fruity red wine that can stand up to the side dishes with a turkey or the richness of a roast beef. From Germany, the Dr. Loosen "L" Riesling is a spectacular deal, also around $10. This would stand up to a turkey dinner, but its slightly sweet, refreshingly acidic palate is a terrific day to kick off the day or wake yourself up after a food coma.

For a real treat, seek out some Siduri Pinot Noir Sonoma County. The 2009, available from the winery, is a special wine for about $20. You'll be hard-pressed to find a better in Pinot Noir from anywhere in the world these days. Winemaker Adam Lee, also a native Texan, has crafted appellation wines that are serious but immensely enjoyable in their youth.

$20 to $30
There are exciting things happening in Spain these days. While some of the wines are overly oaked and ripened to excess using an Australian model, there are a lot of good wines that have found harmony between the old and new styles. A top example is Numanthia Termes from Toro. At about $25, it has a plush palate, a healthy amount of oak, but a classically Spanish sensibility to the berry fruit. This is a tremendous choice for an all-day wine -- it would go great with food or by itself.

Back in the Pinot Noir camp, try something different with the Groffier Bourgogne Passetoutgrains. Available at Spec's for roughly $28, this is a bit different for a red Burgundy. Passetoutgrains wines are permitted to be a blind of Pinot Noir and Gamay, the grape of Beaujolais. Think of it as Beaujolais with an extra dose of aromatics and refinement. The Groffier is a particularly nice example, with the elegance and finesse of Burgundy from a top-quality producer and a slightly rustic, fruity edge of Beaujolais. It's like celebrating with high end Beaujolais Nouveau.

For a change of pace from the usual thinking regarding holiday wines, try the Nozzole Chianti Classic Riserva, which runs about $24. It's got the typical, quite refreshing berry fruit and floral flavors of good Chianti but is done in a style that is very approachable right away. The acidity can combat the richness of so many dishes on the holiday table.

$30 and up
If you really want to stay American with your holiday celebrations, the Robert Biale Zinfandel Napa Valley Black Chicken is for you. At about $42, it's not shy on price, but it's also a terrific, consistent example of the briary, jammy style of Zinfandel that has made the grape such a signature of California wine. It retains a solid level of acidity to make it pair well with food.

Two final suggestions are both Pinot Noir, both offering distinct and delightful personalities. The first is Joseph Swan Pinot Noir Russian River Valley Trenton Estate Vineyard. The day Spec's started carrying the Joseph Swan wines was a good one for Houston wine drinkers, and the Trenton Estate Pinot is a benchmark in California. It is a remarkable combination of hedonism and intellectualism: a wine you can drink with pleasure but also ruminate over. It evokes the classic cherry fruit of the Russian River Valley, along with the earthy baking spices that are a hallmark of the region. It'll run you about $50, and it's worth every penny, since it is one of the great California Pinots and a versatile food companion.

Finally, if Swan is a grand master and statesman of the U.S. Pinot scene, Retour Pinot Noir Willamette Valley is a flashy race horse. The winery's first vintage was only in 2006, but the wines have compelling texture and balance. They couple the darker, blackberry fruit expression of Oregon with earthy notes. With a velvety texture that has developed nicely with time in bottle, this would make an outstanding companion to standing rib roast.

Book Review: A dissatisfying Steak

2010-11-09T21:02:00.003-06:00

Slate columnist Mark Schatzker published Steak: One Man's Search for the World's Tastiest Piece of Beef earlier this year, and one thing about the title certainly is true. It is the search of a single person; that is, profoundly limited. And, for the most part, uninteresting. Sometimes the book is even infuriating. Schatzker's book suffers from a lot of the usual bad food writing symptoms: overwritten with too much emphasis on adjectives, an inexplicable reliance on myth and slippery memories of the past, and the triumph of preconceived notions tested only against straw men.

Steak opens in interesting enough fashion, chronicling the hallowed place of steak on the dinner table when Schatzker grew up. But the introduction seems to drag. There isn't a clear sense of direction laid out, other than the amorphous "I'm going to scour the world for steak!" premise. Schatzker lays out no criteria, no benchmarks. He embraces anecdotal tales of great steaks from friends and family members, which, somehow gives rise to a definition of the perfect steak that is never fully explicated in the text. Sure, he says that a great steak should be ready to swallow when you are tired of chewing, otherwise it is too tough. But he undermines the notion of tenderness by acknowledging he prefers tougher, grass-fed beef.

In reality, Schatzker jumps on the grass-fed beef bandwagon late and clumsily sets up grain-fed beef as a second-class citizen. The first portion of Steak is devoted to his trip to Texas, in search of great beef. This assumption that Texas is home to the best beef in the world is the first example of Schatzker's continuous reliance on mythology rather than fact or methodical investigation. He goes to a large, industrial feed lot, only to find it disappointing (shocking). He tries a couple Texas steakhouses, with no explanation regarding why he chose them. His first stop is the Big Texan, motivated, it seems, solely by the existence of their cartoon-character 72-ounce steak. There is no evidence that Schatzker investigated where to get the best steak in Texas. He didn't even seek out a steakhouse serving USDA Prime beef. This lack of methodology is something that largely goes unexplained -- a fault that only occurs when it comes to eating grain-fed steak and stands in stark contrast to his relentless pursuit of grass-fed beef.

With grass-fed steak, Schatzker is meticulous, going to the far corners of the globe to locate the smallest, most artisanal producers of beef. They are in Scotland, remote Italian villages, and middle-of-nowhere ranches in Colorado. Even after a disastrous first taste of grass-fed steak, Schatzker persists in uncovering more. This luxury of a second chance is not afforded to "commodity beef," the curious term with which he labels all grain-fed steak. He waxes poetic about types of grasses and the terroir of steak. He delves into the lineages of various forms of cattle. But he leaves out or patently dismisses certain steak fundamentals that gut his arguments and analysis.

Schatzker spends approximately three sentences on dry aging, which he dismisses toward the end of the book as overrated, a trick to cover up poor quality beef. Yet he also, in the context of his beloved grass-fed steak, admires dry aging whole sides of beef for undetermined periods of time This contradiction isn't explained, leaving his dismissal of dry aging stand as a curious criticism of his belief that it covers up grain-fed beef's lack of flavor.

More damning to Schatzker's book and undermining any notion of him as a steak authority is his similar disdain for resting a steak after it has been cooked. Seriously? Have you ever cut into a steak -- or any piece of meat -- as soon as it comes off the grill, from the skillet, or out of the oven? The juices run everywhere, leaving the meat dryer than it would be if it had been properly rested. It also drains the beautiful color that the meat should have, leaving it more gray and listless than it should be. How Schatzker can summarily dismiss an essential component to cooking -- endorsed by the likes of Jacques Pepin, Julia Child, Cook's Illustrated, and, frankly, virtually every steak authority and chef on the planet -- without so much as an explanation is perplexing. Cook a steak to medium rare and don't let it rest? Within a minute or two you will have a tortured piece of meat that looks and eats like it's medium-well, plus a plateful of juice. Schatzker's strong stand against resting steak after cooking also contradicts his concern that cattle be relaxed and avoid tension prior to slaughter, so as not to contract their muscle fibers, causing them to be tensed and toughen the meat. Resting a steak might as well be called "relaxing." Just as cattle should be tension-free on their way to the slaughter to ensure tender meat, so too must that same meat be allowed to rest after cooking in order for the muscle fibers to calm down after tensing and contracting during the cooking process and allow them to retain more juice. The recommendation to skip resting is indefensible.

If you don't believe me, would you trust Thomas Keller? Here is what he had to say about resting meat in Ad Hoc at Home: "Equally significant is the resting period after the food has been removed from the heat. Everything continues to cook once it's out of the heat, an effect called carryover cooking. But, even more important, as meat rests, the juices can redistribute throughout the meat. The meat fibers also firm up a little as they rest and are able to hold more juices."

Despite Schatzker's baseless and conclusory statements on resting, the greatest flaw of Steak is the lack of a passionate pursuit of finding a great, dry-aged, grain-fed steak. This is, by the conventional wisdom, what should have the makings for a great steak. (Not to say that the conventional wisdom is or should be correct. But in order to debunk it, you've got to take its best shot and articulate why you reject it.) Schatzker's encounters with grain fed steak consist of (1) his first visit to the Big Texan; (2) a chain steakhouse in Texas not serving prime beef; and (3) occasional, derisive mentions of eating "commodity" steak from supermarkets. Why did he make no attempt to seek out small producers of the finest grain-fed beef? To read Steak, you would think that no such producers exist. But that is, of course, patently untrue. Just see Bryan Flannery to debunk that assumption. And there are others. Yet Schatzker made no attempt to do so or even halfheartedly try to articulate a case for grain-fed beef. He seems to rely on the notion that grain makes beef tender, and all the average, stupid carnivore cares about is tenderness, and flavor is not a consideration. He equates grain-fed beef with not merely a lack of flavor but being devoid of flavor. If he had taken the same, inch-deep method to his investigation of grass fed steak, he would have stopped after his first encounter. But he didn't, and the inconsistency is glaring.

On the whole, Steak is a dissatisfying read if you have any passion for or interest in steak. There is a certain amount of useful information -- did you know that Angus cattle in the U.S. are far from purebred? -- but the gaps in Schatzker's logic, reliance on an anecdotal rather than rigorous methodology, and failure to be truly comprehensive in his search for great steak make this book an easy pass.

Wine every day, part two (coda)

2010-10-06T16:10:00.000-05:00

A valid criticism of the previous post was raised: there was a lot regarding what not to drink or what not to do, but what about some affirmative advice on what to do? Sometimes, it feels like there is so much to fend off and prevent from interfering with wine enjoyment, it is too easy to get caught up in negativism.

So here’s a follow-up to provide some positive advice. Where should you start drinking? Riesling. That’s the simple answer. Riesling is lower in alcohol, refreshing, and similar to other beverages you probably enjoy, like soda or iced tea -- a bit sweet. Riesling won’t overwhelm you with tannins, like Cabernet, or too much burnt-tasting oak, like many red wines. It is the polar opposite of such wines. It is light and eminently drinkable. The wines are clean, crisp, and mineral-driven. Riesling comes in any number of styles, from bone dry to sappy sweet and pairs phenomenally well with an array of foods, from spicy to dessert.

Another positive aspect of Riesling is its price. It’s relatively inexpensive. Top-notch German Riesling, which is now much more widely available in Houston thanks to the passion of Scott Spencer at Houston Wine Merchant and Zachary Pearson at Spec’s, will cost you $12 to $25. That gives you a lot of wiggle room to experiment. Look especially for producers such as J.J. Prum, Selbach-Oster, and Dr. Loosen here in town. (A quick note: German wine labels are notoriously confusing, so just ask for help to be steered in the right direction.)

Of course, Riesling isn’t in vogue. You aren’t going to find it at cocktail party fundraisers about town. So you might be hesitant to stray from the red-wine-drinking herd. Okay. Then Pinot Noir should help ease you into wine. It’s still hip from the Sideways bounce, but it also happens to be the most versatile of red wines and one of the most approachable.

Like Riesling, Pinot Noir is generally fairly light (particularly compared to Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot) and is an exceptional dinner table companion. In fact, between Riesling and Pinot, you can probably find a good pairing to any dish that makes its way onto your plate. Pinot also comes in myriad styles, from dark, jammy wines that can make a decent impersonation of Zinfandel or Syrah to very light, feminine wines that remind you of cherry pie and a bouquet of roses or violets.

Pinot, however, has a bit of a downside. It is a difficult grape to grow, leading to many watery or poor examples of the wine. More relevant is that it is extremely difficult to grow Pinot cheaply. You’ll be hard-pressed to find quality Pinot for less than $20 a bottle these days. But the good news is that quality and variety is better than ever. For $20 to $25, you can find terrific bottles from Burgundy, California, Oregon, and New Zealand. For example, check out the current release Bourgogne bottlings from Albert Bichot (a real steal at about $10), Faiveley, and Louis Latour. There’s also the delicious Joseph Swan Cuvee de Trois (actually about $30) and Calera Central Coast, two California wines routinely available in town. And the best Oregon value Pinot is made by Texas-native Adam Lee at Siduri. Available from the winery’s mailing list, their Willamette Valley blend sells for $20. From down under, both Oyster Bay and Nautilus are making solid Pinots that deliver quality at a value price.

These are merely a handful of tangible starting points. Maybe you go try one of these bottles and think they’re terrible. That’s cool. Wine is all about personal taste -- not points awarded by critics or impressing people. There is so much quality wine out there these days, it won’t take you long to find something that suits your taste. Before long, you’ll be jumping into wine with both feet.

Wine Every Day, part two

2010-09-15T19:14:00.013-05:00

So you’ve decided to drink some wine. Excellent. You’ve taken the first and most essential step to a heart-healthy lifestyle. Now, how do you choose? Most of the time, when you pose this kind of question to a wino, they’ll give you a long, convoluted answer that gets into much more specific follow-up questions than you’re prepared to handle. Instead, stick to three things to ask yourself, which will help you on your way to experimenting with wine.

1. Red, white, or sparkling?
Not much is riding on this decision. Think of wine drinking as a long-term investment. At one time or another, you’re going to try them all, so what sounds good, off the top of your head, just for the heck of it? No, seriously, come on, just pick one. This is like the LSAT, there’s no penalty for guessing. There’s also no wrong answer.

This is another place where wine pros try to intimidate you (intentionally or not -- remember enthusiasm). They make you feel like you’re going to get it wrong. They’ll try to tell you at this point that you need to consider the occasion, what you’ll be eating with the wine (if anything at all), who will be there, and a bunch of other irrelevant stuff that helps prove to themselves that they know what they’re talking about.

You don’t need to give a good reason or even any reason at all. Maybe you want red wine tonight because there’s some red in the sunset tonight. Or you want white because it looks like the wine coolers you used to chug in high school. Or maybe it’s a sparkling you lean toward because it’s got bubbles and so does the beer you would rather be drinking instead of getting all this wine stuff. It doesn’t matter. This is about enjoyment.

Got your choice? Okay, good. Moving on.

2. How much do you want to spend?
You probably know this already, but you can buy wine for as little as $2 a bottle or as much as $4,000 a bottle — and we’re just talking retail price here. That leaves a lot of room for price variation. You need to decide how much you’re willing to spend, but don’t let anything other than your own budgetary allowances dictate that. You’ve got no one to impress with a label or a price tag. You’re in this for yourself, to see if this is something you’ll like. Why should you shell out a lot of money for a bottle of wine if you don’t even know you’ll want to finish it?

More expensive is not better when it comes to wine. The plateau on price-to-quality ratio comes rapidly. At about $50 per bottle, you basically pay a luxury tax on prestige or scarcity. There’s no reason to start at the high end.

If you decided you wanted to try out skiing, would you check into the fanciest resort, buy the most expensive ski equipment, and then test it all out? No. You would most likely go somewhere inexpensive, and you would rent your equipment the first time. Would you go buy a Corvette just because you liked the color? No, because your budget wouldn’t allow it. That’s the point: this is a testing phase for you. Start small, start slow. Get more adventurous as you go. It’s still going to be an interesting journey.

There is a lot of great value out there in wine. In particular, if you look for bottles from Spain, Argentina, Germany, and the Rhone, Loire, and southern France, you can make a killing on $10 wines. (California tends to do less well in the $10 range, where the market is dominated by bulk wines filled with residual sugar and flavored with oak chips.)

3. Where should you buy it?
This seems like a “duh” question. It’s not. There’s a huge difference between the $8 bottle of Australian Shiraz that you find at the grocery store and the one you’ll find at the best wine shop in town. It’s all about buying power and markup at the store you patronize. So do a little research. Find out who the best-regarded wine merchant in town is, then go to them.

When you’re dealing with less expensive wine, you want to minimize your price. A place like Spec’s, the mega-store here in Houston, has generally lower prices than a grocery store. They also beat the prices at smaller wine shops. If you can find a bottle that lists at $8 but only pay $6.50 or less, well, what price would you prefer? Buying power. Find the place that has it in your town. You’ll be rewarded with being able to drink more and fret a little less. Costco is another terrific place to buy wine, and they have a good selection for introductory drinkers.

It’s important to find the best prices possible, but not only because it’s easier on your wallet. If you buy a crummy bottle of wine at a supermarket, and it’s actually egregiously overpriced, you’re going to get a poor idea of what the market is like. You might begin to think you have to spend $20 to get even a mediocre bottle of wine, and that’s just not true. So go to the people whose passion is wine. They’ll sell it to you cheaper — which means you’ll get it at a reasonable price and are less likely to feel ripped off.

Putting it all together
So now you’ve got a basic plan of action. You want a red wine, for dinner tonight, that costs about $10, and you want to buy it at Big Choice Wine & Spirits. Good stuff. Should you walk into Big Choice, find the first red wine that fits your price range, and walk out? Not at all. But why risk information overload? If you have too many things to remember, you’re going to think there’s a right or wrong answer. There isn’t.

You do, however, have to face the reality that not all wines are created equal. If you’ve ever seen people order wine in a restaurant or buy a bottle in a liquor store, you’ve probably heard them ask about California Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Merlot. There are fine wines to be discovered there. But there are much better options for people just starting to cultivate an appreciation for wine. Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, is kind of hard to drink — it’s a grape that makes wine high in tannin (that’s the puckering, drying sensation you get in your mouth on the aftertaste; it’s extracted from the grape skins, stems, and seeds; it literally “falls out” of the wine over time in the form of a grainy black sediment). So, most of the time, Cabernet isn’t very pleasant to drink young. Merlot, as it’s made in California, can be the same way. Worse, it can be vegetal tasting. And when you were a young kid, just forming your taste for food, did you want to eat all your vegetables? Probably not. Why start with Merlot, then?

Some wines are more suited to easy appreciation. These are the wines you should target. They emphasize the fruitiness of the grapes, have good balance between the acidity and tannin, and will give you a good sense of what better bottlings might have to offer. The key, though, is that easy appreciation: wine is not something that should be difficult to enjoy. The Wine Spectator tasters and Robert Parker types get caught up in flowery (literally) descriptions of the wines that defy grounding in reality. If you think food writers are bad, try reading wine tasting notes.

You want to pick out something that’s good to drink, won’t give you a headache, won’t be unpleasant, and will make you think, “Hey, this wine stuff is okay by me. I want to try it again.”

So where do you go from here? Take a couple of the major points to heart — pick a color and a price, then go to the best wine store in town and go from there. You’ll have hits and misses. But just drink wine and enjoy. You learn what you like by drinking. You’ll quickly realize what fits your taste. Experiment. Be open-minded. And follow the advice of a very smart man who makes some very tasty wine in his own right. John Holdredge has said this: If you like it? Drink it. If you don’t like it? Drink something else. If you really like it? Drink some more. Maybe that is the silver bullet of wine appreciation. Follow your own taste, and before long, you’re not going to need advice from anyone but yourself.

A Glimpse at Houston Restaurant Week

2010-08-10T19:36:00.002-05:00

Houston Restaurant Week is halfway over, and it's a great way to go out and try new restaurants that you just haven't found time for in the past year. Lunch is a marvelous way to sample some of the city's better places, like Mark's. It is well worth checking out this year. An interesting menu is particularly inviting at lunch -- $20 for two savory courses. And Mark's is home to an early front-runner for best dish of Restaurant Week: the corn souffle with caviar.

Wine Every Day, part one

2010-07-22T19:20:00.003-05:00

Wine is most fun when it’s not relegated to special occasions or built up into a phobia. It should be part of your daily life. And now insert here the usual disclaimer about how there’s something here for everyone to appreciate, from the wine novice to expert. It seems like any wine writing must include that.

