Hemingway's Lounge: Spring Cocktails

Hemingway's Lounge can be a like an elegant three ring circus, with barman Alex Straus as the ringmaster at the center of it all, making sure the mood is festive and the cocktails are delicious.  Straus invited Daniel of ThirstyinLA and me into the Center Ring to sample his new Spring Cocktails, before the acrobats, lions and clowns arrived.

The Peruvian Sangria is refreshing and a little boozy; the perfect drink for cocktail hour on the patio before dinner.  It is one of the new breed of cocktails that embraces wine as an ingredient; the muddled and whole grapes echoing the flavor note of the Chardonnay.

1.5 oz Pisco
.50 St Germain
.50 oz Simple Syrup
.75 oz Lemon Juice
1.0 oz Chardonnay
7 muddled grapes, plus 3 to garnish
Shaken and served over ice

Peruvian Sangria

The Smoke and Spice is spicy and springy.  Ready to drink; the smoke from the mezcal and the spice from the jalapeño syrup work together to create a cocktail with multidimensional flavors.  The Chartreuse and the lemon juice round out the drink and the bell peppers provide a dramatic visual effect.  This was my favorite of the list; unsurprising as I have a soft spot for spicy cocktails.

1.5 oz. Del Maguey Mezcal Vida
.50 oz. Green Chartreuse
1.0 oz. jalapeño-infused agave syrup
.75 oz. lemon juice
Red and green bell peppers
Shaken and served over ice

Smoke & Spice

Spring Rain is made with Akvinta organic vodka a wheat-based vodka that was new to me and which owns its own wheat fields, something unusual in the industry.  The pineapple and lime juice made this cocktail a citrus celebration.  In addition the flavor of the (unfiltered) cloudy sake comes through.  Spring Rain has a pleasant froth to it and the mint garnish floats on it effortlessly.

1.0 oz. Akvinta organic vodka
1.0 oz. Rock Sake Cloud
1.0 oz. pineapple juice
0.5 oz. lime juice
0.5 oz. simple syrup
Shaken and served in a coupe

Spring Rain

The Hunting Party is the only stirred cocktail on the Spring menu and feels like an Old Fashioned has been taken to the beach.  The predominant ingredient is the scotch whiskey but even small amounts of the Hum can have a large impact on the flavor profile and this drink is still a work in progress as the ratios undergo refinement.

2.0 oz. Benromach Scotch, a speyside whiskey
0.5 oz. Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
.25 oz. Hum, a rum infused with ginger, hibiscus, cardamom and lime
Bar spoon lemon juice
Dash of Orange bitters
Stirred and served over ice in an Old Fashioned glass

Hunting Party

The new cocktails all evoke warm weather with their refreshing tastes.  I think Hemingway himself would have enjoyed them as he surveyed the heat and the bustle of Havana.  Look out for the Smoke & Spice in particular as it packs a wonderful wallop.  Hemingway's can be quiet early in the evening and very busy towards the end of the night, so pick the vibe you want accordingly.

Hemingway's Lounge: 6356 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood.  Phone: (323) 469-0040.  Website: www.hemingwayslounge.com

First Impression: Jason Neroni at Osteria La Buca

As previously first reported here, Jason Neroni took over the kitchen at Osteria La Buca earlier this month following an extensive renovation by designer Brendan Ravenhill.  I had an opportunity to try several items on the new menu during a friends and family night visit.  As this meal was while the kitchen was in previews, so to speak, take this as more of an opportunity to see the kind of food Neroni is putting out, rather than the exact dishes you will encounter.

Ricotta Fritters are a fun way to begin a meal.  They are like savory donut holes, only lighter.  These bite size treats are airy and seem to disappear from the bowl at a rapid rate when dining with a group.

The spaghetti cacio y pepe ($9) with tellecherry pepper and perorino cheese (unpictured) is a simple dish that is easy to get wrong.  Neroni's pasta was perfectly al dente (that's for you Sam and Josh) and the salty cheese sauce was pungent with pepper and the tangy cheese.  This is one of those dishes like margherita pizza in which there is nowhere to hide; either its right or its not.  It isn't complicated; there are no fireworks.  It is just good.