Wine enthusiast is a perfect term because these are people who tend to get inordinately excited when the subject of fermented grape juice arises. Give them a whiff of another person interested in wine, and settling them down is like trying to hold back a dog on a leash after it has picked up the scent of a hotdog. It’s hard to stop them, which leads to inevitable lapses into wine jargon and incomprehensibility.

But it is important to dispel the snotty attitude a lot of winos have. It’s also important to dispel the notion that writing about wine needs to be condescending. No jargon. No attitude. Just some simple, real information on wine that might be able to help you out in a liquor store sometime to impress the girl you’re cooking dinner for. (You do cook, right?)

Anyway, so the most basic question is, “Why wine?” Why not beer? Or vodka? Or rum? Or some other liquor? Why not mixed drinks?

There are five fundamental reasons wine is the ideal beverage. None of them will include flowery, complex descriptions that will mean nothing to you. If you want to start drinking wine, these are reasons you’ll stumble across all on your own. This isn’t to say there won’t be a place for Milwaukee’s Best in your lifestyle, but you might start to consider pushing aside grain alcohol punch, at least from time to time.

1. Flavor

This is obvious. Wine most likely won’t taste good or complex or compelling to you at first. It’ll probably taste like alcohol. What booze doesn’t? You have to show a certain amount of persistence to get beyond the alcohol taste, whether you’re drinking beer, liquor, or wine. As a society, we tend to manage this aversion through an ends-based approach: we want to end up drunk. But once you begin to discern a bit, you can realize the breadth of flavor available in even simple wines. There are five main types of wine: red, white, sparkling, sweet, and fortified. Yet within each of those five types are a variety of different styles because each comes from different grapes.

Wine stands out because of how closely the finished product winds up being to its source. It really is fermented grape juice, nothing more. You don’t have to go through complex chemistry to turn grape juice into wine. It’s a natural process that doesn’t even need the addition of yeast and, more importantly, one that changes the nature of the grapes very little. You can’t say the same thing about beer or spirits. In beer, the barley, hops, and other ingredients go through a heavy cooking process that changes their flavors dramatically. Distillation changes the fundamental chemical makeup of potatoes, grains, etc. to produce spirits. You don’t get nearly as pure a product in beer or liquor as you do with wine, which allows the characteristics of each grape variety — be it red or white — to shine through.

Good winemaking, as opposed to brewing or distilling, is largely a hands-off undertaking. You want the grapes to shine through on their own as much as possible. Beer and liquor, however, require a vigorous production process that tends to deaden flavor nuances.

2. Creation and variation

Beer and spirits are revered for their uniformity. This is a product of the processes used to create them, which is somewhat like a successful chemistry experiment replicated over and over again. It is admirable that Jack Daniels, for instance, can crank out barrels of whiskey with such consistency. The same can be said for beers, from microbrews to Budweiser. It’s comforting to know that, if you’ve tasted Absolut vodka once, it will taste the same two years down the road, but it’s not very interesting.

Wine, on the other hand, is admired for its variation. It is most frequently made from grapes grown in a single year (a “vintage”). A particular producer of wine may have a recognizable style or qualities in certain wines — like the minty smell often found in Heitz Cellars’ Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon (that’s no bull; it really can smell like a fresh mint leaf) — but even wines made from the same vineyard in different years will vary is flavor and style.

There’s also the aging of wine, another variable that will change its taste and qualities. Hard liquor can go for years in the bottle and still be very much the same as it was the day it was packaged. Beer, after long enough, will spoil and is prized for its freshness. Without belaboring the point with too much detail, wine is like a favored pet: it has a precocious youth, steady period of maturity, and then moves past its prime.

Certain liquors are coveted for being aged, particularly whiskeys and rums, but that aging takes place in oak casks, not the bottle. Once capped off, liquor holds at a plateau indefinitely. And there is another way aged liquors are made: distillers simply change the chemical makeup of them and age them artificially. This is particularly common among rums, and tasters say the flavor of naturally aged spirits and their artificially aged counterparts is indistinguishable.

For wine, there’s no faking it. (Or maybe there is, as this excellent piece discusses.) Aging can be a good or bad thing. You never quite know what’s in store for you when you open a bottle that has been in the cellar for ten or more years. There’s a certain risk when you deal with variation, but the rewards can be so terrific it becomes part of the fun.

3. Moderate alcohol, light weight

Relatively speaking, wine tends to have moderate alcohol, ranging from eight-percent in lighter wines, such as Riesling (a white grape), to about twenty-percent in fortified wines, such as Port. More alcohol than that would destroy the balance of flavor. Less alcohol would give it a heavier, more fruit-juice-like quality.

Spirits, obviously, have much higher alcohol levels, generally in the range of forty to fifty percent. Alcohol itself is heavy; it weighs you down. That’s why a martini, for example, isn’t the ideal dinner accompaniment. Most mixers — such as fruit juices and carbonated waters — are heavier still because of their high sugar contents. Mixed drinks, without a doubt, can be deliciously refreshing. Who would say no to a good margarita at Hugo’s? But drink three or four, and you’re going to feel anything but light on your feet. Beer, on the other hand, has carbonation that makes it filling. It expands in your stomach and quickly gives you a somewhat bloated feeling.

4. Food companion

You’re going to be hard-pressed to find a beverage, other than water, that goes well with as many kinds of food as wine. Beer has its place, most definitely. Pizza and burgers and chili are great with a cold beer, and sometimes it just hits the spot. Even liquor, at times, does the trick as a food accompaniment. For example, rumjungle, at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, does an admirable job pairing rum drinks with Brazilian pit barbecue.

On the whole, however, beer and spirits don’t complement food as completely as wine does. The range of flavors found within a single glass of Pinot Noir can enhance you’re the full range of flavors on your plate. Enjoying a good food and wine pairing brings out all the best elements in wine — its range of flavors and its unique expression of the grape and place of origin. Plus, with wine’s balance, relatively low alcohol, and light weight, you can enjoy it throughout a meal.

It’s hard to describe in general terms why you should drink wine with food. The best thing is to experiment for yourself. Bordeaux with good lamb? It’s a magical fusion of tastes and textures that cannot be duplicated with any other beverage. The pairings don’t have to be fancy, though. Try Champagne with popcorn or macaroni and cheese -- these have become common “odd” pairings over the last decade. The guide just has to be what pleases your mouth. There is such a range of styles with wine that, chances are, you can find something that matches your taste and your food. It is with food that beer and liquor seem the most one-dimensional.

5. Wine, my buddy

You might not think about this, but if you get into wine, one of the most rewarding aspects is the relationship you build with certain bottles. If you decide you like wine enough to start building a cellar for yourself, you’ll wind up with bottles that will stay on your racks for years.

You will learn the pain and pleasure of agonizing over when to drink one prized bottle — will it be too young? Too old? You’ll probably end up talking to it from time to time, wishing it could pipe up and give you some wisdom about the development of the wine within. This is all part of the fun. It’s a somewhat similar rush to gambling. You hope you pull the cork at the right time, that your investment of time, money, and space will pay off. You’ll feel exhilaration and disappointment.

You can get intimate with a wine, if you really want. Go see the vineyards. When was the last time you felt the urge to check out the potato farm or corn field that feeds into your favorite vodka distillery? There’s something tremendously organic about wine, and I don’t mean that exclusively as a method of farming. It’s a unique aspect to a beverage that actually takes on a life of its own. Not to mention the fact that wine has held a romantic place in the human condition for centuries. Wine in parts is hedonistic, sacramental, exhilarating, and depressing, and it is never without passion.

But perhaps the most important realization to make about wine is the easiest to grasp. Ignore wine enthusiasts, no matter how well-intentioned, who fill beginners with jargon and complexity, which they love to flash like it’s a membership card to some secret club. Having a good bottle of wine is always better with friends, but a tongue-lashing from a wine snob is the easiest way to ruin it. All you need to know is what you like, and drink that.

Friday Date Night: BRC Gastro Pub

2010-07-09T16:45:00.001-05:00

Note: This is slated to be a recurring feature. Here's the idea: Date night should be dinner for two at a restaurant where there are enough options on the menu for you to have an excellent meal but not pay more than $15 for any single item (excluding wine). That gives you a strong measure of control over your final check. Sometimes it'll be somewhere romantic, other times it will be somewhere you can go with your honey and enjoy some quality people-watching. Whatever floats your boat. But it's good to get out of the house and spend a little time together.

BRC Gastro Pub generated a lot of strong reactions when it opened. Most of them related to the name. Big Red Cock. Forget that there's a big red rooster out front, reminding us of having fun with homophones. The name is probably funniest to those who are learning homophones in school right now -- what, seven- or eight-year-olds? Okay, it's a childish joke. But BRC is exciting. It comes from Shepard Ross and Lance Fegan of the Glass Wall, with Jeff Axline taking the reins at the stove on a daily basis, and this is what the Glass Wall does best. Bar food. (Read about that strength here.)

Initially, the kitchen had a few growing pains. The large potato chips served with the excellent pimento cheese dip were obviously prepared far in advance and came out soggy and soaked with grease. Subsequently, however, this defect has been corrected: the chips aren't spending as much time waiting around after they come out of the fryer. And, from the start, the kitchen has had more hits than misses.

The crab beignets are superb, fried skillfully, with a warm and gooey inside revealing plenty of crab. The boudin balls are a real treat. These are the not mushy, dense, nondescript boudin balls you find too regularly. These are light, delicious, and layered with flavor. Appetizers are a strength. The Glass Wall crab cake is slightly modified and as delicious as ever. But the Dr. Pepper fried quail came out with a chewy batter and cloyingly sweet sauce, though the quail themselves were excellent.

A handful of main entrees, although very solid, are not the star attraction. That is saved for the array of inventive sandwiches. There's the excellent and improbable flavor combination of the roasted brisket sandwich. On a thick piece of toast, the tender brisket is topped with mushrooms, caramelized onions, ham, smoked cheddar cheese, and gravy. It gets the right combination of smokey, salty, and savory.

The State Fair Griddled Cheese -- an unmistakably Texas interpretation -- has short ribs, cheese, and tomato inside. It works beautifully, although sometimes the tomato can intrude on the ooze you want in a grilled cheese. The chicken fried steak sandwich is an instant Houston classic, and Sheppy's Dogs might be the best pure hot dog in town. And, of course, the hamburger is very solid indeed. It's a steal on Mondays, coming in at $6.50 with fries.

On the side, the fries have been somewhat inconsistent but recently are better, obviously double-fried and crispy. The daily macaroni and cheese is beautifully executed, always faithful to the essentials of the dish: creamy, cheesy, and flavorful, without reliance on gimmicks.

Another high point is the dinners for four BRC features on Sunday and Tuesday. Sundays, you can get a fried chicken dinner for four for $60. For the same price on Tuesday, you get a Yankee pot roast dinner for four. It's a strong excuse to get together with friends and kick off the week.

The wine list is slim but smartly picked, with a couple real bargains. Given the food, though, you would like to see a few more Zinfandels and spicy reds on it. The selection of microbrews on tap is impressive, and the two sangrias are very pleasing. (BRC has a beer-wine license only; it doesn't serve liquor.)

There are only two downsides to BRC -- one potential and one very real that must be addressed. First, it's noisy inside. This noisy restaurant trend can't end soon enough. These places aren't sparing any expense, so why not invest in a couple acoustic panels? Second, and more importantly, service rarely has been good and too frequently veers into the woeful. You can only hope the service issues are a growing pain and will be corrected in short order. Given the extensive turnover among the wait staff, one can hope this is a kink BRC is aggressively trying to work out.

All told, though, BRC is a terrific date night place. It falls more into the people-watching rather than romantic category, but it's a great precursor for a night on the town.

First Look: Phil's Texas Barbecue

2010-07-08T19:18:00.003-05:00

Oh look! It's another wood-and-metal building on Washington Avenue! Wait, what? It's not a haven for the Ed Hardy-wearing, off-center-cap-sporting, woo-hoo-shouting people? It's a barbecue restaurant? This holds some promise.

Until you go inside and eat there. Phil's Barbecue actually fits into the Washington Avenue scene perfectly. It's immaculate inside. Polished concrete floors. Lots of shiny stainless steel. You get the distinct impression that if your next stop is Pearl Bar or the Roosevelt or any number of the shiny-shirt shops, this is the barbecue joint for you. It's trendy. You won't get your fingers dirty at Phil's. This is the antithesis of a genuine barbecue place. It doesn't even smell smokey inside.

Maybe these were just growing pains of a newly opened restaurant -- an unlikely event given the history of the owners -- but the brisket was dry and chewy. The ribs were dry and clung to the bone. The coleslaw, seducing you with the implication of a vinegar pucker, turned out to be oily and sweet. The macaroni and cheese tasted more of butter and cream than cheese, and it is slightly grainy as a result. The fries and onion rings looked good from a distance; maybe they were the key to happiness?

In any case, putting stock in a barbecue restaurants sides bodes ill. And there is nothing the sauce, sweet as dessert, can save. In the early days, it sure looks like Phil's is, at best, a place to be seen. Those looking for real barbecue are advised to head elsewhere.

Wine of the Moment: Inman Family Pinot Noir Russian River Valley 2007

2010-05-03T22:15:00.000-05:00

Economists may be closing in on a consensus that the recession is over, but wine drinkers are not so quick to agree. Consumers are still looking for bargains, first and foremost. This continues to be especially true when it comes to wine. Back in the heady days of the mid-2000s, it was almost impossible to walk down a liquor store's aisle without tripping over the latest cult Cabernet priced at $150 or a new single-vineyard Pinot Noir for $50. Nowadays, wine drinkers demand value for their money in a way they haven't always demanded it from California.

On a recent trip to Sonoma, a shining example of a wine that presents good value and delivers exceptional quality stood out: the Inman Family Pinot Noir Russian River Valley 2007. It has a bright, juicy fruit to it that leaps out of the glass, giving classic Russian River expression of black cherry and spice. It has restrained alcohol (13.7%), excellent balance, and a terrific sense of class. At $30, it's worth seeking out for drinking with summer dinners. It's acidic structure makes it a great pairing for food, and the screw cap closure makes it perfect for picnics.

Full Disclosure: Kathleen Inman, the winemaker, and her family are friends, and this is a winery I've long supported. For full tasting notes on wines from Inman Family from numerous tasters, see here.

The French Laundry: A Photo Essay

2010-04-22T20:10:00.003-05:00

A trip to the French Laundry is worthy of something. Each meal there is a treat, taking you to a plane of food ecstasy that is without equal in the United States. It may be redundant to have a second full-scale review in a year, but certainly a photo essay is in order. Bon appetit!

Wine of the Moment: Chateau Ste. Michelle & Dr. Loosen Riesling Eroica 2008

2010-03-30T19:24:00.000-06:00

Riesling from the United States tends to be a bit devoid of character. Sure, they can be pleasant, but it is fairly rare to find one possessing meaningful personality. Actually, New York State produces some of the most consistently quaffable Riesling in this country. But in a popular wave of Chardonnay and Merlot drinkers, Riesling largely has been left behind. It's a shame, too. Riesling rocks. Germany produces phenomenal Riesling, in the well-known sweeter style. Alsace continues to churn out drier examples of the grape that are attractive and crisp. And now Austria has thrown its hat into the ring as a producer of less sweet styles of Riesling that receive well-deserved international attention.

If you're from Houston, you need to know Riesling. As Scott Spencer, the kind and knowledgeable owner of the Houston Wine Merchant has correctly proclaimed for years, Riesling is the perfect wine for the weather here. It is refreshing, crisp, delightfully cooling, and pairs marvelously with many foods (including spicy ones, which Houstonians have been known to favor from time to time).

For everyday drinking, you can pick up a bottle of the excellent Chateau Ste. Michelle & Dr. Loosen Riesling Eroica 2008. This wine, made from Washington State's Columbia Valley, is a partnership between the large winery Chateau Ste. Michelle and the famous German producer Dr. Loosen. It is done more in a German style, although on the drier side of the sweetness scale. (That would be kabinett in German wine nomenclature. German wines are labeled by how sweet they are, but that tends to be pretty confusing, so set it aside for later explication.) In plain terms, this is a wine that comes off as a hybrid of the German and Austrian styles. It has the hint of sweetness you find in German wines, but its peachy fruit is carried along by a slightly tart edge and plenty of minerality.

The Eroica Riesling is a wine that is made to slice through the debilitating humidity of Houston summer and transport you to a land of refreshment and enchantment. You might call it the San Diego of fermented grape juice. And at about $15 at your local Costco, you can drink up without a guilty conscience.

In re Hubcap Grill

2010-03-10T19:36:00.000-06:00

Before the Burger Court of Houston, Texas

Docket No. 5

In re HUBCAP GRILL

Before GUTTING, BRINKMANN, LAHAD, JJ.

GUTTING, J. Before the Court is the submission of Hubcap Grill ("Hubcap") on a petition of certiorari from Houston's food critics and bloggers. After a thorough review of the record of courts below, we hold that Hubcap serves very good hamburgers that merit a B+ rating.

Background

It is difficult to find a louder chorus among the burger faithful than that of Hubcap Grill proponents these days. Located downtown on Prairie (the second location on South Main having recently closed), this Court determined Hubcap merits review because (1) it has had the support of numerous amici and (2) serves as one of, if not the only, quality burger spot for those who work in downtown Houston. Seating is sparse but generally available. The line often stretches down the block, meaning advance planning may be in order in the event of rain or, of more frequent concern in Houston, summer.

Hubcap's menu consists of a litany of creative burger choices, as well as a handful of chicken sandwiches. French fries and sweet potato fries are the limited side selections. Drinks come in cans or bottles. The Court entertained two Hubcap offerings: (1) the Hubcap Decker, a Big Mac-style double cheeseburger with the patties separated by a piece of toast, Swiss and American cheese, and a mayonnaise-based sauce and (2) a double hamburger.

The Hamburger

Hubcap uses hand-formed beef patties. The menu advertises that they are comprised of 100% chuck. The patties generally are too thin to proceed with anything less than a double burger. The meat is high quality, with a pure beef flavor, although the seasoning has a pronounced influence from thyme -- an influence that too frequently is out of balance with the ground beef. Thyme is an excellent complementary flavor to beef, as a general rule, but it must be used sparingly. Overuse of it is Hubcap's greatest sin. There is no need to mask terrific, freshly ground chuck. Second, this Court has noticed on multiple occasions the tendency for Hubcap burgers to arrive overcooked and slightly dry. There remains good juiciness because of the fat content, but the "ooze" of these burgers is too dependent on mayonnaise and melted cheese in order to reach the level of the truly elite.

The bun at Hubcap is worth note. It is sturdy, with good bite and flavor. It genuinely adds value to the experience, although its size and thickness means a double patty is necessary in order to maintain an appropriate meat-to-bun ratio. The other toppings of the burgers are worth mention for their freshness and quality.

Amici offered a muffaletta burger for the Court's consideration, but we declined to do so, preferring instead to tackle Hubcap Grill on its (not insubstantial) traditional merits.

Extras

Hubcap, to its credit, offers only limited sides. The French fries are forgettable, usually being a bit undercooked and soggy. The sweet potato fries, however, tend to be flavor and tender, a worthy accompaniment to the burgers. The lack of fountain drinks is not a hindrance, although the prevalence of outdoor seating and lack of ice for drinks may present difficulty in summertime.

In the final review, Hubcap uses quality ingredients and, despite eminently correctable flaws, makes flavorful and worthy hamburgers that are welcome on the Houston scene. In particular, this is a strong choice for those who work downtown and would like a sturdy lunch before an afternoon nap. Due to the over-seasoning with thyme and reliance on cheese for oozing juiciness, Hubcap Grill warrants a B+ rating.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Amuse Bouche: Ode to Spring

2010-03-05T17:44:00.000-06:00

Sometimes there isn't much you can say. Sometimes you just have to realize that it's 67 degrees outside, pleasantly sunny, and that there is an invigorating lack of humidity in the air. It won't last long. This is a time to rejoice. It is a time to go outside and drink some Pinot Noir.

In appreciation of Waffle House

2010-03-03T20:04:00.003-06:00

The food-erati don't give much attention to the likes of Waffle House. Eh, and maybe they shouldn't. It's a chain. A large one. That automatically gives rise to consistency issues. It's in with the NASCAR crowd, which likely is one of the least interested in foodie things like white truffle season, eating local, slow food, and wines that aren't made out of beer.

But this is no reason to entirely scoff at Waffle House. There are positives: the exceptional people-watching, the myriad 80s and hair band hits on the jukebox, the late hours, and the omelets. Yes, Waffle House is truly a temple for omelets. Even good diners could learn lessons from a well-prepared Waffle House omelet. Heck, even foodie-friendly brunches could learn from the sheer fundamental competence and purity of flavor of Waffle House's delicious ham-and-cheese omelet.

Okay, so perhaps the foodie ship has sailed on Waffle House. After all, Saveur, currently the most excellent of food magazines, published a piece on it last year. Maybe it's cheating to put the eggs in a milkshake blender to make it more fluffy. But when did cheating in food become taboo? What else are other (welcome) intrusions of technology in food, such as the mandolin, sous vide, and Silpat? No, you cannot fault Waffle House's use of the milkshake blender to produce an omelet more fluffy and tender than most experienced and skillful chefs can produce. Of course, there are plenty of opportunities to screw it up: you have to find the appropriate balance of fillings and, most importantly, you can't overcook it (though the blended eggs are more forgiving than hand-whisked, it seems).

A well-cooked Waffle House omelet is a thing of beauty. Tender, cloud-like eggs encasing ham and oozing with cheese. It is simple. And few things are more delicious than simplicity itself. So let us celebrate Waffle House for what it does so well. Those soggy, inconsistent waffles are another story . . .

The misconception of the "dry" wine

2010-02-05T18:59:00.008-06:00

This may sound like an unfair, snobbish criticism of less-experienced wine drinkers, but frequently the casual drinker, when asking for a recommendation, will emphasize, "I like dry wines." Okay. So you like regular table wine. "No, I want it dry." Houston, we have a semantics problem.

Most people, when they say they like dry wines, are not trying to distinguish between table wines (which are usually dry) and dessert wines (which are usually sweet). They also usually are not talking about Riesling or Muscadet or other off-dry wines, since they are white wines, and most people today (for no good reason) like to say they only drink red wine. No matter. The answer is pretty simple.

Table wine -- what you have in your hand as you read this blog, one hopes -- is dry. That is to say, the fermentation process of turning sugar into alcohol completed leaving no residual sugar. This ought to prevent the wine from tasting cloying or sweet, as well as (for red wines) allow the tannins to flex their muscle. And it is the tannins in red wine that most people think of when they say, "I like dry wines." Tannins are found in oak and the seeds, skins, and stems of grapes. They leave your mouth feeling dried out or, if the wine is exceptionally tannic, make your mouth pucker.

There are folks who have said they enjoy dry wines who don't like a particular Pinot Noir they taste. They call it "sweet." No! It is fermented dry! The lab results show there is no residual sugar! But this is not what they mean. Often, experience demonstrates, those who claim an affinity for dry wines like big, robust red wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, and Zinfandel -- even the dreaded Merlot (with certain exceptions). These are all wines generally higher in tannins than, for example, Pinot Noir or Gamay -- or, of course, white wines.

This is not to say that a bone dry wine, with no residual sugar, can't taste sweet. It happens all the time, particularly given the modern viticultural trend that strives for higher degrees of ripeness in grapes. How do you measure a grape's ripeness? By Brix, that is, the amount of sugar in it.

To create wine, as you know, a winemaker needs to convert that sugar into alcohol by relying on yeast during the fermentation process. Picking grapes that contain more sugar means that, potentially, there will be more alcohol in the finished wine. But the winemaker may not want to do that. In today's world, the winemaker has options: (1) let the wine complete fermentation and slap the 18% alcohol on the label; (2) recognize the issue before the grapes begin fermenting and water it back (that is, add water to reduce the level of potential alcohol); (3) let the wine complete fermentation and send it to a lab to remove alcohol in a spinning cone (yes, this happens); or (4) leave some of that residual sugar in the finished wine, not allowing the wine to ferment until it is completely dry.

In any of the above scenarios, with riper grapes being used to make the wine, the fruit profile tends to taste a bit sweeter than in wines picked at lower sugar levels. This isn't a bad thing. It's a value judgment about what sort of flavors you like in wine. And even riper grapes don't taste that sweet when they are well-balanced with acidity and tannins.

In short, don't worry about all this technical stuff. As a wine drinker -- and being a wine drinker is the most important thing -- all you have to concern yourself with is whether you like the wine. If you do? Drink it. If you decide you really like it? Drink some more. If you don't like it? Drink something else.

Wine of the moment: Siduri Pinot Noir Sonoma County 2008

2009-12-19T15:35:00.002-06:00

The 2008 vintage posed a number of major challenges to winemakers in Sonoma County in 2008. First came unexpected and highly varied late-season frosts that crippled a number of Russian River Valley vineyards. Second, wildfires in Mendocino County crept into the Sonoma Coast, ravaging some vineyards with smoke taint. Frost will decimate a vineyard's crop yields that year, also dulling the fruit as if it has been run through the most character-stripping filtration. It can take the vines two years or more to recover fully. Smoke taint gives the grapes a true smoked quality, rendering it essentially undrinkable (or perhaps evoking enormous amounts of new oak).

In 2008, however, Adam Lee at Siduri Wines (and their non-Pinot Noir branch, Novy Family Wines) avoided these two potentially disastrous tricks from Mother Nature. The 2008 Sonoma County blend is a testament to the constant drive Adam, his wife Dianna, and the Siduri crew have for making better wine every year. The 2008 edition may well surpass the terrific 2005 and 2007, which were the product of much kinder growing seasons. Expect plenty of black cherry fruit, spice, and a bit more earthiness out of the 2008 Sonoma County. The kicker: It goes for only $19.50 on the mailing list, plus tax and shipping. There is pretty good distribution of Siduri wines in Houston, although this wine isn't on the shelf at Spec's. It's versatile, with good acidity that makes it excellent for pairing with a variety of foods, from pizza to roast chicken to pan-seared steak.

Full disclosure: Adam and the gang at Siduri are good friends. Adam and Dianna are also native Texans, creating inherent bias, right? But their wines are without question some of the best and most consistently good in California and Oregon. All my tasting notes, on Siduri and other wineries, are available here.

Simplicity: Salad Dressing

2009-12-17T18:22:00.002-06:00

Maybe the weather has turned too cold to think about crisp salads, but there are a lot of greens at the local farmers markets and, with rich holiday food lurking around every corner, plenty of incentive to eat light meals these days. Pair a salad with a warm bowl of tomato soup or some pot roast (or Houston's perennial favorite, short ribs), and you're able to lighten up a hearty, warming meal. And while you're at it, why pay $4 or more for a bottle of salad dressing? Make your own. There are limitless possibilities from any recipe, and you can control the fat content, which is another way to cut calorie corners in the Fat Fortnight around Christmas and New Year's. Here's one basic recipe:

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar (or balsamic or white wine or champagne ... you get the idea)
2-4 cloves of garlic, depending on your love of antioxidants and/or garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
6-8 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, depending on your preference for piquancy

Whisk all the ingredients together, and there you have it. Versatile and quite robust, this dressing can double as a sauce for pork or chicken. The mustard and black pepper also pair well with tannins in bigger red wines, so this can make a nice accompaniment to big meat dishes. You can also substitute lemon juice for vinegar or any other acid that is your preference. The mustard and relatively low oil content makes the emulsification on this dressing easy, and it holds for days.

In re Guy's Meat Market

2009-12-09T18:32:00.005-06:00

Before the Burger Court of Houston, Texas

Docket No. 4

In re GUY'S MEAT MARKET

Before GUTTING, BRINKMANN, LAHAD, JJ.

Per Curiam. In the times when the daily special was indeed special, there was a narrow window of opportunity for those who sought to partake. That is, diners and greasy spoons often rustled up a batch of something in the morning and when they ran out, they ran out. If you snoozed, then you lost. Cast in this mold is Guy’s Meat Market, located on Old Spanish Trail. Despite meeting the constitutional requirements of standing to submit a petition for review, prudential concerns predominate, and this Court declines to exercise its jurisdiction and assign a rating to Guy’s Meat Market.

Guy’s is a meat market. The number of bona fide meat markets in Houston pales in comparison to the number of “meat markets” like the Drake, Pub Fiction, and similar ilk on Washington Avenue. Aside from being a meat market, Guy’s also serves up burgers, barbecue, and certain sides. In the discussion of Houston’s best, Guy’s burgers are frequently referenced.

While no hard evidence exists, it is rumored that Guy’s makes about two hundred burgers a day and sells out well before 1:00 p.m. The question, then, is why don’t they just grill up some more burgers? The answer is simple: they don’t grill the burgers. Guy’s burgers are smoked. And as any low and slow saveur understands, smoking takes time. Therefore, it is not feasible for them to just whip up burgers. Presumably the burgers are formed the night before and smoked overnight.

Smoking renders Guy’s Burgers different. Not different-bad, but different-different. The burgers are significantly drier than even those of Mel’s Country Café See Dkt. No. 1. However, Guy’s burgers are also significantly more flavorful. It is obvious that the burgers are smoked alongside the sausage, brisket, and ribs also on the menu. Traditional notions of fair char and substantial juiciness are not implicated in reviewing Guy’s burgers. Even though they are beef, Guy’s burgers are a different animal. Typical criteria used by the Court do not comport with a review of Guy’s burgers.

The Court is, therefore, left with the task of evaluating the merits of a petition without meaningful standards or relevant precedent. For example, while flavorful, Guy’s burgers lacked the texture sought after by this Court. Is it proper, though, to compare the texture of Guy’s smoked burgers with that of Lankford’s griddled-cooked samples? Further, is it proper for this Court to announce standards for review without legislative guidance? These prudential concerns, if overlooked or ignored, would unduly prejudice Guy’s.

In sum, whether Guy’s burgers pass muster is a question better suited for resolution by the other branches of gustatory governance, such as the Smokehouse of Representatives.

Red wine with fish?

2009-11-20T18:25:00.001-06:00

"Red wine with fish. I should have known." So said James Bond to the villain Red Grant in From Russia With Love. Not to contradict the man of all men in the Bond movie of all Bond movies, but perhaps he wasn't aware of salmon with Pinot Noir? Or, more properly in the case of Bond, salmon with red Burgundy? More recently, Wine Spectator executive editor Thomas Matthews essentially gave an updated iteration of Bond's position: "I was pleasantly surprised by the way the Rioja paired with sea scallops served with chorizo and polenta," he said of a red wine a restaurant paired with his fish course. Is that such a stretch? The spice of the chorizo, richness of the polenta. A red wine doesn't seem like a stretch or a surprise.

What the sentiment of Matthews suggests is that the old stereotypes about wine and food remain strong. Of course, certain traditional pairings of wine and food attain that status because they work so well. Have an excellent, well-aged Bordeaux with a roasted rack of lamb, and you'll be transported to an ethereal plane. Find a slightly funky, simple, cheap red Burgundy to pair with sottocenere, the delightful cow's milk cheese with black truffles, and you'll gain full understanding of what people mean when they talk about the mushroom characteristics of Pinot Noir.

Traditional pairings aren't bad. Nor are they, however, sacred cows. The wine world has been expanding exponentially over the past few decades. Experimentation has increased on numerous fronts. Winemakers have achieved greater understanding. Quality has increased. Value remains in many respects, as up-and-coming regions reach new levels. In the realm of wine and food, this spirit of experimentation that winemakers have embraced with such gusto needs to make greater inroads when it comes to food pairings. Old ways need to be rethought. Take, for example, the notion that wine goes with cheese. In some cases (see the sottocenere example above), this works out beautifully. Port or Sauternes and Stilton. Parmesan and an earthy Italian red. But for the most part, cheese and wine pair terribly if you eat them together, to try to mingle their flavors. Cheese sticks to your mouth and dominates most of the time. Eaten separately, they can be delightful, but not in the usual "pairing" sense.

A smart winemaker from Sonoma County, John Holdredge, imparts great wisdom in this arena. It applies to wine snobbery in general and the thicket of food and wine pairings in particular. Wine is like food, John says. No one has ever taught you to eat. You either like it, or you don't. If you like it, eat it. If you really like it, eat some more. If you don't like it, eat something else. Wine is just food: if you like it, drink it. If you really like it, drink some more. If you don't like it, drink something else. The same attitude should apply to wine pairings: eat what you like, drink what you like.

The simple truth is that most people don't actually drink wine with their food. They tend to eat with the occasional sip or, at least, don't drink the wine in a way to try to meld its flavors with those of the food. That only provides more reason to maximize your personal pleasure in choosing your food and wine. If you want something non-traditional, go for it. You shouldn't worry about the wine geeks, but if you do, score points for going for contrasting pairings. Have Pinot Noir with grilled steak because you want the acidity to cut the richness of the fat. Drink Syrah with halibut because it's cold outside, and you want to. It doesn't matter. Fight the rules. People tend to still be too uptight about wine. It's just another citizen of the dinner table, like the salt or pepper shaker. Don't let it rule you.

So in the spirit of doing what you feel, here are a few adventurous examples:

1. Roasted chicken with California Syrah
Syrah tends to be a bit fat, and the California incarnations often are big, brawny, and full of forward fruit. Chicken normally would thought to be too delicate, but it also takes on an earthy, herbal quality with common preparations, such as with herbs de provence. This can be really nice during cooler weather.

2. Popcorn with aged Cabernet Sauvignon
Popcorn has become pretty chic in pairing with things like Champagne and Chardonnay. But try it with a Cabernet that has some age on it. It's a tasty way to focus on the wine without tiring out your palate.

3. Filet Mignon with Rose Champagne
A simple filet mignon, pan-seared or broiled, has a delicate flavor but also the unavoidable richness of beef. The sturdier fruit of rose Champagne is enough to stand up to this more delicate steak, and the wine's crisp acidity will help cut the richness.

4. Indian food with Pinot Noir
Often you hear of pairing wines that work well with spicy food with Indian cuisine -- Gewurtraminer, Riesling, Champagne, Zinfandel, Malbec, and the like. But Pinot Noir works exceptionally well with many dishes, particularly if the wine emphasizes the Asian spice quality you can often find in Pinot. Russian River Valley does this quite well, pairing nicely with ginger, mace, saffron, anise, and other commonly found spices. You'll want to avoid very spicy (in terms of heat) dishes, though.

Amuse Bouche: The comforts of fall

2009-11-03T18:57:00.003-06:00

The current string of weather in Houston conjures up the feel of California wine country in a cool vintage. Highs in the mid-70s. Lows down around 50. If grapes could carry out a full growing cycle in two weeks, there would be real hope for the wine industry in Texas. In the photo below, three of the great pleasures at this time of year:

First, coq au vin, always a warming and delicious fall dish. Second, wine, during the peak of harvest. This particular one? Holdredge Pinot Noir Russian River Valley Wren Hop Vineyard 2006, made by one of the most delightful and personable fellows in Sonoma County. Third, in the background, playoff baseball. Even if the Mets aren't playing, it's a terrific time of year. Life is good.

Simplicity: Cream cheese tart

2009-11-01T17:30:00.003-06:00

Cheesecake is a comforting, if heavy, sort of dessert. But it's more versatile than that. With a little creative thinking, it can have sweet or savory possibilities with the addition of Grand Marnier and chocolate or chives and herbs de Provence. The difficult is that cheesecake also is very involved. It requires a special pan. And lots of cream cheese, butter, and eggs. It's a profound undertaking, which is no small thing. You might be tempted to actually eat the whole thing, facing potentially unlimited calorie intake until the entire delicious thing has gone the way of the dinosaurs.

But you don't have to resort to a full cheesecake in order to get that cheesecake flavor and feel. This is essentially a cream cheese pie. It's lighter and simpler than full-fledged cheesecake but every bit as versatile.

Cream Cheese Tart
1 8-ounce package cream cheese or Neufchatel
1 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
Vanilla and almond extract to taste
Zest of one lemon (optional)

1 pie or tart crust, using your favorite recipe (but even a store-bought one works fine)

This is about as easy as you get. Beat together the cream cheese, butter, and sugar until combined well, about one or two minutes in a stand mixture. Add the egg, vanilla, and almond and mix together. You won't want to beat this mixture more than 30-45 seconds. Add to your crust and bake 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees. It'll puff slightly and get a few brown spots. This is a fluffy, delightful, and much easier substitute for cheesecake. And it makes a great, guilty-pleasure breakfast the next day.

Amuse Bouche: The almost-chill of Houston fall

2009-10-14T20:54:00.003-05:00

Autumn in Houston isn't so much autumn or a cooling off as it is a lifting of humidity. But it's good enough to reintroduce terms like "roast" and "braise" into the culinary vocabulary again. You also get those excellent fall ingredients, like butternut squash, fresh (not stored) apples, kale, figs, and pears. Seeing all the legitimately autumn weather on TV makes you want that cold-weather comfort food that seems to stay on Houston restaurant menus year-round but always feels out of place during the six months of oppressive summer. Houston's second spring is most welcome. This is a good week to hit the farmer's market of your choice, pick up some seasonal ingredients, and get down with the soothing flavors of fall ... while still eating on the patio.

In re Sparkle's Hamburger Spot

2009-09-30T22:40:00.003-05:00

Before the Burger Court of Houston, Texas

Docket No. 3

In re SPARKLE’S HAMBURGER SPOT

Before GUTTING, BRINKMANN, LAHAD.

Opinion for the court filed by LAHAD, J, in which JJ. GUTTING and BRINKMANN join.

LAHAD, J. Before the Court is the submission of Sparkle’s Hamburger Spot (“Sparkle”). We hold that Sparkle, despite its nearly unconscionable sides, serves a flavorful and well-made hamburger thus warranting an A- rating.

Background

Sparkle petitioned this Court in forma pauperis but declined to have counsel appointed. After the required Faretta colloquy, this Court granted Sparkle’s request to proceed pro se. Located on the corner of Dowling and Jefferson streets in Houston’s Third Ward, Sparkle consists of a small blue building that serves as the kitchen and front desk. Seating is limited to a pair of picnic tables that have seen better days. Based on discovery obtained, no one actually eats at Sparkle’s location. Rather, food ordered and taken to another location for consumption. The picnic tables provided at Sparkle, then, are primarily used to wait for one’s order.

The extensive menu at Sparkle includes single and double versions of hamburgers and cheeseburgers, the expected sides, as well as some interesting fare like “pork chop sandwich.” Indeed, several amici have pointed to such unique menu elements, real ice cream shakes and local flair as factors. Pork chops and ice cream aside, this Court limits its holdings and reasoning to genuine burger cases and controversies. Petitioners and amici would do well not to view dicta within our case law as advisory opinions about sides, shakes, or scenery. However, it is emphatically the province and duty of this Court to say what the burger law is.

The Court reviewed three Sparkle offerings: 1) a double hamburger; 2) a cheeseburger; and 3) a double cheeseburger. The aforementioned lack of seating and the steamy weather forced the Court’s conference to Justice Brinkmann’s chambers.

The Hamburger

While waiting for the burgers, this Justice observed a gentlemen in the kitchen grab hunks of ground beef and roll them into baseball-sized globs of meat. The resulting burgers indicated that these meat baseballs were the patties’ progenitors. Simply, the patties at Sparkle are, to use the parlance of our times, large and in-charge. Transporting the meals back to chambers constituted a workout sufficient to offset a few of the burgers’ calories. The fear, however, is that such large mounds of ground beef will have charred skin yet raw centers. At Sparkle the adept grill-mistress knew exactly how to handle the patties. Despite easily crossing the half-pound threshold, the patties on each burger were well-cooked to medium.