The ouvo raviolo with ricotta, cavallo nero, brown butter and fried rosemary (above) is another deceptively simple dish ($16).  The ravioli is filled with a runny egg, which oozes all over the plate.  This dish was a favorite at the table.  I love runny egg dishes and this was a rich satisfying dish.  It was not oversauced, as the egg itself provided much of the liquid.  Order it if available.

Pollo ala Diavolo with panzanella salad, arugula and pine nuts ($22) was a large serving.  It was tasty although not particularly spicy and certainly not devilish.  However the croutons seemed to have done their share in purgatory as they had more of a kick than the chicken itself.

The overall design is sleek but welcoming.  The service was attentive and lived up to the sign above which proclaimed, "We're Glad You're Here."  Below, the chairs pictured on top of the shelves are the same ones that diners sit on at tables.  That was a creative touch, which helped to unify the design elements of the room into a whole.

Neroni is known for his pork dishes, so I am happy to report that the non-pork dishes on the menu receive as much attention from the kitchen as the oinky ones. Chef Neroni had been wanting to move to Southern California for a while and it appears that he has settled in. He mentioned to me that his son and La Buca owner Graham Synder have young sons that are the same age who play together. Promising for La Buca and Los Angeles.

Osteria La Buca: 5210 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood. Phone: (323) 462-1900. Website: osterialabuca.com

Grilled Cheese Month is Here: Ready, Set, Eat!

There are only three days left until the annual celebration of melted cheese known as the Grilled Cheese Invitational (GCI), at which one sandwich will be crowned the champion, and all others will be merely delicious accompaniments to tomato soup.   In preparation, six local restaurants are each offering their take on specialty grilled cheese featuring GCI sponsor Tillamook Cheese. These sandwiches are only available until Saturday, so that gives you four days to eat them all.

In addition, Tender Greens West Hollywood is celebrating Grilled Cheese Month with a different sandwich each day this week.  Their chef, Eric Hulme will be competing in Saturday's GCI. Through Friday, April 22nd at the West Hollywood restaurant only, these special grilled cheese sandwiches will be $10.50 (served with a simple salad) and will be posted on twitter daily.  That makes seven sandwiches for you to eat this week to get your Grilled Cheese merit badge.

Lastly, Clementine will be celebrating Grilled Cheese Month all month long with different sandwiches available each week.  The full menu is here.  This is Clementine's 10th Annual celebration of the sacred sandwich.

Chef Eric Hulme’s Quack Attack Grilled Cheese Sandwich

The six participating restaurants serving cheesy and delicious Tillamook melts this week are:

simplethings sandwich & pie shop
8310 W 3rd Street ô (323) 592-3390
www.simplethingsrestaurant.com

Chef Carrie Cusack has created a Pork Belly Grilled Cheese with Tillamook Monterey Jack Cheese, Pork Belly, Smoked Tomato, Caramelized Onions, Avocado ($9.50)

The Foundry on Melrose
7465 Melrose Avenue ô (323) 651-0915
www.thefoundryonmelrose.com

Grilled Cheese Invitational veteran Chef Eric Greenspan will offer the Johnny Apple Cheese AKA Johnny Pastrami with Tillamook Sharp Cheddar, Sourdough Bread, Apple Mustard Chutney, Green Apple, Smoked Pastrami ($8.00)

Dominick’s
8715 Beverly Blvd ô (310) 652-2335
www.dominicksrestaurant.com

Chef Brandon Boudet has created a sandwich featuring Tillamook Monterey Jack Grilled Cheese, Grilled Wild Ramp, Ciabatta Bread ($11.00)


The Oaks Gourmet
1915 North Bronson Avenue ô (323) 871-8894
www.theoaksgourmet.com

From another Grilled Cheese Invitational participant, Chef Luke Reyes will offer a sandwich with Tillamook Sharp Cheddar, Black Forest Bacon, Homemade Tomato Jam, Sourdough Bread ($9.95)


101 Coffee Shop
6145 Franklin Avenueô (323) 467-1175
www.the101coffeeshop.com

Chef Brandon Boudet has also created a Po Boy for Angelenos across town with Tillamook Medium Cheddar & Homemade Creole Hot Sausage Po Boy ($9.00)


crow bar & kitchen (Orange County)
2325 East Coast Highway ô (949) 675-0070
www.crowbarcdm.com

Grilled Cheese aficionado, Chef John Cuevas, will offer a melt with Tillamook Sharp Cheddar, Pickled Ramps, Smoked Bacon, Garlic Mayo, Fried Egg ($11.00)


Tender Greens West Hollywood is the only Tender Greens location with the grilled cheese specials this week.