Similarly, often the larger a food item, the less flavor it has. Grapes are a prime example. Fortunately, the patty at Sparkle does not fall into this category. The patty was not too salty or peppery. Rather, it had a welcome beefy flavor, perhaps enhanced by its sheer mass. It would have been a major disappointment had Sparkle’s beefy patty been bland or tasteless. Special mention should be given to the temperature of the patties. The patties were piping hot even after the additional time from receipt to conference.

In a world of brioche and where custom buns are nearly as prevalent as custom wheels, Sparkle’s bun exemplifies ordinary. Of the three burgers, only the double-hamburger’s bun integrity failed. The other two pairs of burger buns held up to the patties. The potential culprit could be the additional patty on the double- hamburger. This is, however, difficult to reconcile with the fact that buns on the double-cheeseburger maintained their structure.

A continuing debate among members of the hamburger bar concerns onions. The question is not whether onions should be include, for it is well-accepted that onions enhanced flavor and freshness and add moisture. Rather, the debate surrounds whether those onions should be diced or not. This Justice’s hamburger had a single large ring of onion – about 4 inches in diameter and about ¼ inch thick. Regardless of one’s position about onions, it is evident that a single fat onion ring on a burger results in the awkward pull-the-entire-ring-out-in-a-bite situation. Highly disfavored.

Extras

Sparkle offers the basic side items as well as chili-cheese variants of each. The approach to sides at Sparkle is the exact opposite of its approach to burgers. The French fries were an odd consistency conservatively dusted with some kind of seasoning. The curly fries almost eluded review for lack of sufficient fries to review. The $2 order of chili cheese curly fries lacked the chili and cheese and maybe came in at 1 oz. Poor form on two counts.

As this Court has made clear, a party is reviewed on burger alone. Suffice it to say that this standard has benefitted several parties. In sum, this Court finds that Sparkle burger serves a large juicy hamburger, well seasoned and cooked, that warrants an A- rating.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Gutting, J., concurring. I join the Court's opinion but write separately to explicate on Sparkle's side dishes. Deplorable, though inexpensive, they are, it is virtually impossible to judge what, if any, merit they have. The sample size simply is too small. Eating an order of Sparkle's fries is like taking the slightest gasp of air. It is essentially without substance. Or sustenance. It is fortunate for Sparkle's Hamburger Spot they make such outstanding and generous burgers. This Court cannot and should not allow itself to be distracted by lesser subject matter in its pursuit of burger justice, as the final (and correct) judgment of Sparkle Burger has been rendered today. I applaud my learned brethren for this judicious evaluation of an excellent hamburger.

Review: Cyrus

2009-09-16T21:17:00.003-05:00

Cyrus Restaurant in Healdsburg, California, has played a leading role in making Sonoma County in general and the Russian River Valley in particular the trendy pick in wine country since it opened in 2005. In 2006, it became one of four Bay Area restaurants to garner two Michelin stars in the guide’s first San Francisco rankings. It’s a restaurant with flair — from the Champagne and caviar cart to the formal service — and a compelling narrative. Chef Douglas Keane, a protégé of Gary Danko, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2004 during the planning of Cyrus. The tumor turned out to be benign, and Keane has blazed the trail of success since.

Cyrus stands out in Sonoma County’s casual answer to the more showy grandeur of Napa Valley, because it is so formal. At the same time, it is just the sort of standard the area needed to be taken seriously at the highest levels — plus the magnificent wines of Sonoma deserve a restaurant that is a showcase.

In its earlier days, Cyrus suffered from occasional variability. But the past two years, it has been consistently excellent and quite worthy of its two stars. A recent visit confirmed Keane and his staff have settled in nicely, comfortable with the style and striding forward with marvelous creativity.

The meal began with a tower of canapés, each showcasing a different flavor: sour, sweet, salty, bitter, pungent, and that ill-defined but popular umami. It was an almost Alinea-like focus to begin the meal and quite interesting. The main event began with an amuse bouche of gorgeously fresh kona kampachi topped with a extra small fried shrimp that added texture.

Next, a Keane signature: Thai-marinated lobster with avocado, mango, and hearts of palm, topped with a Thai basil sauce that brings the entire refreshing dish together. It is so alive and delightful, complemented beautifully by a dry German Riesling from the Pfalz, Okonomierat Rebhold “vom Rotliegenden” 2005.

The lobster, perhaps the high of the meal, preceded a choice between torchon of foie gras or gnocchi with morels. The torchon, salt-cured and accompanied by tamarind and dates, got a terrific acidic bite from pickled onions and a reliable German wine, Selbach-Oster Riesling Spatlese Zeltinger Scholossberg from the excellent 2007 vintage. The gnocchi also shone, tasty pillows with bite, but the fresh morels stole the show.

Up next was a delightful scallop dish with a Spanish touch. Cooked skillfully and crusted on one side with chorizo, it was complemented beautifully by a mussel broth and fresh cockle. The downside was the wine pairing, a Manzanilla sherry from Hidalgo that did nothing for the food. What is with the trend toward pairing sherry at least once during a tasting menu? This could have been such an opportunity to complement the scallop and chorizo with the spice of Tempranillo or Garnacha. Or just stick with the classic scallop pairing, Albarino. Sherry overpowered the delicacy of the scallop and didn’t mesh with the chorizo.

Keane’s Asian influence came through in the fourth course. Crisp duck breast came atop a scallion rice cake with maitake mushroom and ponzu. The duck was delightful, but the rice cake was tough and chewy, like a Rice Krispie treat that has been left out on the counter overnight. The marvelous sauce and mushrooms cancelled it out, as did a terrific Camus-Bruchon Savigny-les-Beaune 2006.

Up next, a magnificent wagyu beef with burdock and shiso with a remarkable, richly flavored oxtail umeshu consommé. It is possible the wagyu was one of the most tender and delicious pieces of beef in human history, rivaling even the awe-inspiring product of Bryan Flannery. Almost as good, however, was the other fifth-course choice: lamb roulade with celery root, parsnip, and turnip. A slice of black truffle in the roulade cut the lamb flavor slightly, adding an earthy note that played well with the root vegetables.

The cheese plate is notable, although not as profound as Tru in Chicago, but it was complemented by a tremendous 2006 Vouvray from Champalou.. There is a variety of selection, including a sheep’s milk cheese that betrays no sweat-sock notes. To cleanse the richness of the meat dishes and cheese, Keane goes beyond the usual sorbet. Out comes a verjus sorbet, with a crisp, palate-sharpening blood orange and Riesling soup. It’s served with a piece of crystallized picholine olive brittle. This was supremely refreshing, clearing the way for dessert.

Dessert was a bit hit-or-miss. Each choice contained excellent elements, but each also included an unsuccessful flirtation with savory flavors. There was a remarkable, classic tiramisu with a spoonful of cappuccino foam and a surprisingly delicate espresso gelato. The dish suffered from out-of-place caramelized fennel sprinkled on it. Then there was a terrific five spice cake with a passion fruit macaroon, each of which stood out for its flavor and execution. But a Thai basil-coconut milk gelato was bizarre, sticking out as inappropriate on the plate. This was a fine example of the need for serious reflection before pastry chefs make forays into sweet-savory interplay. Such experimentation isn’t required. Sometimes a sweet dessert is enough, and the night’s efforts underscored that fewer elements would have been more. Fortunately, each dessert came with an interesting and tasty wine. The tiramisu showcased the viscous and surprisingly acidic Maury Roussillon Mas Amiel 1990, while the five-spice cake provided a nice foil to the tropical richness of another German 2007, the Weegmuller Scherebe Auslese Haardter Mandelring.

As a whole, however, the tasting menu at Cyrus is well worth the trip. It is thoughtfully constructed and well-executed. The service is smooth, with enough casual touches to remind you you’re in Sonoma. Additionally, it’s worth remembering what a young restaurant this is. Open for a little more than four years, it’s astonishing the level Keane and his staff operate at. This is a worthy dining experience and an attraction worth seeking out. Cyrus hasn’t even reached its adolescence, yet it already hits high notes worthy of some of the most prestigious restaurants in the country. With supreme focus and continued dedication, it’s plausible, if still a long shot, to see how Keane and company might give the French Laundry and its ilk a run for their money.

Review: The French Laundry

2009-08-24T18:45:00.003-05:00

The French Laundry has a tough job these days. Its reputation is so established, legion of fans so large, and margin for error so non-existent that it’s an easy target. Food is a deeply personal thing. A restaurant can be even more so. Chefs, like writers, put forward an intimate, creative side of themselves for public judgment. If that’s the case, then Thomas Keller is the cooking equivalent to Phil Jackson coaching in the NBA finals. He just doesn’t lose. He takes what he’s given, adapts to it, gets the absolute most out of it, and leaves you astonished.

The French Laundry is a restaurant that doesn’t let you down. It is the place that encompasses the evolution and ascendancy of restaurants in the United States over the past forty years. It harnesses the power of Alice Waters’ emphasis on fresh, seasonal, and local ingredients, couples it with the very best in formal service with an influence of American casualness, and incorporates an elegant dedication to classicism for the food and décor. In short, the French Laundry is the restaurant that tries — and succeeds — at pleasing everyone. Or at least coming close.

Two recent trips to the French Laundry confirm this is the best restaurant in the country. Period. But to bestow such a sweeping superlative on the place undermines the true pleasure of the experience. Make no mistake, though, a meal here is a pure luxury. At $240 (service included) for a nine-course tasting or nine-course vegetarian menu, you’ll be lucky to make it our for less than $500 per person once wine comes into play. But it is the meal, if you have deep-seated passion for food, you owe to yourself at least once. Give up your Starbucks or Chick-Fil-A habit for a year. You won’t regret it.

The first impression of the restaurant is how unassuming it is. You won’t notice it if you just drive down Washington Street in Yountville. Inside, the restored building is magnificent. Refined rusticity might have been invented here. The tables reflect the restaurant’s name: crisp, white linens; the napkin secured to white plates, shimmering from the soft light given off by wall sconces, with an old fashioned laundry pin.

For an establishment that attracts such zealous lovers of food, the atmosphere is so relaxed and unhurried, you can’t help but feel at ease. It’s a remarkable feat, really, considering the ratio of servers to diners. With room for about sixty customers, the two-story dining room also accommodates seemingly forty staff. The remarkable thing is you can’t really tell how many servers there are because they are simultaneously ubiquitous and invisible. To create a pleasant, quiet environment while lavishing each table with attention is a remarkable feat. The only potential issue in the dining can be temperature: in the summer it can be stuffy, compounded by the jacket requirement for men.

Really, though, it is wasteful to spend so much time on the “experience” of the French Laundry because the last thing it aspires to be is an “experience” place. Nothing distracts from the food. The dining room isn’t flashy. The service, while impeccable, takes a back seat. This is all about the food, but recognizing the unmatched efforts that come from everyone at the restaurant would detract from the marvelous, leisurely perfection of a meal at the French Laundry.

The starter rarely changes: two amuse bouche, the cheese gougeres and salmon tartare with red onion crème fraiche in a sesame tuile. This is an important first step. The gougeres show remarkable execution of the pastry, while allowing the gruyere to shine through clearly but not overwhelmingly. The salmon “ice cream cone” is legendary for good reason. It’s refined, playful, and delicious. The red onion crème fraiche provides a refreshing burst, and the tuile is so delicate you wonder how it can support the weight of the teaspoon of salmon. These are classic amuse, executed marvelously and betray that you are in for a treat.

The first course also usually is the same: “oysters and pearls.” It’s essentially decadent tapioca pudding, delicate and flavorful with no shortage of butter. Two lightly poached oysters sit on top, with a generous dollop of California caviar. With Champagne, this dish simultaneously transports you to the good life and makes a resounding case for simple cooking. And the domestic caviar is a testament to efforts in this country to develop top-quality ingredients.

Next up is foie gras, if you choose, or a salad. The salad is always interesting and generally made from fruits or vegetables grown in the French Laundry’s garden, which sits across the street. The foie gras is well worth the $30 supplement. A terrine of pillow-like softness and elegance is enhanced by a celery branch and tart rhubarb that cuts the richness. Toasted brioche — a warm piece traded out for a fresh warm piece a few minutes later — leaves you smiling, another classic executed perfectly. The theatrical replacement of the brioche partway through the course is handled so matter-of-factly that it diffuses any possibility of pretentiousness.

Third is the fish course. On the March visit, sous chef Corey Lee’s influence showed in a brilliant Japanese big fin squid dish, with pasta, green garlic, chorizo, sweet peppers, Spanish capers, and Swiss chard. You know the French Laundry can cook any piece of fish, and one of the choices will showcase that, but this squid showed such imagination, with the earthy kick of capers and chard to complement the fresh (and not tough) squid and slight spice of the chorizo. A dish ordered out of a desire to sample everything on the menu became a memorable standout.

The first half of the meal rounds out with the lobster course. Normally you get mitts or tail poached in butter. Occasionally, they’ll be poached in olive oil. There is an inherent risk of lobster being slightly chewy, even at the best restaurants, and that was the case on one visit. But the complements in the spring — avocado, radish, fresh fennel, and niçoise olive — came with a cool citrus broth that allowed the lobster mitts to be a vehicle for a refreshing, invigorating dish.

The meat courses rotate frequently. Chicken, pork, duck, beef, veal, and lamb all make appearances, in various cuts and preparations. Duck is a particular treat. This March, a duck breast served with English peas, turnips, mache, and intense black truffles made for a dream pairing with red Burgundy. As with each course, the individual ingredients shine through beautifully and complement one another; there isn’t interference. These flavors work together and aren’t shouting over one another, competing for the spotlight.

It’s at this point in the meal that you wish the French Laundry offered wine pairings. The rationale for only offering the wine list is that the menu changes daily, so keeping up with pairings would be arduous. The reality is that, while the menu will change daily, there is a spectrum of dishes the kitchen works with. Flavors change, but the core of the menu is constant enough to allow a course-by-course pairing. It is the one way the meal could be taken to greater heights, not that the wine list lacks in selection that’s perfect for the food.

The beef course on both visits was the cap of the ribeye, roasted to medium rare. Deeply flavorful and with the fat melted in, it’s a delicious canvas for bluefoot mushrooms and a San Marzano tomato compote that, after you finish relishing the intensely pure flavor, you realize is essentially the best ketchup you’ve ever encountered.

The cheese course always is a simple affair, showcasing a single cheese that is worthy of solo attention. It is followed up with a sorbet or sherbet. After the richness of the middle section of the meal, a buttermilk or fruit sorbet is just the ticket, like the acidic backbone of a wine keeping your palate refreshed. Buttermilk sherbet with sour cherries and a black tea foam — showing you foam may be passé but not necessarily boring or uninteresting when properly prepared and used — emphasizes how the menu plays with sweet and savory, refreshing and rich, and the earthy side of food.

Dessert tends to walk the classical line, with chocolate mousse that reminds you why classics are just that, or lemon parfait that hits tart and sweet notes with equal force. So skillfully executed, it makes you feel like a kid again, bringing back memories of timeless favorites.

There's also a secret at the end of the meal. Ask if they have any "coffee and doughnuts." They do. But you have to ask. If they're available still, you will get the most delightful cinnamon sugar doughnut and espresso semifreddo.

The French Laundry isn’t a meal that reads well. It’s something you must experience to realize the sheer perfection and enjoyment of it. Nothing is out of place. There are no missteps. Needs are anticipated; requests are met immediately. When a restaurant approaches every day with impossible expectations, it’s remarkable enough for it to meet them. At the French Laundry, Thomas Keller has assembled a brigade that routinely blows those expectations out of the water. There is no better restaurant in the country. Few even come close.

Amuse Bouche: Guilty pleasure

2009-08-19T19:57:00.003-05:00

Canned nacho cheese at the Astros' game. 7-Eleven spicy bite hot dogs. Hostess cupcakes. Fried turkey legs at a county fair. Chex Mix. Soft Batch cookies. Jimmy Dean sausage biscuits, fresh from the microwave. Taco Bell Meximelts. Everyone has his delicious-yet-embarrassing food secret. Is it some connection to childhood that does it? Some crack added during the process that creates trans fat? Whatever it is, perhaps a connection of some kind to childhood (well, maybe not for the Double Whopper), these guilty pleasures exist, just like reality television on VH1. Anyone want to top my inexplicable cravings for lukewarm Chick-Fil-A nuggets off of their catering trays?

In re Lankford Grocery

2009-08-11T23:20:00.002-05:00

Before the Burger Court of Houston, Texas
Docket No. 2
IN RE LANKFORD GROCERY AND MARKET
HEARD JULY 14, 2009
DECIDED JULY 29, 2009

Before GUTTING, BRINKMANN, LAHAD. for the court filed by GUTTING, J, in which JJ. LAHAD and BRINKMANN join.

GUTTING, J. Before the court is the submission of Lankford Grocery and Market of Houston, Texas (“Lankford”). A long-time leader in the Texas burger culture and recently recognized by Texas Monthly magazine as the 39th best burger in the state, a recent circuit split has emerged regarding Lankford. To resolve this dispute in extremely important area of burger law, we granted certiorari.

We hold that Lankford provides an exceptional burger, worthy of special effort to seek out and enjoy, and merits an A rating. The opinion of the Texas Burger Guy is affirmed; Alison Cook's Burger Friday review is overturned and cited as erroneous precedent.

Background

Lankford is a shack in a strange corner of mid-town, surrounded by new townhouses that should only be so lucky to reach the age of the Lankford building in any shape at all. Inside, you always get the feeling Lankford might come falling down on you at any moment, leaving you to find the most convenient escape route that also will allow you to emerge with a burger in hand.

There's no lack of local color about the place, and the burgers reflect a simplicity that is so easily forgotten in this day of American kobe burgers and sliders. You can go single or double. Maybe some chili. Perhaps the Soldier burger with its fried egg on top. Nothing fancy. Everything delicious.

The Court reviewed three burgers: (1) a double with cheese; (2) a double without cheese; and (3) a Soldier burger.

The Hamburger

These burgers were glossy, sexy pieces of ground beef. The moment they arrived, fresh off the griddle and projecting steam, you could feel as if something magical might be happening this day. An initial sample of the patty alone heightened expectations and senses even more: juicy, rich, an archetype of what a burger should be. Not too much salt. Not too much seasoning. Just the purity of beef that is too often lost by purveyors who don't have the courage to stand on the quality of their ingredients alone.

The patties are hand-formed and roughly a half pound. The double was a candidate to give diners lockjaw due to its height, which was enhanced by a stack of lettuce, tomato, and chopped onion. On the cheeseburger, American slices oozed nicely, but the hamburger also seemed as juicy overall. The Soldier burger achieves a mayonnaise-like quality to its toppings with the over-easy egg. There were plenty of pickles on each patty, a welcome thing with such pure beef flavor. Mayonnaise was appropriate, and the mustard -- too often prone to taking over and dominating the flavor -- used judiciously. Too many burgers suffer from excessive mustard. This is a hamburger, not a musburger.

The burgers came out a barely medium-well, with plenty of retained juice and no signs of dryness-inducing griddle-pressing that lesser establishments insist upon to speed cooking. A solid crust formed on the outside of the patties. These were burgers that begged to be eaten. This was ground beef in excelsis, enhanced by light salt and pepper.

The bun isn't artisan or fancy. This is the style of bun that is meant to create a neutral canvas for a burger, and it can be used to excellent effect in a case such as this, where the meat needs no supporting cast. Bun integrity was strong on the double burgers. Perhaps they are a touch airy for some, but this was not a detriment in the opinion of the Court.

Sides

On this day, the Court declined to hear evidence on side dishes. We deemed the Circuit split to be of such high importance that all efforts must be concentrated on strict scrutiny of the burgers themselves. In accordance with our prior precedent, see In re Mel's Country Cafe, supra, we decide the case of Lankford Grocery on the merits without consideration of side dishes. The Court does take judicial notice that Lankford's fries are generally average to slightly above average, while their onion rings are above average.

Extras

The Court would like to make special mention of the cherry cobbler ordered this day. While the issue of cobbler need not be reached in order for the Court to render judgment, this cobbler cannot go without discussion. The Court expressly notes its willingness to dismiss with prejudice any claims of merit advanced by the Lankford Grocery cherry cobbler, which contained precisely one cherry in an entire bowl that more resembled a Hostess fried pie crumbled up and put in the microwave. This abomination is unworthy of an establishment of Lankford's stature.

Conclusion

Lankford Grocery produces a burger that is worthy of Best In Houston consideration. It will be difficult for any restaurant to top the merits of this burger. As a result, we award Lankford an A grade. The opinion of the Texas Burger Guy is AFFIRMED. The opinion of Alison Cook is OVERRULED and the case remanded to her for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

LAHAD, J. concurring. I concur in the holding announced today but write separately to admonish Lankford Grocery's appalling cherry cobbler. While none of the parties in the case at bar moved to sanction Lankford, and my brethren on this Court persuaded me that it would be unnecessary judicial activism to act sua sponte, the cherry cobbler offered by Lankford would warrant hefty sanctions and possibly a contempt order. As an officer of this Court, Lankford has a duty to provide accompaniments that meet both gustatory and ethical standards. This alleged "dessert" fails to meet either; Lankford's cherry cobbler is, simply put, the pits.

Review: Textile

2009-08-04T21:42:00.001-05:00

Textile opened in Houston last fall to much fanfare. Scott Tycer has garnered an ardent following here, and Textile is intended to be his crowning achievement. This was to be the restaurant at the top of the city's fine dining scene; a legitimate destination at the high end, something Houston sorely lacks. Is it? The answer is full of qualifiers: Maybe yes, but, if yes, then only in one respect. It will take some doing to explicate that answer, and perhaps the lack of a simple answer should indicate the true answer itself. But there is one area in which Textile succeeds in throwing Tycer's hat into the highest echelon of chefs: price.

Textile is spendy, and it's worth taking some time to discuss that. By virtue of price -- $85 (plus $55 for wine) for a five-course tasting and $115 (plus $75 for wine) for seven courses -- Textile is playing in the big leagues. Prices for non-paired wines, though mostly well-selected, are exorbitant. (The list at Gravitas always seems to have a couple $10 bottles for $45+, implying wine-as-profit-center is a Tycer tradition.) That means big league expectations and razor-thin margins of error. You can go to Tru in Chicago, for example, and have their eleven-course Chef's Collection for $135. The $125 to $175 price range is fairly standard for degustation menus at the top restaurants in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. So $115 in Houston, with our lower cost of living, is a bold move. It's a price that allows no room for disappointment or average or lapses in execution when it comes to food or service.

The space at Textile is lovely. There is a calm, cool feel about the room, and the kitchen and service areas are removed, keeping even the usual bustle from reaching the dining room. It's a pleasant atmosphere and is a key contributor to the experience at Textile feeling more enjoyable than just the sum of its parts. It’s relaxed, not stuffy or aloof.

At a restaurant like this, however, ambiance and service must be a given. It cannot get by on anything but the strength of its food. And this is where Textile falls down, excepting the dessert discussion below. Purely in terms of food, this isn't one of the top five places in Houston. It might not even be in the top ten, but that may be a result of sticker shock. The creativity is interesting at times in Tycer's food. The execution is maddeningly inconsistent, reminiscent of the same struggles Robert Gadsby has at Bedford.

The meal started with a solid dish of pickled white asparagus with dilled kefir. It was a crisp, tart, and refreshing opening, paired beautifully with the citrus-tinged and creamy Nicolas Feuillatte Blanc de Blancs NV. But here began the rollercoaster ride.

The second course was unforgivable: bay scallops and wheat pasta in a celery broth. The scallops were not fresh, with an intensely fishy flavor that screamed of being a couple days' old at least. This sin was amplified by the neutral celery. The pasta was al dente but had an odd, soft, almost slimy feel on the outside, as if it had been cooked short and left to sit and never properly reheated. Whatever happened with this dish was a mistake. Mistakes can happen. They can be corrected. But at a restaurant with Textile's aspirations? A plate like this never should have reached a customer. It indicates a failure of execution in the kitchen and quality control. There was, at least, a surprising and superb Meroi Pinot Grigio 2007 to sip until the waiters cleared the plate.

From that low, the meal reached its apex, an inspired smoked kielbasa with pork belly and goat’s eye bean. The sausage was excellent, meaty and flavorful, complemented by the succulent richness of the pork belly. It was easily the best dish of the night, and it had the best wine of the night, as well, Bergstrom “Dr. Bergstrom” Riesling 2006 from Oregon. It was a real surprise and made this inspired course a great domestic representation of food with such a German feel.

Then the inconsistency resurfaced for the next two dishes. First, quail stuffed with sage bread pudding with porcini and summer truffles. The stuffing was light and airy, but its quantity overwhelmed the subtle quail meat, and the sage neutralized any hint of truffle. The flavors didn’t coalesce. Not even the tasty Faiveley Bourgogne 2006 could bring out any hint of truffle in the dish. Second, a roast leg of duck with forbidden rice had a lovely, crisp skin, but it was overcooked and dry. The forbidden rice was mushy, with a texture like refried beans and with none of the nutty flavor it should have had.

A refreshing cherry and gianduja float preceded the dessert, honeydew and melon soup with goat cheese and brioche. It would have been a refreshing cap to a quite rich string of dishes, but the soup came out room temperature, not chilled. The flavors fell a bit flat.

The dessert, which must have sat too long waiting to come out of the kitchen, underscored the deep problems with service at Textile, an all-too-common problem in Houston. The waiters were awkward and seemed uncomfortable and hot. Each course delivered to the table -- a five-course and a seven-course -- was flip-flopped. Even after being brought to the attention of the maitre d', it continued through the meal's conclusion, reaching the point of being laughable. Wine service from sommelier Frank Moore, though, was superb. He is a knowledgeable, passionate wine steward whose pairings generally are smart and appropriate. His trips to explain each pour were a highlight of the evening.

So far, it is hard to reconcile all this with the "maybe yes" answer above. Isn’t Textile just overrated and overpriced? Well, yes. But it also has Plinio Sandalio, the pastry chef. What is clear about Textile is that it is the best restaurant in Houston -- for dessert. And it does have the best chef in town -- Sandalio.

The dessert tasting at Textile, offered Tuesdays and Wednesdays, is the thing to get to find value and inspired creativity. It is a glimpse at special and rare talent over eight courses.

To start one recent evening, out came two crisp matchstick French fries, with a dollop of potato chip-crusted mayonnaise that was deep fried. It showed that, in this frying-crazed era, there are still interesting things to be discovered.

The tasting itself was split into savory and sweet halves. The savory began with the much-ballyhooed “corndog”: a slightly sweet corn fritter, mustard ice cream, and ketchup with ground hot dog into it. Each element was tasty, but the flavors melded together in impressive harmony that worked in conveying the best of sweet-salty-savory interplay. Less successful was the okra ice cream and andouille caramel that followed. The ice cream was delicious, something like creamed okra, but the andouille caramel didn’t quite gel.

The savory segment closed on another high, a lemon tart with candied olives. The olives, the harshness of their flavor eviscerated, made an interesting pairing with a superlative lemon tart. This showed Sandalio at his greatest skill and gave a glimpse at a possible weakness. The tart shell was exquisite, light and crisp. The lemon filling was perfectly executed and avoided the pitfall of so many lemon desserts, which become too sweet and mask the lemon flavor. Not here. It was piquant and captured a juicy lemon’s refreshment. Sandalio’s fundamental skills are without doubt; he ensures that you can see all the classical techniques he has mastered, giving him more leeway to be creative. With this dish, however, the olives seemed superfluous and unnecessary. They were interesting, but you can’t help but wonder if one fewer element would have given the overall dish a greater stature. With his skill, however, you are likely to write it off as minor.

Between the savory and sweet halves came a watermelon and feta “intermezzo.” The compressed watermelon was crisp and ripe. A small feta cheesecake opened your mind to new dimensions of the line between savory and sweet.

The sweet segment showcased Sandalio’s creativity within more a more traditional realm. The coconut cake was delicious and perfectly executed, although the accompanying avocado ice cream, while nice texturally appealing, brought out an odd side to avocado’s earthy flavor. The peach sorbet was the essence of a favorite Texas summer ingredient, and the white chocolate mousse maintained elegance. This dish actually seemed somewhat out of place it was so traditional, though perfectly executed.

The last course was a substantial bittersweet chocolate torchon, filled with cherry and complemented by “pop rocks.” As a cherry cordial, it didn’t quite work, and it was rather heavy, but the chocolate was beautiful. There’s no denying the skill that went into the dish.

The final touch, a series of mignardises, left a lingering impression of Sandalio’s impeccable skill in the kitchen: a perfect hazelnut tart, sumptuously rich brownie, and shortbread that will make you spontaneously renounce all others. And that, in essence, is the contrast between Textile at dinner and at dessert. The main courses suffer from lapses in execution and occasionally questionable choices, such as the superfluous black truffles on the quail. At dessert, it’s a bit like watching Jimmy Page play the guitar. All the fundamentals are there, and you’re constantly aware of that basic skill, but you’re always teetering on the edge of disaster in a flurry of creativity and experimentation. It makes the food fun, but it only works because Sandalio hits more than he misses.

As a result, the lingering impression of Textile is mixed. You want to like the place more than you intuitively should. The atmosphere is pleasant. The wine pairings are thoughtful and appropriate. For every miss of a course, you’re reassured by the atmosphere. And you get the wonderful memory of the desserts. So the bottom line requires sober reflection. At easily more than $200 a person for the seven-course tasting with wine, $140 for the five-course with wine, and limited a la carte selections, liking the place doesn’t make up for relatively uneven food. Overall, it’s a welcome addition to the Houston dining scene because it’s serious. But the prices need to reflect the reality of the food (and, perhaps, the economy) or sloppy execution and service must be stamped out permanently. In the meantime, take less risk and go on a weeknight for the a la carte selection or go ahead and have dessert for dinner.

Tales of Excess: Chicken fried prime ribeye burger

2009-07-29T21:20:00.001-05:00

We fry everything in this country nowadays, especially in the South. Eating head shaking fried food has become the new test of a peculiar brand of manhood. Go to any county or state fair, and you have a litany of preposterous fried items: Snickers bars, bacon, Moon Pies, Twinkies, macaroni and cheese, and Coca Cola all get a batter bath and take their place next to your side of fries. In that spirit, the recently convened Burger Court of Houston, Texas, held its usual private conference to discuss petitions for oral argument. On the menu? Burgers, naturally.

From Meatfest of the Burger Court

When the Burger Court convenes, even for a simple conference, the usual fare is a steakburger made out of ground, USDA prime strip steak or ribeye. In the grinder also goes a bit of bacon or pancetta for added fat and moisture. At the most recent meeting, however, a motion came before the Court that the Justices consider a chicken fried burger. Flour, Kosher salt, and a bottle of Shiner Smokehaus being on hand, the Court -- unanimously, sua sponte, and without written opinion -- elected to engage in open-minded judicial activism and hear the writ of mandamus from a fourth burger patty at risk of being orphaned after three were placed on the grill.

From Meatfest of the Burger Court

The batter consisted of approximately one cup of flour, a fair bit of salt, and the twelve-ounce beer missing two small sips. After a brief coating, the patty went into an iron skillet filled with one-and-a-half inches of grapeseed oil heated to just below the smoke point. Ten minutes and a brief drain on paper towels later? A golden, juicy, gorgeous indulgence. The crust was light and very crisp, adding a nice textural element to the bacon-tinged steak. It retained natural juices well, without being too greasy. It may have been less greasy than many burgers cooked on a griddle. No condiments necessary. But this is probably a burger best split three ways.

Due next on the Burger Court docket: Lankford Grocery.

From Meatfest of the Burger Court

Wine of the Moment: Remoriquet Bourgogne Haut Cotes de Nuits 2006

2009-07-20T19:34:00.002-05:00

They say that, in wine, all roads eventually lead to Burgundy. One might take that as a metaphor for life, since all roads in life eventually lead to death. For the wine-crazy among us, Burgundy can spell the beginning of the end. Perhaps one day you are lucky and ill-fated enough to find your Burgundy epiphany -- a luscious, perfumed, cherry-laden wine that heightens the senses and haunts you. Your first great Burgundy is like reading the Russian masters for the first time; afterward you'll be chasing the high, never to be equaled, for the rest of your life. Love of Burgundy can also be financially perilous. While there is value to be had, prices range from spendy to astronomical. (The current release of Domaine de la Romanee Conti's Romanee Conti, for example, is in the $3,500 to $4,000 range per bottle.)

Still, even the threats of bankruptcy and alienating friends and family seem not to deter someone awestruck by Burgundy. There are options, however, that allow you to feed your Burgundy habit without ruining your life. It's like True Blood for wine drinkers. Most recently, I found Remoriquet's Bourgogne Haut Cotes de Nuits 2006. It's $22.49 at the downtown Spec's. A terrific red Burgundy (read: 100% Pinot Noir) that delivers a touch of funk, loads of sour cherry fruit, bright acidity, and a juicy finish on a refreshing frame. This is just the kind of wine that goes beautifully with the heavy food Houstonians prefer, even in summer.

In re Mel's Country Cafe

2009-07-14T20:10:00.003-05:00

EDITOR'S NOTE: Burger Ipsa Loquitur, d/b/a The Burger Court of Houston, Texas, will be a recurring feature on the blog. Sitting by special designation, it brings together three deeply passionate and experienced burger lovers who are driven to find the best burger in Houston. An open-minded attitude drives these Judges, allowing them to focus on the Burger Due Process: strict scrutiny of the patty, bun, and condiments, while considering areas such as side dishes and restaurant atmosphere under a rational basis standard. Enjoy and, as always, comments are welcome.

Before the Burger Court of Houston, Texas

Docket No. 1

IN RE MEL’S COUNTRY CAFE

HEARD JUNE 14, 2009

DECIDED JUNE 17, 2009

Before GUTTING, BRINKMANN, LAHAD.

Opinion for the court filed by LAHAD, J, in which JJ. GUTTING and BRINKMANN join.

LAHAD, J. Before the court is the submission of Mel’s Country Café of Tomball, Texas (“Mel’s”). After dismissing Mel’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction,* this court proceeded to taste oral argument regarding the hamburgers at this “family owned and operated” establishment located in the more bucolic part of Tomball. We hold that Mel’s provides an average to above-average hamburger. That is, Mel’s burger warrants a B+ rating.

Background

Set in a wood and tin roofed structure across the railroad tracks on Stanolind Road is Mel’s Country Café. Touting homestyle cooking (read: fried) and weighty burgers, Mel’s serves up everything from bacon hamburgers to Cajun grilled chicken breast. Mel’s legend, however, was built on the Mega Mel Burger: 1.5 lbs of ground beef, 1 lb of bacon, 1/4 lb American cheese and “lots, lots of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and pickles.” If you can finish the $20 Mega Mel in less than two hours, your name and finishing time will be inscribed upon the wall-of-fame along with countless other gluttons, including one allegedly human man who, it is written, finished this abomination of ground beef in 9 minutes. Yes, nine. Presumably, he watches other contenders try to beat his record – from heaven. The Mel burger, the Mega Mel’s younger and of course more attractive sibling, consists of 1 lb of beef, 1/4 lb of bacon, some cheese if you wish, and the condiments. The bottom-line is that at Mel’s, burgers talk, and everything else walks, or is fried.

From Mel's Country Cafe

The panel tasted three hamburgers: 1) a double cheese burger with all of the trimmings; 2) a Mel burger with cheese; and 3) a Mel burger without cheese or mayonnaise.

The Hamburger

If the burgers were judged on looks alone, the Mel burger would win the beauty contest. The Mel appeared with 3 1/3 lb patties between what looked like substantive buns. The bacon did not overwhelm the burgers appearance, nor did the vegetables hiding under the lowest patty. A large toothpick ran reassuringly through the middle to keep everything in place. But in the end, the Mel’s beauty turned out to be only bun deep.

The Mel’s patties do not appear to be hand-formed. If they are, then great skill goes into making each patty a clone of the preceding patty. The patties were well seasoned and had a nice crust on the perimeter. A nice char or crust on meat is an under-appreciated quality in burgers. Mel’s burgers succeed where many burgers fail: seasoning. Eating some of the ground beef on its own demonstrates that some care goes into seasoning the patty before cooking. Whatever the seasoning – probably nothing more than salt and pepper – it is applied in just the right proportion and preserved during the cooking process. Frankly, it was refreshing.

From Mel's Country Cafe

Speaking of cooking, Mel’s cooks its burgers to medium well. While this may be good for food-borne illness and even cooking time, in this court’s opinion, it dried the patties out. The Mel had three patties that were each too dry for their own good. This synergistic backfire resulted in a burger that was significantly drier than what one wants or expects from a place like Mel’s. This dry patty problem was common to all three burgers indicating a systemic issue, not just an isolated incident caused by a distracted cook. Reducing the cooking to only medium could remedy this.

Of course, one holds a hamburger by the bun. The bun was toasted and appeared ready to survive the meal, but in the end it couldn’t cut the mustard. Half-way into eating the burgers, the lower bun’s structural integrity began to fail. By the end, the lower bun had disintegrated into a soggy mess, probably from the vegetables. The patties were too dry, in this court’s opinion, to do that serious of damage to the bun.

Sides

While the appetizers and sides do not factor into the final calculus, a word should be said about Mel’s. First, they were all fried of course: Onion rings and stuffed jalapeño’s to start and French fries, tater tots, hush puppies, and fried okra to ride shotgun. Cheers to the onion rings – hand-battered and made from noticeably sweet onions. Jeers to the jalapeño’s – nearly expired fare from the nearest Sam’s Club. However, the real disappointed came in a small red basket lined with wax paper: the French fries. The fries appeared so synthetic and overdone as to be unappetizing. Mel’s would come dangerously close to a fair or merely average rating if the fries were a factor. They offended traditional notions of French fries and substantial sides. At some places, the fries are an afterthought. At Mel’s, there was no thought given at all.

From Mel's Country Cafe

Fortunately, the remaining three sides came to the rescue. The fried okra was fantastic as were the tater tots and hush puppies. In sum, I would join Alison Cook in lambasting Mel’s fries. That is how bad the court found them.

Extras

At $7.95, the Mel burger is a value. The other burgers and each of the sides were also quite competitively priced. Indeed, it would not be a stretch to call the food at Mel’s ‘cheap’. However, if time is money, then Mel’s burgers could be classified alongside Kobe beef burgers from a downtown bistro. Mel’s takes time. It takes time to get there. Once you arrive, you have to wait: wait to be seated; wait to get a server; wait to get your food (again, it would take less time to cook it to medium). Not surprising that one could finish a several sodas or glasses of white zinfandel while waiting for the main event.

Conclusion

In sum, the court finds that while well seasoned, the argument proffered by Mel’s Country Café does not provide sufficient evidence to meet the standard of clear and convincing deliciousness to be rated an A or A- burger. Mel’s dry patties and lackluster bun cannot carry its burden, no matter how pleasing the proportion of pepper (alliteration intended). Accordingly, Mel’s burgers are given a B+ rating.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

______________________

* Mel’s moved to dismiss on grounds that it did not have sufficient minimum contacts with Houston to be within the reach of this court’s personal jurisdiction. The Motion was denied based on substantial evidence of at least minimal, if not significant, contacts with Houston, Texas including but not limited to: advertising, serving several Houstonians, and purchasing raw goods from Houston merchants.