Tender Greens West Hollywood
8759 Santa Monica Boulevard  (310) 358-1919

Clementine in Century City has a month of sandwiches:

Clementine:
1751 Ensley Avenue (310) 552-1080
http://clementineonline.com/

Cocktails at Fig & Olive: Provence Arrives on Melrose Place

The West Hollywood branch of Fig & Olive opened last month with much fanfare on Melrose Place, across the street from Bastide. They have wisely hired Giovanni Martinez to create their cocktail program and he has created an approachable list that will appeal to a wide audience. Now that the weather has turned warm and spring is in the air, the cocktails lean towards crisp and refreshing. Some highlights from the program are below:

The Pompelmino is a take on an Italian aperitivo using both Cocchi Americano and Aperol. It has a pleasant citrus flavor from the lemon juice and grapefruit foam.  Yes, there is foam in this cocktail.  But it works to give you an extra bit of the citrus and air in your mouth as you sip on the drink.

Wild Strawberry is made with Martin Miller's Gin, fresh strawberries, orgeat syrup, lemon juice and Moët Ice Imperial Champagne on the rocks. Giovanni was able to simulate the wild strawberry flavor using orange blossom water as the precise strawberries he was looking for were unavailable.  This drink is light and refreshing; very summery. It is the perfect brunch cocktail, which has arrived just in time for the launch of outdoor seating at the restaurant.

The Matador is my favorite on the list. As attentive readers and many local bartenders know I am a big fan of spicy cocktails.  The Matador is genuinely spicy due to the inclusion of jalapeño. The cocktail is made with Zapopan blanco Tequila, Sagatiba Cachaça, house made cilantro syrup, fresh lime juice, and muddled jalapeño.  This may be my favorite cachaça cocktail.  Now this is the kind of spicy that with each sip you want to take another, not the kind of spicy that blows your palate and you have to struggle to finish it;  the spicy challenge at Jitlada this is not.  The drink tastes fresh and spicy at the same time, perhaps due to the muddled jalapeño, house-made cilantro syrup and freshly squeezed lime juice.

The full cocktail list is here, so get drinking as Spring has arrived and what better way to welcome Printemps en Provence than with a cocktail in hand?

Fig & Olive: 8490 Melrose Place, West Hollywood.  Phone: (310) 360-9100.  Website: http://www.figandolive.com/locations-reservation/melrose-place/

Closed on Mondays: Open for Business

Closed on Mondays, the brainchild of Aliza Miner, Savita Ostendorf and Marjory Garrison, is a recurring dinner series designed to support local food initiatives.  The dinners, which to date have taken place at Atwater Village mainstay Canele, take place on Monday evenings, when the host restaurant would otherwise be closed.  The dinners are a 3 course prix fixe with choices for each course and benefit a different local cause each time.

The most recent dinner took place on Monday April 4th and I attended for the first time, joined by my friend James and Jessica of TasterTotsLA.  The first course offered a choice of an escarole salad with anchovy-garlic dressing, breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese or chilled fat asparagus salad.  I couldn't resist the asparagus, which were if anything even fatter than I was expecting.  This (above) was a simple and well executed dish, which depended on the quality of the local produce to rise or fall.  Spring is definitely here.

The second course was a choice of house-made English pea ravioli or house-made ricotta gnocchi with lamb ragu.  Again, the choice was easy for me, for although I do like peas a lot, lamb is practically irresistible to me.  The ricotta gnocchi were light and the lamb ragu also included a healthy serving of olives.  The meat was tender and well seasoned.  Not as mind-blowing as the version I had last year at the Tasting Kitchen, which is etched in my mind, but very satisfying.

We all finished with the burnt sugar budino, which had a silky consistency.  The burnt sugar on top was as thin as glass.  Each spoonful of the budino with the whipped cream was smile inducing and the glass did not stay full for long.

The beneficiary of the money raised from the dinner is the Garden School Foundation, which focuses on garden-based school learning in parts of Los Angeles where children do not get exposure to growing vegetables.  The cost of the dinner was $35, excluding tip and beverage and is cash only.

Check out the Closed on Mondays website at www.closedonmondays.com to learn about upcoming dinners.

Canele: 3219 Glendale Blvd, Atwater Village. Phone: (323) 666-7133.  Closed on Mondays does not take reservations.

The Magical Taste of Mystic Pizza

Mystic Pizza is the passion project of Lawrence, the pizzaiolo by night, office worker by day.  He is the Clark Kent of pizza makers, with a secret identity known only to a select few.  To the rest of the city he is the enigmatic "Mystic Pizza", a covert neighborhood dealer of homemade hand-tossed pizza.  He has been perfecting his craft and doing a series of pop-up pizza making at parties and events.  You can find him this weekend at Artisanal LA at Santa Monica Place.

Mystic makes the sauce and the dough from scratch and uses the highest quality cheese.  This is truly the definition of artisanal.  Seeing Mystic work is like a piece of performance art as the dough goes up in the air and spins.  My favorite part of the pizzas are the sauce; I'd happily buy jars of it to use as pasta sauce and as something to dip bread in, if they were available for sale.  On a recent pop-up party at his Lair, Mystic was selling several types of pies and I couldn't resist the margarita.  I was hungry and took a bite before photographing, so that should give you an indication of how good it smelled.  The pies were cooked on a pizza stone on a bbq and cooked up in under two minutes.

Mystic sources most of his ingredients at the Farmers Market and can make both vegetarian and vegan options.  He does cater private events, but can otherwise be found in the Los Feliz / Silverlake neighborhood, so his appearance at Artisanal LA brings him to an entirely new part of town.  Welcome to the Westside Mystic!

Follow Mystic Pizza on Twitter and on Facebook to learn more.  Email at MysticPizzaLA@gmail.com

Front Page: From Jamaica to LAX without the plane flight

Some of the best eating in Los Angeles can be found in the nondescript strip malls that dot the region.  The ordinary exterior of Front Page Jamaican Grille belies the riches that await inside.  To say that it is a small restaurant is to make it seem grander and larger than it really is.  A little spot with more takeout business than dine in, the seating consists of half a dozen tables inside and a few outside.  The Inglewood restaurant near LAX has not gone unnoticed, as the menu's front cover highlights a positive review by Thi Nguyen that appeared in the LA Times in August 2010.  I had meant to try it, but had forgotten about Front Page Grille until I saw a writeup about it in the excellent new blog Aerospace Lunch.

The menu has a large variety of meals that all come with rice and beans, mixed steamed vegetables and fried plantains and can be ordered in small or large.  In addition to the typical Jamaican meat dishes such jerk chicken, oxtails and curry goat, they also have a large selection of fish on the menu.  (Note that fish dishes should be ordered 30 minutes in advance, so plan ahead if you want to order them or be prepared to wait.)

I began a recent visit with a Beef Patty ($2.50).  The crust was light and flaky and the ground beef inside had a good consistency but it wasn't as flavorful as I had hoped.  The appearance and texture were spot on, but it the patty needed a little kick to it to make it great.  Chicken, veggie and fish patties are also available.

One of the signature offerings is the Jerk Chicken.  You can get it breast only, which I did.  The small pictured below ($8.50) was more than ample.  The chicken was juicy and flavorful with just the right amount of spices.  Not a four alarm fire but with more than a little bite.  The chicken sat on a bed of rice and beans mixed together with a small portion of fried plantains and some cabbage on the side.  The chicken juice/sauce was delicious and enriched the flavor of the rice and beans.

A return visit offered the opportunity to try the much lauded goat.  The curry goat ($9.75 for a small)  was a healthy portion of falling off of the bone tender goat.  The goat meat lay on a bed of the rice and beans, with several plantains on top and some of the cabbage on the side.  Goat meat can sometimes be chewy or hard to get off of the bone, but the meat was well prepared and tasted like it had been simmering in the sauce for hours as the flavor of the curry imbued every bite.  While certainly not for everyone, if you enjoy goat meat, the effort to separate the goat from the small bones is well worth the reward.

 I have yet to try the fish dishes as they require half an hour's advance notice, but am already debating whether to get the oxtails or the fish on my next visit.  Next time I land hungry at LAX, I will forget about In and Out and head to the Front Page.

Front Page Grille: 1117 West Manchester Blvd, 1 block East of Aviation.  Phone: (310) 216-9521.  Website: http://www.frontpagejamaicangrille.com/index.html