Amuse bouche: The finest ingredients

2009-07-06T20:12:00.002-05:00

Beluga caviar. Saffron. White truffles. La Bonnotte potatoes. Domaine de la Romanee Conti. The best comes at a price. Sometimes the best is worth it; sometimes the best is more about hype or scarcity. In rare cases, however, the best can be quite readily within reach. That's the case with the best steak in the U.S. This might come as a shock from someone living in Texas, but the best steak comes from a butcher outside of San Francisco named Bryan Flannery. At Bryan's Fine Foods in Corte Madera, California, you can renew your appreciation for beef. The prices are quite reasonable -- it's better to call and order over the phone than place it online -- and the quality is unmatched. Pictures don't lie:

From Assorted Flannery

Steaks ship fresh on ice packs; even in the peak of summer, second-day FedEx has the meat arrive at your door refrigerator cold.

Review: Glass Wall

2009-06-30T21:05:00.002-05:00

Glass Wall opened in the Heights in 2006. That makes it the dean of the recent explosion of restaurants and other hot spots in the Heights and along the Washington corridor of Houston. From the beginning, Glass Wall has been trendy, and so it remains today. Big crowds come from the neighborhood, along with some of those wrap sunglasses-wearing, pinky ring-wearing, blueberry Stoli-drinking hipsters from the Washington scene who are looking for something “old school” like a three-year-old restaurant.

The best thing about Glass Wall hits you immediately upon walking in. It’s a relaxed atmosphere, inspired by chef Lance Fegen’s passion for surfing. A large (what else?) glass wall separates the bar from the main dining area. The room is colored in cool shades of blue, green, and white. The ceilings are high. And the worst thing about Glass Wall hits you at the same time: the noise. When will successful restaurants bother to invest a pittance in a few acoustic panels that would make it comfortable for a table of four or more speak in indoor voices?

In any case, Glass Wall doesn’t let its popularity and trendy reputation go to its head. The staff plays it cool, which is the best part of the restaurant’s personality. Everyone, from the put-together hostess and co-owner Ross Shepard at the front of the house to Chris the excellent bartender and the wait staff, keeps Fegen’s laid back, surfer mentality in mind.

From Glass Wall

The menu changes a couple times each quarter, keeping it in tune with the variety of seasonal produce. But the menu doesn’t have a heavy-handed seasonal overtone, which is emphasized by occasional inconsistency from the kitchen. There tend to be staple dishes offered, with a seasonal bent to them. Appetizers will include a play on a fried junk food; entrees choices will feature pork tenderloin, short ribs, grass-fed steak, and a white fish.

Fegen has a nice flair for the creative, jiving subtly with the surf theme of the restaurant. He’ll toss in a dash of exotic fruit unexpectedly or do something a little wild, like crust tenderloin in jalapeno potato chips. There is a kind of casual fearlessness about the food that jives with the surfer mentality.

At its best, Fegen’s dishes are some of the most imaginative and skillfully executed comfort food around. His oyster beignets on top of a candied bacon pancake with hollandaise and hot sauce syrup from the winter was one of the most inspired dishes in town. Fegen isn’t afraid to take risks with flavor combinations, as the current menu’s chorizo mashed potatoes demonstrate with glorious success. The chicken fried steak — in whatever form it takes on the menu — contends in “best of” discussions. He also makes good use of lesser known cuts like the flat iron, creating solid, tasty dishes that are reliable standbys.

Not every move by the kitchen is a hit, though. The pork tenderloin tends to be overcooked and boring. The recent preparation of short ribs has been dry, a bad misstep for meat that is difficult to overcook; it allows them to be overshadowed by the excellent gouda grits that share the plate.

From Glass Wall

Where Glass Wall tends to be weakest is when it makes efforts to go more upscale. The best example is the bread service. Having someone come over with a selection of bread feels out of place, and the constantly awkward demeanor of the server underscores that. The poultry dishes are more pedestrian, coming off as an exercise in the mundane and seemingly prepared out of obligation to expectant diners.

The wine list is fairly limited but, in comparison with its peers, smartly chosen. The prices are decent; you can usually find something worth drinking. Kudos to them for suggesting a wine pairing with each dish on the menu, even appetizers. These tend to be the most interesting wines they serve. Glass prices are the now-standard $9 to $14 range.

The noise level can be blistering, which makes sitting in the bar an attractive option. It is quieter there, and it’s also a great place to watch sports. Given this, Glass Wall really succeeds in being a better version of Max’s Wine Dive: smart comfort food done in a laid back atmosphere, rather than the arrogantly in-your-face flavors you find at Max’s that are too obvious to merit serious interest. Glass Wall has a terrific ability to cut down your craving for greasy comfort food in the way a great diner does, and it will make you feel slightly cool at the same time. A bit sharper focus and consistent execution on the more complex, ambitious dishes, and it would rise up another notch.

Amuse bouche: What's with the savory desserts?

2009-06-23T19:56:00.002-05:00

Everywhere you look at fine dining restaurants nowadays, it seems you run into desserts that flirt with the line between sweet and savory. The extremely talented Plinio Sandalio of Textile may be the current Houston leader in this regard, with some interesting results. But it's a fad that needs to end. They've been doing it at Alinea since the place opened and on Iron Chef for years before that. The sweet-savory exploration has taken longer to throw roots in Houston, as is so often the case with culinary trends. Most of these forays seem to revolve around the interplay of sweet and salty. That's a good but limited medium. It's summertime. We don't need spam ice cream and its ilk. We have a bounty of fresh Texas peaches and scorching heat to squelch.

Foibles of Houston wine service

2009-06-18T22:54:00.004-05:00

It’s hard to come up with a more relaxing, enjoyable scene: sit down at a nice restaurant, white table cloth, carefully set table, bustling scene, tempting menu. You look over the wine list, but this is one of those grand days where you don’t want to think too much about it. You want to offer yourself up to your host entirely. Sadly, in Houston, the chances are leaving yourself in the hands of a restaurant for wine selection and service will result in disappointment.

Wine service in Houston is sorely lacking. One might argue service generally, even in the best restaurants in town, is the greatest weakness in this city’s dining scene. When it comes to wine, at least, the situation is annoying but fixable. A few simple rules and an attitude change is all it would take.

1. The pour

This is, without a doubt, the biggest foible and easiest to fix. Almost without fail, waiters and (inexcusably) sommeliers pour your glass too full. Most of the time it’s halfway up the glass, just enough to prevent you from being able to swirl it effectively and unlock all the wine’s aromas. You end up being forced to drink a third of the glass before being able to really appreciate and evaluate it.

Usually this isn’t a huge concern with wines by the glass, which are served out of bottles that have been open for quite some time and don’t always require the same amount of aeration. But when you purchase a bottle, and the server pours the whole thing out in four glasses, it substantially inhibits enjoying the wine. What’s worse is that there is no clearer sign that a restaurant is trying to force you into buying a second bottle immediately. It starts the meal on a rushed note, trying to get you to commit to more wine before the food arrives (if you’ve even ordered at all).

Pouring doesn’t need to be like this. Indeed, it isn’t always. There are a few notable exceptions in Houston, namely Ibiza, Catalan, Voice, and Hugo’s, Backstreet Café, and Prego, where wine service falls under the tutelage of Sean Beck, easily the city’s best sommelier. These are restaurants where proper service show attention to detail and enhances the atmosphere of a meal, and it is an easy standard to live up to.

2. Poor stemware

What difference does the glass make? It can make you think one wine is actually two completely different ones. Proper stemware allows more surface area of the wine to be exposed and a well-designed glass funnels the bouquet to your nose, allowing your olfactory to maximize its essential role in tasting.

Perhaps more disconcerting, good stemware is relatively inexpensive. You don’t need the Riedel Sommelier Series to enjoy any wine. The Vinum series is great; Schott Zwiesel and Spiegelau both make excellent and affordable glasses. While some of the design intricacies, such as creating special Oregon Pinot Noir glasses are going overboard, good and basic glasses for white, red, and sparkling wine are essential.

Fortunately, for the most part, Houston’s better restaurants have invested in adequate stemware. But several exceptions are shocking; when that’s the case, go ahead and bring your own glasses or forego wine altogether. Yes, what you drink your wine out of is that important.

3. Lack of knowledge

This is a two-pronged issue. First, servers far too often are completely at a loss when it comes to wine. It’s not general wine knowledge they need; it can be fine if they lack that. But wait staff needs to at least have familiarity with the restaurant’s wine list. They must grasp some fundamentals about some bottles that will complement the menu, and it is a poor reflection on the chef and sommelier when waiters don’t.

Lack of server knowledge perhaps is forgivable because they should have been trained better. And this is the second problem: sommeliers in Houston with disheartening regularity come off like novices. This is particularly evident when they recommend wines that supposedly work with the restaurant’s food and in their ability to translate a customer’s articulated preferences to wines on the list. A sommelier needs to be able to take a description of a wine and match it to something she has available. This is a difficult but necessary skill; it is the hallmark of a wine professional.

Perhaps this is too harsh a critique. It is possible that restaurants are just responding to what their clientele demands. Maybe the Houston wine consumer is too unimaginative to allow restaurants to come up with great wine lists, leaving us with a proliferation of boring Chardonnay and Cabernet. Even Ibiza, one of the best and most creative lists in town, is stocked with loads of Napa Cab that doesn’t suit its menu. Even if this is the case, however, sommeliers should be doing a better job of teaching. They should be providing more variety and better pairing possibilities.

Again, there are exceptions worth noting. Despite that head-scratching Cab-heavy list, Ibiza always offers a few interesting and crisp Spanish whites. (They easily could expand their New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc selection.) Catalan is marvelous in pushing grower Champagne, as well as the occasional Savennieres or lesser known Spanish wine. Voice deserves kudos for its thoughtful wine pairings to complement excellent tasting menus. And the aforementioned Sean Beck is a true master of finding wines that work with difficult cuisine. You only need to sample a few of his extraordinary Pinot Noir pairings with the Mexican food at Hugo’s to see he has a complete understanding of the intricate dance between the flavors in wine and food.

As Houston’s food scene matures, with more professional service staff and more sophisticated palates on diners, the knowledge gap can be closed rapidly.

4. Briskness

Speed is also a misstep that is easily addressed. Too frequently, servers refill your glass after you’ve only had a few sips. This inhibits seeing how a wine evolves in a glass. It messes up the temperature of white wine. It destroys the pacing of the meal, subtly trying to get you to speed up. For what? The restaurant wants to sell you more wine.

That, in essence, is the true failure of the Houston restaurant wine scene. Wine and other alcoholic beverages, as a general rule, are seen as profit centers. If they get you through one round of drinks, they can move you on to another. Of course, that opens a massive can of worms: the ridiculous price of wine in restaurants, but that is worthy of in-depth discussion at another time. For now, it is sufficient to say that subordinating an essential part of dining enjoyment is not in a restaurant’s best interest.

The old liquor store in Chicago, Zimmerman’s, used to have a sign that read, “Drink fast and hurry back!” It’s a chuckle-inducing sentiment but, drunk driving concerns aside, one that doesn’t have a place at the dinner table.

Amuse bouche: Any escape from the heat?

2009-06-09T20:19:00.002-05:00

This week has been a jarring reminder of the wickedness of Houston summers. Is there any way to escape the heat? Can't someone invent some sort of cooling unit that will allow us to enjoy patios even in the throes of this swamp, like an air conditioned or ice-lined shirt? Apparently none of that is in the cards in 2009. So that means we're left with the traditional standbys: cold beer in frozen glasses; bottomless pitchers of margaritas; chowing down on Five Guys with your feet dangling in the pool; and doing anything possible to avoid setting foot outside to begin with. Summer is a great time to familiarize yourself with how to navigate downtown Houston's tunnel system. Anyone with novel ideas on how to beat the heat?

Wine of the moment: Joseph Swan Pinot Noir Russian Rivery Valley Cuvee de Trois

2009-06-03T20:41:00.005-05:00

Simply put, you will not find a better Pinot Noir for the price than this wine. The price is $28 direct from the winery. You can pick it up at Spec’s in downtown Houston for $31.82. The 2006 is the current release, but the stunning 2007 is around the corner. Each year, this wine epitomizes the profile of the Russian River Valley: elegant, filled with red and black cherry fruit, bright acidity, and a gentle baking spice/cinnamon component. It's a refreshing style of wine, lovely on warm (read: muggy and unbearable) Houston summer days and also the perfect complement to food.

Full disclosure: Rod Berglund and the folks at Joseph Swan Vineyards are good friends. You can check my tasting notes on Swan wines here. This is unambiguously delicious juice.

Review: Tru

2009-05-31T21:31:00.004-05:00

This is the last in a trio of Chicago reviews from the spring, and after consecutive nights at Topolobampo and Alinea, it’s hard to imagine a third restaurant being able to compete for a place in memory in such lofty company. Tru, however, was more than up to the task on this, a second visit in three months. In fact, the Chef’s Collection menu was the perfect way to cap off a weekend in a perfectly classic, creative manner.

Tru hasn’t lost its edge since opening a decade ago. The space is modern, with gorgeously tall ceilings, long black drapes, attractive art, comfortable chairs, and large tables. It is a dining room that evokes, in a twenty-first century sense, a grand feasting hall from the days of Beowulf. The décor provides a striking contrast to the cuisine but only if you fail to contemplate the menu’s larger design. The food at Tru, the brainchild of Rick Tramanto and now showing strong influence from hard-working executive chef Tim Graham, is classically French in orientation. For the most part. This is classicism reinvented in the best way, but there’s also a flash of Asian influence and a pinch of Tramanto’s skillfully executed Italian food.

Two amuse bouche started the evening. The first, a dollop of red wine gelée with duck confit on a raw leaf of a Brussels sprout. After that, a delightful tête de cochon complemented with a lentil salad and white truffle powder.

As usual, the meal started on an Asian note, with a trio of sashimi-grade fish served with both regular and a white soy sauce, which provides a more mellow edge and allows the fish — as fresh as it gets — shine through. The breadth shown in these first three small courses showed the care of each creation. And it set the stage for the stunning array to come.

Next came a frog leg, crusted and fried, balanced on a cube of finely cubed carrot. Inside the bowl were dollops of roasted garlic puree in which the servers poured a watercress soup. It would be easy to miss the whimsical presentation of this dish: with the roasted garlic “eyes” poking out of the green soup, it simultaneously evokes a frog staring back at you and a lily pad. It is a light dish that drives home the creativity of the kitchen.

From Tru

A second soup follows, and it is one of the most inspired, pure dishes you’ll find anywhere. Fundamentally, it is French onion soup, but it is reinvented here in the best tradition of culinary imagination. In the middle of the bowl, a scoop of gruyere custard that rests on top of a puree of caramelized onions. Jutting out is a translucent slice of toasted bread. This is bathed in a sea of beef bouillon that has a subtle gruyere flavor to it. A common, always-comforting dish takes on a refined quality with deeply concentrated flavors.

From Tru

Tramanto’s Italian side shows in the third course, a potato gnocchi with the texture of pillows, complemented by sautéed spinach, a hint of caraway, and a mustard crème. The supporting ingredients are relatively subtle, allowing the triumph that is gnocchi perfection shine through.

From Tru

The next three courses were remarkable for an interesting reason: the one that stood out, on paper, was the most pedestrian. First, a diver scallop topped with a slice of seared foie gras. Foie gras needs a sweet complement, which the scallop provides naturally. It’s a marvelous combination, given earthy undercurrent from white bean puree and bubble of smoke gel.

From Tru

Second was the standout: poached salmon. That’s right. Salmon. The fish was cooked in olive oil and displayed none of the dull flavor and pasty texture of farm-raised salmon. It came with long shavings of daikon radish and a star-shaped piece of granny smith apple. It sat in a refreshing, light broth flavored with granny smith apple and a touch of coconut milk. It was a delightfully uplifting dish, perfectly prepared, that cut the richness of this trio of courses. Smoked trout roe added a salty touch, giving a final confirmation that this preparation was one of the most delicious and creative ways to present fish in recent memory.

From Tru

Third came an easy crowd pleaser, executed beautifully. It was a piece of rib cap — the fatty, marvelous outer edge of the ribeye — wrapped in prosciutto, served on top of a finely cubed Yukon gold potatoes prepared in a risotto style. The sauce was a simple reduction, enhancing the more delicate flavor of the rib cap, that provided a smoky edge (common on this meal) from paprika. On the side, a bit of whipped raclette that, when eaten with the potatoes gave the impression of a terrific gratin.

From Tru

The remainder of the meal was a bit of a winding down, trying to balance the intensely rich main courses. But that soft landing commenced only after the cheese course, which arguably is unmatched at any restaurant in the country. Each person gets to choose a handful from a selection of about a dozen cow’s, sheep’s, and goat’s milk cheeses. They’re marvelous examples of craftsmanship, each delicious and refined. It is a course to be savored and celebrated. Tru’s generosity in presentation and service is laudable.

From Tru

To cleanse the palate came a “kir royale” in the form of a champagne granite and cassis gelée. It set the tone for a refreshing end to the meal. The dessert, not the expected chocolate decadence of Gale Gand, was a marvelous ode to passion fruit, featured in a sorbet and sponge cake and complemented by white chocolate, two small slices of naval orange, and a touch of vanilla. As an added bonus, the kitchen sent out a root beer float. No gimmick, no interpretation. Just a plain old root beer float that was terrific, sending you into the mignardises refreshed and surprisingly not feeling heavy.

From Tru

To close, a special note on the wine. Chad Ellegood, the wine director, has a gift when it comes to the most difficult job of a sommelier. He can translate descriptions of wines the customer likes into a bottle on his list that matches both personal preference and the menu. It’s no easy feat. On this night, Chad outdid himself, pairing a subtle, stony white Burgundy with the first half of the meal and a stunning, remarkable red Burgundy with the second.

From Tru

The Maison Leroy Meursault 1er Cru Charmes 1999 steamrolled across the palate but maintained a distinct elegance about it. This enabled the wine to complement the lightness of dishes like the frog leg and watercress while providing enough power to stand up to the strong flavors. It was a white wine with balance, class, and strength. A masculine sensibility in a feminine profile.

The other wine was Domaine Leroy Clos Vougeot 1999. From the very first whiff in the glass, it was a treat and one of the best wines I’ve ever drunk. The elegance, balance, and stunningly velvety texture rode a wave of immense power. The red cherry fruit, sometimes veering toward cherry pie, lit up the palate, carving a boulevard down your tongue that allowed a world of complexity to follow. The long finish left a wake of fruit from the wine that twirled again into the sea of complex flavors. There was nothing simple about this wine, yet it was so eminently drinkable.

Both these bottles served as a stark reminder of the remarkable compatibility of food and wine. They are indispensible table mates, as at ease with one another as Joe Morgan and Dave Concepcion turning a double play. The entire experience at Tru is one of practiced ease. Eating there allows you to be in the presence of people who are good at what they do, know it, have practiced it, and retain their passion for it.

From Tru

Amuse bouche: When good restaurants go bad

2009-05-25T18:02:00.003-05:00

A couple friends have had negative experiences at favorite restaurants recently. This brings up an important question: What should a restaurant do when it screws up? Regardless of whether the establishment is somewhere you frequent, any proprietor should see to it that mistakes are swiftly corrected. Give you complementary dessert; comp the entree; toss you a gift certificate for your next visit. No matter what the restaurant and no matter what its price level, it ought to do something when they mess up. Sadly, it is all too common that when dining out mistakes beget little more than a grudging apology. The worst example I've experienced was at t'afia in Houston. A lamb entree ordered medium rare came out medium well or well done three times. Barely an apology. Nothing comped. When that happens, you have to wonder if it's so common the staff is numb to it. My response is taking my business elsewhere.

Wine of the moment: Brancott Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough Reserve 2008

2009-05-20T06:36:00.002-05:00

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc provides some of the most delicious, refreshing, tropical-tasting wines, usually at a bargain price. There's nothing better for summer, especially in Houston, where summer feels like being deep-fried in humidity. The Brancott Reserve 2008 is a textbook example of everything that's right about New Zealand SBs: citrus and tropical fruit, with a juicy edge to it, bright acidity that cuts even the most searing summer heat, and a finish that is clean and sails on. That's all for the bargain price of $14.49 at the Spec's downtown. This wine is reminiscent of Cloudy Bay in its heyday (although the 2008 Cloudy Bay sure is rocking, too). The ideal wine for summer -- and for anyone who is just starting to get into wine and wants something pleasing and easy to drink.

Eating well at home

2009-05-12T07:20:00.001-05:00

Guilty pleasures are not something to be ashamed of. The new 90210, for example. Real Housewives of Orange County. Rock of Love with Bret Michaels, or, how I learned to love a stripper. For the food-oriented among us, guilty pleasures probably include Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. While the BBC version qualifies as legitimate entertainment, the U.S. version, on Fox, is pure guilty pleasure. There is nothing wrong with occasional indulgence. Leave it to Fox to reduce a technically proficient chef to a caricature of his already colorful self. This tarted-up yet entertaining hour is like watching Mark McGwire on double the steroids.

No, there is a point here. Regardless of the cartoonish version of Gordon Ramsay shown in Fox’s Kitchen Nightmares, one of his core messages given to the restaurants on the program that is something home cooks should take to heart. This will be our starting point.

1. Simplify

On Kitchen Nightmares, simplification means cutting down the size of menus. At home, simplification essentially equates to cutting down the number of ingredients. That is, there is a tendency to add to a dish in order to fix it. Everyone has been guilty of this. I remember, years ago, tasting tomato sauce I had made, not quite liking it, and adding a litany of spices, chili powders, and the like. What the sauce needed, most likely, was just a little bit of salt. No, we are Americans, our reflex is for more. Bigger portions. Pushing the limit. We want five-pound burgers with twenty slices of cheese, a two-pound bun, a whole onion, dozens of pickles . . . no, in this country, we don’t have a concept of “enough.”

But when cooking at home, it is simplicity that acts as an essential guiding light. Subtraction is the road to flavor. Food Network has been a culprit of addition. Have you ever seen Guy’s Big Bite with Guy Fieri? A recent episode showed him make a frittata, which included, well, everything that might be considered Spanish or Mexican. Then, he popped it out of the baking pan, covered it in about a pound of cheese on each side, and sandwiched it between two large tortillas, creating a frittata quesadilla. Disgusting. Why not just let quality ingredients speak for themselves? Why create a mess of conflicting flavors — peppers, chorizo, onions, garlic, cheese — and top it off with the rich, overbearing flavor of cheddar cheese and crunch of tortillas. Instead, it would be better (and less confusing to the palate) to take away the gooey, crunchy mass of quesadilla coating the outside and let the flavors speak for themselves. It sounds counterintuitive to conventional wisdom, but subtraction in cooking actually is addition.

Jacques Pepin, in his terrific cookbook Chez Jacques: Traditions and Rituals of Cook, discusses the “perfect meal.” He writes, “The meal is roast chicken served with a salad and boiled potato. It is straightforward, simple, and good when done properly . . . .” This meal incorporates a total of only ten ingredients: chicken, salt, pepper, white wine, chicken stock, lettuce, olive oil, red wine vinegar, potatoes, and butter. Eating this, you cannot help but be stunned by the depth and purity of the flavors. Watching friends have it for the first time, you can see them rediscovering the pleasure of simple food with each bite.

The basic point is this: you can add all the ingredients you want, but you aren’t going to develop compelling flavors unless you take the time to develop those flavors. It is better — and so much easier — to take a few flavors and truly develop them. Reduce cooking liquid enough to concentrate it. Buy a better quality chicken, cook it with care, and coax out the natural flavors. This might be asking too much of a society that goes for quick fixes like breast implants and the microwave. Dare to dream. Embrace simplicity, and it might help you with the second key for home cooks.

2. Comfort equals confidence

A dear friend recently said she thought cooking well at home was about confidence. The more comfort you gain with dishes, the more comfortable you got, and the better you can cook. This is profoundly true. Mastering basic techniques, simple combinations of ingredients, and executing them as skillfully as possible is a logical progression if you think about it. Platitudes provide reasonable support here: Run before you walk. Failure is not an option. Always give 110%. This merely is a controlled burn.

In other words, maximize your chances of success. You’re not going to dive into cooking and crank out homemade croissants or sweetbreads without building up to it. Unless you’re Julie Powell. Or insane. The basic point is that cooking, like anything else, is about starting with simplicity (see No. 1 above) and building up to more complex levels. For some reason, people often decide, “I want to cook,” so they begin by inviting over six or eight of their closest friends and try something new ambitious. Yes, do that . . . except the exact opposite.

3. So where do I start?

When you eat at home, you spend less on food and you eat more healthfully. You don’t get the added salt and fat from restaurants that are trying to impress you and put their best foot forward. That’s great sometimes but not feasible for an everyday existence to maintain something resembling average weight. So here’s an easy recipe that you can try one weekend to have a healthy, home-cooked meal that will build up your confidence. The chicken roasting method is that of Jacques Pepin. It is masterful. The salad is adapted from his recipe.

From Roast Chicken

Roasted chicken with green salad
1 chicken, whole, 3.5 pounds
Salt
Pepper

1 head of Boston lettuce (or, really, any lettuce)
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
Salt
Pepper

½ cup white wine or dry vermouth
½ cup chicken stock
1 shallot, minced
Salt
Pepper

From Roast Chicken

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Dust the chicken on all sides with salt and pepper. Put the chicken in, ideally, a large iron skillet (with a touch of oil in the bottom to keep the skin from sticking) or a low-sided baking or roasting pan. Place the chicken on its side. Roast for 20 minutes. Take it out of the oven, baste lightly with its own fat and juices, and turn over the chicken to its other side. Roast again for 20 minutes. Take it out, baste, and put the chicken breast-side up (the usual roasting position). Roast for a final 20 minutes. There. You have a perfectly roasted chicken. Take it out of the skillet and put it aside on a cutting board and let it rest while you make the sauce.

During the final 20 minutes of roasting, prepare your salad. Pull the leaves of the lettuce off whole, discarding any that are wilted or brown or otherwise undesirable. Fill your sink with plenty of cold water. Rinse the lettuce in the sink; this allows the dirt to sink to the bottom and not stick to the leaves. Dry lettuce in a salad spinner. Put the leaves in a large bowl, tearing them into smaller pieces if you prefer. In a small bowl, add the vinegar and a bit of salt and pepper. Vigorously whisk in the olive oil. Taste and adjust the season accordingly. Add more vinegar or more oil for the desired tartness. Don’t dress the salad just yet.

With the skillet you roasted the chicken in, pour off all but a film of the rendered fat. Set this extra fat aside. Over medium-high heat, briefly sweat down the shallot. Add the wine, scraping up the browned bits of juice from the skillet. When the wine is almost all gone, add the chicken stock, salt, and pepper, as well as a tablespoon or two of the reserved chicken fat. Taste. Always taste! Adjust the seasoning, if necessary. Let the sauce simmer for a few minutes, while you cut up the chicken.

After the chicken is cut and put on a platter, pour over the sauce. Then, immediately, toss the salad with the dressing. Drizzle over a tablespoon or two of the chicken fat, allowing the flavors of the salad to marry with those of the chicken. Serve.

With about 20 minutes of active preparation time and perhaps 90 minutes of attention, you have a terrific, easy, healthful meal. This is the perfect roast chicken.

A note on cooking time: The recipe calls for a 3.5-pound chicken. What if you can’t find one? What if it’s 4 pounds? No matter. The cooking time is proportional. If it’s 60 minutes for 3.5 pounds, then 4 pounds requires one-seventh more cooking time, or roughly 8.5 minutes. Adjust each segment of cooking according – so, roughly 23 minutes before each turn.

Amuse bouche: A pet peeve on restaurant wine prices

2009-05-06T18:58:00.004-05:00

You could go on for thousands of words about how much restaurants have let down their customers with their wine programs: high prices, limited selection (particularly in Texas), lists that bear no relationship to the food on the menu, etc. One complaint, however, jumps to the forefront. It's the price of wine by glass. Recently a friend went to Textile, which will be reviewed here later, and found a glass of Becker Iconoclast Cabernet Sauvignon for $12. Something didn't sound right about that, and it wasn't. Spec's here in Houston sells it for $8.29 a bottle. The winery sells it for $10.95 a bottle. So $12 for a glass? When the restaurant gets to purchase at wholesale prices? The only applicable word is outrageous. Making back the wholesale cost of the full bottle on the first glass alone? This has become, sadly, a common phenomenon -- restaurants charging the price of a bottle (or more) for a glass of wine. There's no reason for that. When there are prices like that on a wine list, go with water or iced tea instead. They don't deserve your business.

Review: Alinea

2009-05-02T12:52:00.003-05:00

It’s hard to believe Alinea has been open in Chicago’s Lincoln Park for almost four years. Since months before its public debut, buzz followed chef Grant Achatz, who worked under Thomas Keller at The French Laundry from 1997 to 2001. After an acclaimed stint at Trio, Achatz spread his wings with Alinea. No number of superlatives can be added to those already floating out in cyberspace about this chef, who has risen to the ranks of the world’s elite all while battling and overcoming tongue cancer.

What can be added to the Alinea lexicon that already hasn’t been said? Consistent greatness over the long term, certainly, but only time allows for that. All I can add is this: Since I first heard of Alinea, I was skeptical. I had no deep-seated desire to go there. From reading reviews, looking at pictures, the thoughts that came to mind were “What the hell is this?” and “Molecular gastronomy is stupid.” Many early assessments of the restaurant, in particular, emphasized the gimmicks: scent-filled pillows, uses of aromas on the table to complement dishes, and seemingly eccentric or bizarre presentations of food.

Over time, however, as more opinions on Alinea came out, including those of some trusted friends, I began to wonder if maybe there wasn’t something more to it. Maybe the food was good. A couple years ago, my favorite comment about Alinea was, “I should go there every day for a month to see if it’s possible to pay $300 a night for dinner and still starve to death.” Then Food & Wine magazine published a charming profile of Achatz, where, for the first time, I got to see his philosophy illuminated in an honest form, not through the lens of a reviewer. And it’s then I realized that the reviewers maybe weren’t doing Alinea justice.

Fast forward. The opportunity presented itself to go to Alinea recently. It was the right time, the proper occasion. We decided to go, a party of three on a March Friday. I entered the doors an avowed skeptic, but one open to accepting the food on its own merits. Five hours and twenty-four courses later, I left realizing that my preconceptions of Alinea were the fault of inarticulate reviewers who choose to emphasize the glitz over the sheer classical structure and impressiveness of the menu. They tended to go for terms like “magic” and “the experience,” while letting the food seem a sideshow.

One thing is clear at Alinea: it is all about the food. Sure, there is plenty of whimsical presentation and fun had by Achatz and his brigade in the kitchen, but this food is firmly rooted in the classic methods; the menu is constructed in a faithful way that honors the tradition from which it springs forth.

From Alinea

The space is delightful, contemporary, warm, comfortable, and relaxing. The chairs live up to their reputation. The tables are large, allowing plenty of room to spread out, and are spaced far enough apart to create separation from other diners without feeling isolated. The service is impeccable, fully formal but with a casual friendliness that exists hardly anywhere. The level of knowledge and passion among the staff, who genuinely appear to enjoy what they’re doing, complements the passion that comes through on each plate.

Indeed, the experience is about the food, and this night’s Tour menu started out at the highest level and moved from strength to strength. (You don’t see a menu before the meal; you leave with a copy of it.) At each step, the wine stood with the food, enhancing it (no small feat given the breadth of flavors covered in the many courses). The first of twenty-four courses was hot potato-cold potato. It comes out on a wax oyster shell. In the shell is a cold potato soup, flecked with black truffle. On a pin sticking out of the shell, above the soup, is a ball of warm potato with a cube of cheese and large slice of black truffle. By removing the pin, the warm potato, cheese, and truffle falls into the soup, and you eat the entire thing in one bite, like an oyster. And it is at this moment you realize Alinea is not form over substance. The purity of the potato, the earthiness of the truffle, richness of the cream-laden soup, and temperature contrast put your focus precisely where it should be: on the food.

From Alinea

From that point, you just give yourself up to this intensely passionate, five-hour journey of classic execution taken to different creative heights. The highlights kept coming, too numerous to go in-depth, but worthy of at least noting. It is also impossible to do justice to these dishes with mere words or even photos:

From Alinea

Yuba, the solid film that forms on top of tofu, took on the texture and flavor of cracklings. It created a textural and flavor marvel wrapped with shrimp, miso, and togarashi.

One true standout was the cauliflower dish. Five cubes of cauliflower mousse, each with a different coating, ranging from cheese to bacon to nuts. It came with gels of nutmeg, vanilla, and almond. A pure, defined, and cool sauce of cider rounded out the dish, adding acidity and cutting through the richness. This marvelous preparation redefined a usually boring main ingredient.

From Alinea

The wild striped bass was one of the most perfectly cooked pieces of fish you can imagine, covered in a chamomile film that actually added little to the overall dish but gave a compelling visual touch. At this point, without a menu as a guide, a genuine feeling of anticipation and wonder preceded each course. What possibly could top what just appeared?

The wagyu beef was gorgeous for, quite surprisingly, its freshly made A-1 “powder.” Achatz researched the original A-1 recipe, dating to the 19th century, and created a powdered version of it in, presented in a packet with the plate. It worked remarkably well with the beef, overshadowing even the potato-chip crusted piece of fine pureed, almost cheese-like (because of its rich texture) potato.

From Alinea

To this point, the meal had followed a fairly traditional tasting menu layout. The eighth course featured chestnuts, and this was one of the forays into a common ingredient from traditional menus that usually plays a supporting role. Instead, Achatz takes a frolic and features it on its own, to brilliant effect. Here, a whole chestnut comes with chocolate and a baked potato ice cream that in taste and texture tasted so like a baked potato, it made you think you were eating in Willy Wonka’s Factory.

From Alinea

Perhaps the bite of the night, however, came as course eleven: a frozen combination of Dijon mustard and passion fruit. Initially, a pure flavor of passion fruit hit your tongue, like a perfect sorbet. Then, cutting off the finish of the fruit, came a sharp surprise of mustard. It’s difficult to explain how this works and why it works so well. More than any other flavor of the evening, it demonstrated how Alinea can force you to rethink food and appreciate it in new ways.

The least successful course was an oyster perched on a stalk of lemongrass, garnished with sesame and yuzu. It was interesting to see how the lemongrass imparted a subtle, meaningful flavor on the finishing flavor of the course, but overall it didn’t come together like the others.

From Alinea

On the heels of the lemongrass, though, were three courses that more deeply impressed the meal to memory. First, lobster tail, showing no signs of chewiness, served on an undulating plate with small bowls at either end. One bowl contained clarified butter suspended in a gel capsule, exploding when pierced with a fork. The other showcased a touch of curry. Across the bottom of the plate, liquefied popcorn, a whimsical take on the lobster-butter combination. Second, a slice of Iberico ham served over sticks of salsify fried and texturally perfect, giving them the feel of French fries, hazelnut, and smoked paprika. This legendary Spanish ham is fed on acorns, giving it a rich, beef-like sensibility; a slice had been presented as a table decoration at the start of the meal. Initially frozen, it looked like a flower petal before transforming slowly into the deep red of this marvelous cured meat. Third, the famous “truffle explosion.” It is a small ravioli filled with black truffle tea. It is the concentrated archetype of truffle flavor. So simple in its profile yet so inventive in its conception.

From Alinea

Moving into the dessert courses, there was a constant interplay of sweet and savory that refocused the meaning and scope of a meal’s sweet finish. But this isn’t experimentation for its own sake; it is a dramatic rethinking and expansion of flavor combinations that work. The care and thought that has gone into the creation of these dishes is transcendent.

Prior to the parade of desserts and at the end of the meal, there were two powdered courses. First, “grape soda.” It came in a clear packet, looking more like drugs than a bite of food. But pop it into your mouth, and what explodes is the perfect expression of grade soda, complete with effervescence. The closing bite? A shot of powdered caramel, mixed with a bit of sea salt. It’s all the pleasure of the finest caramel, without anything sticking to your teeth.

From Alinea

Throughout the meal, the service was impeccable, if slightly different than at most restaurants of this stature. The waiters have fun with the food. Their joy in explaining the presentation and, when necessary, telling you how to eat a dish, comes with genuine passion that matches the lovingly created food. The staff was invisible yet omnipresent. Their moves choreographed in a practiced dance that enhances the experience while simultaneously putting diners at ease.

In addition, the wine selections deserve special applause. Pairing eleven different wines to complement such a diverse menu takes a major feat of knowledge and imagination. All the wines went admirably well with the food. The non-vintage H. Billiot Brut Rosé made for a refreshing start, while also cutting through the richness of the hot potato, cold potato and the fried yuba. The same contrast of richness and freshness showed in the Rudi Pichler Grüner Veltliner, paired with the cauliflower, and the standout white Crozes-Hermitage Les Meysonniers 2007 from Michel Chapoutier.

From Alinea

There wasn’t a discernable progression from white to red wines over the course of the meal, another indication that Alinea refuses to follow conventions. Instead, everything is dictated by what is best for the food, and it shows the desire to have wines that complement each course. A somewhat rich yet mineral-laden Muscadet from the Loire (Chereau-Carré’s Comte Leloup de Chasseloir, Ceps Centenaires 2003) simultaneously masqueraded as a rich White Burgundy with the lobster while also undercutting the buttery dish with acidity. A rare thirty-year-old Amontillado Sherry from Bodegas Tradicion, served with the Iberico ham, demonstrated that traditional pairings are sometimes the best.

The pours were sensible, giving you the equivalent of a bottle of wine over the course of a five-hour meal, but the service was generous in refilling your glass further if you like. All wines are charged by the ounce, so you’re given complete control over how much you consume, and they are accommodating to those who wish to drink smaller amounts. Like everything else, there is great attention to detail and thought put into the wine program at Alinea. There’s really no reason to order off the list, though it is substantial, because the pairings shine so admirably.

From Alinea

Alinea leaves you with a different impression than its popular reputation. This is food that is firmly within the classical tradition; the progression of Achatz from his French Laundry days to Alinea is easy to see once you eat there. The presentation and use of molecular gastronomy all is subservient to the food and the purity of the ingredients. It is a tour de force of culinary delight that, while perhaps too much for weekly enjoyment, is the ultimate celebration.

Amuse bouche: Real BYOB in Texas?

2009-04-26T22:14:00.004-05:00

There was a tremendous steak event up in Dallas this weekend -- more on that later. While there, someone mentioned what's been dubbed the "Dewhurst bill" in the Texas legislature. This would allow BYOB at all restaurants in the state. Current law makes BYOB an option only at restaurants with either no liquor license or a beer-and-wine-only license. Those with full licenses (beer, wine, and liquor) cannot legally allow BYOB. The merits (or lack thereof) of the current state of affairs will be the subject of a full post later this week. But this bill would be a major step forward for Texas restaurants. Why would anyone oppose it? People will eat out more. Is there any good reason supporting the oppostion? Nothing too legitimate comes to mind.

Review: Topolobampo

2009-04-18T09:00:00.004-05:00

This is the best Mexican food in the country. That’s quite the statement to make for a purportedly Houston-centric blog. Mexican food in Chicago? But you probably have heard of Rick Bayless or seen his cooking show on PBS. His restaurants, the casual Frontera Grill and upscale Topolobampo, are benchmarks for authentic Mexican cuisine. That’s right. Cuisine. Not just food. This isn’t your E-Z Melt stuffed inside corn tortillas. That isn’t meant to come off as condescending as it sounds. To put it another way: this isn’t Tex-Mex.

Perhaps that’s a distinction that isn’t quite clear. Here in Texas, when we talk about “Mexican food,” it’s tacos, quesadillas, and fajitas. It’s Mama Ninfa and Joe T. Garcia. That’s Tex-Mex. And it’s awesome. One of the great things about living in Texas is that it’s so easy to be spoiled by the ready availability of marvelous Tex-Mex. There’s the queso flammeado at the Original Ninfa’s on Navigation or the fajitas at Lupe Tortilla or the margaritas at El Tiempo.

There is another type of Mexican food out there. In Houston, we are blessed with an excellent example of it, Hugo’s Restaurant. Along with Topolobampo and Frontera Grill, these three restaurants stand for a kind of authentic, creative, inspiring cuisine that honors traditional Mexican food. It goes beyond the stable, predictable, and delicious standard dishes we think of as “Mexican food.”

From Topolobampo

The most defining thing about Topolobampo, reinforced in no uncertain terms on a recent visit for dinner, is that regional Mexican cuisine is a bountiful source of creative and cutting edge cooking. The food at Topolobampo stands in line with the finest American cuisine. It is executed with the greatest skill, and the love of Rick Bayless, chef de cuisine Brian Enyart, and their kitchen brigade is evident in each dish. But the way Topolobampo achieves it results is unique in certain ways compared to its peers.

At many fine dining restaurants — the French Laundry, Daniel, Le Bernardin, Alinea, and its brethren — the buzz word seems to be “purity.” That is, the food is founded on the principle that the ingredients (often many in each dish) complement each other, allowing the components to stand out in their most pure, delicious form. This is indisputably a winning method and combination, one that has taken root at the core of American food. It is not a bad thing at all; honoring ingredients and letting them speak for themselves by expressing pure, true flavors is a noble task that produces stunning results.

At Topolobampo, however, the fundamental methodology is somewhat different. Instead of combining ingredients, often in novel ways, that allows the purity of each component to stand out, Topolobampo places greater emphasis on compound flavors. The interplay of the ingredients, combining to produce the unexpected, is the order of the day. This isn’t opposed to the method of the standard-bearers of contemporary American cuisine. It merely is a change in focus. The French Laundry, for example, doesn’t only allow individual flavors to stand out. There are creative, even counterintuitive, flavor combinations that cause an eater to marvel. But the primary emphasis is on purity of flavor.

From Topolobampo

Topolobampo offers three tasting menus, in addition to an a la carte menu, each of which stands out for the unique fusion of ingredients. The individual components are featured in their glory, but it is the interplay and strength in combination of the ingredients together that is the cornerstone of Rick Bayless’s food.

This dedication to lifting ingredients to greater highs when put together — the temptation to use the word “synergy” is embarrassing — was apparent from the first course in the Adventurer’s tasting menu available February 24 through March 21.

It began with a Ceviche Rosa de Kona Kampachi, easily the most creative and delightful ceviche I’ve ever encountered. The fish, of the finest quality of course, was marinated in lime and ancho chile. Slices of baby blood oranges gave a fuller, sweeter citrus flavor. Flanking the fish on either side was an almond-infused shaved ice, which simultaneously kept the fish cold and gave a subtle sweetness that played off the hint of spice in the ancho chile, and ancho-candied kumquats, which stood up to the spice and brought out the sweetness of the fish. This dish was a revelation and set the tone for the entire meal.

Next came Chilpachole de Jaiba, a chipotle-lobster broth soup with king crab and small masa dumplings, with epazote and charales. It was a wonder how the lobster flavor came through so singularly in the broth, bolstered by the smoky and sweet chipotle and underscored by a subtle spice that belatedly came from the back of your tongue and lightly coated the palate. The masa played into these flavors perfectly, of course, a strong yet adaptable flavor. The king crab refused to get lost in these strong flavors, bolstered and carried on the strength and purity of the lobster broth.

Third, a play on traditional Mexican pibil, which is made with pork. Tonight, the Pescada “Pibil” was a black cod roasted with achiote in banana leaves, with pureed white beans, a fruity guero chile jelly, and habanero-pickled red onion. Without a doubt, this is one of the finest fish dishes in the world. With a simple pan sauce, the black cod sings. With a bit of crispy skin and a texture and flavor so buttery and decadent, it was enhanced by the earthy achiote and acidic verve and spice of the pickled onions. This dish is a profound achievement; one not to be lost in memory; one to build a menu around.

From Topolobampo

The main protein consisted of two beef preparations: slow-cooked oxtail that was then seared, giving it a deeper, caramelized richness, and braised short ribs. It was accompanied by hominy, beauty heart radish, Napa cabbage, bone marrow, and lime — the presentation was similar to that of a coleslaw, with the ingredients placed together in a way that made it unavoidable to eat them together, the Napa cabbage the conduit for the flavors. But the accompaniments were sidelights; this dish embodies the term “beefy.” The beef itself, grass-fed, had terrific texture and flavor. But the sauce, a simple jus, was pure intensity, showing all the nuance of the best beef. It was a purist’s moment in a meal of combinations, a solo by an ideal ingredient in a meal of duos and choruses.

The beef was a hard act to follow, but pastry chef Melissa Novak wasn’t about to be left out of this party. A trio of ice cream sandwiches: (1) Negro Modelo chocolate ice cream with cacao nibs; (2) buttermilk-tangerine ice cream with brown-butter pecan crunch; and (3) pistachio ice cream with pistachio-chocolate brittle. The portion was large. Each ice cream came sandwiched between triangles of chocolate cake. Normally, eating a dessert like this, I’m inclined to sample each in turn. With this, I dug into the buttermilk-tangerine and was hooked. It was impossible to stop eating it. The succulent sweetness of the tangerine got a slightly sharp note from the buttermilk, with the chocolate supporting nicely without overshadowing the more delicate flavors. The Negro Modelo was tasty, deep and rich, almost a chocolate overload. But then in swooped the pistachio, a handful of bites capping an extraordinary meal on an extraordinary high point. The gorgeous nut flavor enhanced the creamy texture of the ice cream, complemented by the slight bitterness of the chocolate. It was an inspired combination.

From Topolobampo

There is no doubt that Topolobampo, routinely mentioned among the handful of best restaurants in Chicago, surely deserves those accolades. But it is clear that the kitchen if operating at the height of its powers. Any serious nationwide discussion of best restaurants should include it.

Amuse bouche: The best beginner's wine?

2009-04-13T22:16:00.003-05:00

It's appalling to watch people who aren't into wine order things like young Cabernet Sauvignon. There are few things that are going to turn someone off of the most heavenly of beverages more than a confusing, tannic wine like that. People sometimes ask what the best thing to give a wine novice to drink is. That's easy. Start with Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling. The fruity and acidic profile appeals to anyone. They taste good and are generally easy to understand. American tastes have trended so intensely in favor of tannic reds being drunk far too young that even wines like Sauvignon Blanc have gotten an unfair label of being "sweet." Disagree?

Amuse bouche: Why must they foodgasm?

2009-04-06T21:54:00.002-05:00

Food Network isn't what it used to be. No more Ming Tsai. No more Anthony Bourdain. Barely any Tyler Florence. Tons of Guy Fieri, the man who believes every dish must have sausage and cheese mixed in it and probably can't even spell "subtle." The most troubling trend, however, is that all the hosts, when they taste their food, go into hysterics at their own cooking efforts. They have a foodgasm. Giada is a horrendous offender, as is Paula Deen. No one is immune. There is no humility in tasting anymore, only shameless self-aggrandizement. Give me Jacques Pepin or Julia Child -- chefs who frequently went on camera and admitted their food needs a dash of this or pinch of that. Even the best don't always get it perfect the first time; why pretend?

Review: Little Bigs

2009-04-04T02:05:00.004-06:00

You can hardly walk inside a restaurant without being accosted by a plate of sliders these days. It’s hard to understand where this started, but it’s not the most horrific trend to come about in food. What could be bad about adding more ground beef to the table?

What could indicate that sliders have arrived on the big, trendy stage better than Bryan Caswell, chef at the much-acclaimed REEF, has given Houston its very own slider-only restaurant named Little Bigs. Bryan Caswell is an excellent chef. REEF is a terrific place: their menu is fresh with solid creativity, and the wine program is one of the top three in the city in large part because of its eminently reasonable pricing.

The concept of Little Bigs is quality. Take REEF’s signature dish — reserving for a later time the discussion of beef being the most famous thing on the menu at what allegedly is the best seafood house in the country — put in fresh fries, milk shakes, a nice wine list, and an attractive patio, and there you have it. Late-night eats for the trendy.

There is one problem. The beef slider isn’t all that good. The bun is terrific, baked on-site, and adds value to the sandwich instead of just serving as a bland meat-holder. The caramelized onions are done well, and the Sriracha remoulade is a nice twist. That’s all well and good, but such things are sidelights.

The problem is the patty itself. While it’s great that they grind their meat fresh daily and never freeze it, a half dozen encounters with Caswell’s sliders over the past several months confirm that the patty need improvement. The meat routinely is overworked, making it rubbery, chewy, and tough. The texture ends up making the burgers seem too greasy. And the sliders also never have the proper seasoning; they are either oversalted or undersalted. That is a mortal sin for any dish.

On a higher note, the chicken slider is pretty good. They do a nice job making a crispy, juicy hunk of chicken breast on that tasty bun. The fries are terrific, some of the best in the city. They are properly double-fried giving a nice crunch and pure potato flavor.

The atmosphere is also good. It reminds me a touch of the phenomenal Taylor’s Automatic Refresher in the Napa Valley, although the burger quality at Little Big’s isn’t in the same league. The outdoor area is laid back. The wine list is smart and reasonably priced. It’s open late and better than Taco Cabana or Jack in the Box. And, most importantly, the sins of that slider patty are easily correctable. The only fear is that because of Caswell’s success and the acclaim the sliders have gotten, he won’t bother to make them better than they need to be.

Amuse bouche: Houston's food strength

2009-03-31T06:41:00.000-06:00

Every week, this feature will give you a quick bite to chew on. To kick it off, what is Houston’s biggest food strength? It’s hard to make the case for barbecue, since it seems like Lockhart, Texas, wins there. Mexican food? That’s more of a statewide thing. For my money, Houston excels above all else at the mid-level restaurant. These are places with entrees that run $18 to $30, give or take a few bucks. It can’t compete at the high end. But in the middle range? This is a fantastic city.

First look: Anvil Bar & Refuge

2009-03-29T15:10:00.003-06:00

This bar just opened up at 1424 Westheimer in Houston, and the early look has it shaping up as a solid joint. And how can you not dig the name? Anvil Bar & Refuge. To relax, it behooves folks to look for a spirited refuge. Anvil is a welcome addition to the Houston bar scene -- a scene that, incidentally, is so much more attractive since the advent of the smoking ban a couple years ago. Who wants to go to happy hour after work, only to get your suit infused with Marlboro stink?

Anyway, aside from the extreme decibel level (will someone, somewhere please invest in acoustic panels?), Anvil is a terrific, relaxing bar. A lot of reclaimed materials have gone into the bar, its decor, and the furniture. But it's a comfortable, dark, leather-sofa kind of atmosphere with plenty of candlelight. Perhaps a bit noisy for a romantic after-dinner stop, but certainly a good place to unwind with coworkers or friends anytime.

The wine list is small but intelligently selected, without ridiculous markups. For example, the excellent 2007 W.H. Smith Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast is $48. You can pick up the same bottle at Spec's for a hair under $30. The beer list is a strength. Everything is from bottle, and the selection is superb -- from a handful of the usual big brew suspects to a big selection of microbrews and genuine ales. There is even a barleywine/strong ale section on the menu.

Anvil's purported speciality, however, is cocktails. They are going for a throwback cocktail style, with current selections listed on on a chalkboard. Each of them is interesting and true to its ingredients. Some of them are intense without being overbearing. Particularly good are the Mexican Fizz, Bee's Knees, and First Growth (beware of the potent St. Germain liqueur here). They are made smartly and priced at $8 each. Not too outrageous, although per ounce of alcohol, you probably do better with wine.

The crowd was mostly professional, with a lot of sportcoats in attendance. That's kind of expected since the buzz for this place seems to have been generated mostly on Twitter. In any case, Anvil is here. It's worth a look.

An appetizer to start the blogging meal

2009-03-26T00:50:00.005-06:00

I dig sliders. The first time I had them was at the Cheesecake Factory during college in Baltimore. How utterly American to enable its people to have a miniature hamburger before shoveling down their bacon double cheeseburgers. This is something I can support. An important part of this blog, too, is to not just be critical. It’s to emphasize the cooperative nature of food. You can’t just be a food critic. You have to love food. It’s a participatory exercise. So here is a slider recipe, in the spirit of creating something, as well as critiquing it.

The key to a good slider is bun-to-meat ratio. Too much bread masks and dulls the beef flavor. Too little bread turns into a greasy mess. A bun on a slider, or any burger for that matter, needs to add to the overall combination; in the alternative, it needs to at least not detract. It’s kind of hard to screw up a slider, come to think of it. Cheesecake Factory always had good ones. Crystal Burger is the king of the fast food slider. White Castle belongs only in a movie with Harold and Kumar.

When doing burgers of any sort, start with whole steak, preferably New York strip. This is extravagant, but when you can pick up the entire top loin at Costco for $4.35 a pound give or take a couple bucks, it is totally worth it. Grind a couple pounds of that up with four ounces of pancetta. This gives enough extra fat content to satisfy people who complain that you can’t just grind up steak because it’s too lean. Make it into three-ounce patties, careful not to overwork the meat. Pan fry them (iron skillet, please) for two minutes on one side, then one minute on the other. Top with cheese after they’re flipped.

But what about that all-important bun? Something too yeasty can be a touch overbearing; it’s like a champagne that has yeasty overtones that stomp all over the fruit. No, you need something else. Something with substance to it but that doesn’t intrude. My solution? Turn to a master. In this case, Joel Robuchon.

If you haven’t seen it or heard about it, Robuchon has an amazing new cookbook out, The Complete Robuchon. The general idea behind this book is to provide a method of French home cooking that is doable, more or less, for us servant-less American cooks. This book is executed with passion, skill, and precision. By reading the clear recipes, you can see it is done by someone with a true love of and respect for food.

As it happens, Robuchon produces a recipe that makes the ideal bread complement for sliders. It is his insanely simple recipe for brioche. The butter and egg of the brioche provide a richness and body that enhances but doesn’t intrude too much upon the slider patty, allowing the meat flavor to sing. To cut the heavier elements slightly, add some caramelized onions, which give an earthy flavor, and a ketchup made out tomatoes slow-roasted in the oven for four hours at 250 degrees and refreshed with a little champagne vinegar, which adds acidity.

That’s a lot of words. This wasn’t meant to be a full-bore recipe or detailed overview of these sliders. It’s supposed to be an appetizer. Let’s let a couple pictures do the talking and then get to the meal that is this blog started.

Do we really need another food blog?

2009-03-25T12:39:00.001-06:00

That question is the most appropriate place to start. The Internet has become a haven for, among myriad other things, food blogs. Some of these are the products of amateurs with dreams of becoming the next Julie Powell, skyrocketing to fame and a cushy life writing and wearing pajamas. Others perhaps want to be the next Ruth Reichl or Jeffrey Steingarten or Molly O’Neill or Anthony Bourdain or Frank Bruni. Well, maybe not Frank Bruni.

In any case, there has been a proliferation of online food discussions, rants, and information. Why not get in while the getting is good? No, just adding another voice to an expanding chorus isn’t reason enough. The quality of food writing on the Internet is increasingly good. Every new entry must have — and should have — something worthy to offer.

My desire to start this blog stems from two central complaints about a lot of today’s food writing, on the Internet and beyond. First, and this is a grievance surely shared by many, is that food writers tend to not be much on the writing part of their jobs. No, that puts too fine a point on it. Auberon Waugh would not approve. Far too frequently, food writers are like hobby writers who thought being an English or creative writing major in college was a good idea but never had the dedication to craft that it took to truly succeed. As a result, food writers, along with other critics, have garnered the (sometimes deserving) stereotype that they are talentless, arrogant hacks more interested in being an adversary, judging what they themselves cannot do. Naturally, as with all stereotypes, this classification of critics is both overbroad and frequently unfair. Nevertheless, the complaints against food critics aren’t entirely without substance, as a few examples illustrate:

“Chef John DeLucie is doing some of the best tuna tartare in town (all that creamy avocado and zingy heat!), plus a hefty and juicy pork chop, a classically blissful Dover sole, an addictive clam chowder, a gorgeous fillet of wild salmon (with those adorable little beluga lentils) and . . . feloniously fatty short ribs . . . .”

Or, “There’s another tension at work, too: the contrast between the crisp, highly structured grid, singed by the waffle iron, and the tender, steamy, nursery-time interior.”

Now, who wrote these particular passages is irrelevant. That isn’t the point; the point is that food critics habitually overwrite their prose. They are bakers of prose frosted in adjectives — those adorable little adjectives. It can reach the point where the writing overshadows the content, where observation is subordinated to language without due attention paid to the meaning words convey. Take “feloniously fatty short ribs.” I would think “felonious” amounts of fat in short ribs would mean that they aren’t good, rather than indicate admiration. And descriptions like “nursery-time interior” make me want to enjoy some nursery time so I can fall asleep rather than figure out what the words try to convey.

You likely have noticed that this complaint is rooted in writing. I don’t mind that restaurant critics often are adversarial or judgmental. That comes with the territory. Something would be wrong if critics hesitated when confronting their subjects. But overwritten restaurant reviews thrust the language (and its writer) to the forefront of the piece. (I realize that, writing in the first-person here and thrusting myself into the forefront of this post makes me look hypocritical. So be it; I’ll use as my defense that this is an introductory post meant to clarify this blog’s goals.) This confuses what food writing is truly about. The food. The service. The atmosphere. The wine. It’s not about ego — although sometimes there is something undeniably delicious about seeing an egomaniacal chef being cut down to size. In the end, however, that appeals to base emotions. It subordinates the important core, the food and wine. The writer and his writing has to be cloaked to the extent possible.

As for the second complaint, it involves the virtually invisible role of wine in food discussions. Too much food writing is just that — purely about the food. Perhaps you might take this opportunity to point out that, like a nincompoop, I am writing about food here. Where does the wine come into play? To me, food and wine is inseparable. To divorce them — or shortchange one at the expense of the other — is the equivalent of requesting Spam substituted in the meat course at the French Laundry. You shouldn’t think of it, and even if you do, decency forbids you from acting on the thought.

Much of the food writing I read makes no mention at all of wine or, if it does, the discussion is cursory and amateurish at best. It’s hard to even know what to say about that. Wine is food. If you’re having a serious meal, in a restaurant or at home, you’ve got to have wine with it. (Medical conditions and religious objections excepted, of course.) Yet there is a strange dichotomy in gastronomic writing that separates the two. You have food critics (Frank Bruni and his ilk) and wine critics (Robert Parker and his disciples). It is rare to find someone who unifies passion for both in a single medium, yet I can’t think of a single gourmand who willingly gives up pairing wine with food.

In any case, the goal of this blog is two-fold, as you might have guessed given the complaints explicated above. First, I want to take back the realm of food writing from the traditional critic. I want this site to be about the food (including wine), with minimal intrusions of self-serving and heavy-handed wording. This will not be a site that’s the product of a creative writing masters program Second, I want the posts to honor the interaction of wine and food. As James Beard said, “Food is our common ground, a universal experience.” Above all, this blog intends to be a celebration of food and wine. No frills. No snobbery. And certainly fewer adjectives.