Wine Down Wednesdays Winding Down

The very cool offseason winery spotlight series at Tarpy's Roadhouse (647-1444) is down to its last few 5-7pm humpdays. Last week it was the good juice from Joyce being poured as part of the triple threat evening: 1) Free tastings happen in the fireplace room; 2) a special prixe fixe menu is just $21.95 (and paired glasses of Joyce at half price), and 3) bottles of the featured label that Tarpy's carries are available at a 50 percent discount.

The next two wineries featured before the series takes the summer off: Neyers (today, Wednesday, May 12) and Joullian (May 19).

If you get there early (or on a different day of the week), that only means more tasting sensations at next door Ventana Vineyards (372-7415). Elizabeth (above) took local chef-Weekly contributor Michael Whalen and me through some Sauv Blanc, Gewurtztraminer, Tempranillo and Granache and a Rubystone Rhine blend. The star, undoubtably, was the new Le Mistral. It's a must sip.

And some of the deals at this point in the year are silly. I walked with a case of 2006 "Gold Stripe" Chardonnary for $50, or about $4 a bottle. There aren't many left.

Seven Things That Totally Rule

1. More Sprinkles

Mochi and maraschino cherries. Butterfinger, Heath Bar, Snickers and Twix. Yogurt chips and chocolate chips, brownie bites, caramel cups and Captain Crunch. Yogurt covered pretzels, chocolate-covered espresso beans, pecans, peanuts and walnuts.

MYO Yogurt (649-FROYO) is doubling its ability to pile those ingredients and an avalanche more—including fresh fruit delivered daily (blackberries, raspberries, blueberries!) and seductive sauces (marshmellow cream, white chocolate, kiwi!)—on froyo flavors like cup cake batter, red velvet and rootbeer float. (Those are just a dozen of the topping tubes alone pictured in the background above.)

The new spot opens this Thursday, May 13, at 491 Alvarado St. in the former Baskin Robbins in Monterey; the original rocks on at 685 Cannery Row underneath Blue Fin.

This addition is a very good thing. The locally-owned joint—with the locals discount—does such a good job with their range of indulgent and sugar free/probiotic yogurts that they won Best Local Ice Cream/Frozen Yogurt Shop from Weekly readers in March. (Check out why MYO won and other winners here. For a look at our review of the Cannery Row MYO in 2009, click here.)

Top that.

2. Tasty Bargain Beer in a Coffee Shop

It's dark like coffee, and this is one of the premiere coffee joints west of the San Andreas Fault, but this is something better than even above-average joe: A Black Butte draft for just $3.

That's one of the many things to recommend East Village Coffee Lounge in downtown Monterey (373-5601). Many of these are well-established—the diverse teas, the organic wines, the tasty quiches, the patio, the cool art, the fair-trade coffee—new elements are not, like the flatbreads (including the fresh artichoke-asparagus I had, above, $4.95), with earthy-tasty spreads and a nice thickness and texture, and the draft beer deal, starting at 6pm. And since they go through kegs quickly the Black Butte's already tapped. But that's not too painful, really: Green Flash IPA's now in the spout.

3. Wild Salmon Steamer and House Baked Bread

Gary Obligacion, restaurants mastermind for Coastal Luxury Management, is opening two ambitious Monterey eateries in the coming weeks (as profiled in the May 6-12 cover story), challenged me to point out a good sit down restaurant in the downtown area. Point taken: There aren't many for a business lunch style, tablecloth undertaking. But there is my favorite breakfast lunch spot of the moment, the still semi-secret, tucked-away-on-a-side-street Wild Plum Café and Bakery (646-3190).

The fresh flower arrangements in mason jars work as a colorful metaphor for what makes the Plum so juicy: The place is fresh, colorful and thoughtful.

The ingredients are crucial, with the breads and pastries baked there and the salads, soups and sandwiches built on things like hormone free Diestel turkey roasted on site and free-range, grass fed beef.

I love the grilled four cheese (provolone, jack, cheddar and moz on house-baked foccacia), which come with a potato, pasta or house salad for $7.95; salads like the super natural, greek, sesame chicken or the house treatment (organic greens with baby tomatoes, parmesan, roasted onions and peppers and their own vinagrette) are a hit at $6.50-$9.75 for a small and $7.75-$10.75 for a big one. There are awesome omelets, whole grain waffles, BLTs, a basil burger and box lunches to go.

The place is dripping with character beyond the plate: The spot enjoys a cool (and young) staff, inventive specials crop up constantly and a quote wall filled with staff and visitor offerings ranges from irreverent to inspiring. And the "Pacific steamers" plate I had, pictured above, with smoked salmon, scallions, cream cheese, parmesan and tomato caponata, with country potatoes and toasted house bread, is a fluffy wonder. Look at those big pink chunks of wild fish.

I'll get Gary O. there soon.

4. Four-Hour Happy Hours

Hula's (655-4852) happy hour is an area record four hours, 2-6pm, Tuesday-Saturday (it's 4:30-6pm Sunday and Monday). All appetizers—like the seared ahi won ton and the coconut shrimp rolls—are $5. Drink specials including $3 pink martinis, Red Stripes and lilikoi bellinis, $5 mai tais, painkillers, mango-and-lilikoi margaritas and "Hawaii 5.0s" (and all glasses of wine just a five spot too).

Mondays there are still "Mahalo," with a chunk of the month's Monday checks going to area nonprofits, including the following lineup:

May Marine Life Studies
June My Museum
July Central Coast HIV/AIDS Services (CCHAS)
August Big Brothers, Big Sisters
September Suicide Prevention Services

5. $4.99 All-You-Can-Eat Pancakes

That normally happens at fundraisers which, bless their heart, are chef'd by people whose day job is not cooking pancakes. For their Thursday-Sunday breakfast deal, Woody's Bayview Grill (649-6800) in the American Tin Cannery in Pacific Grove has a veteran cook, HD televisions (ideally tuned to the Lakers), an ocean view, mimosas and bloody marys. Stacked lineup.

6. Almighty Winemasters Who Don't Drink a Drop

By virtue of his rarer-than-an-albino-tiger certification as a Master of Wine, Tim Hanni was already a man apart. But he's moved further into the realm of rarity by maintaining that wine should be the property of all people and palates, revamping wine lists the world over in his "progressive" style, and generally speaking fiestily and articulately on grape juice wherever he goes—despite being cold sober for well over a decade.

The Wall Street Journal recently profiled the guy. Now he's coming to town to anchor an International School fundraiser at the Intercontinental 5pm Saturday, May 15. More on the International Extravaganza here.

7. One Cent Sake

Yama Sushi in Del Monte Center (646-9262) made its name with a standing 50 percent off all rolls. (Though the drum to hit when you get there is cute—and remains that way because it's outside.) Now they pour this deal Monday through Thursday. Sake quality sargeants suggest you get sake that affordable hot (and fast).

Better Than Beer

It just ain't easy to improve on an afternoon soaked with hundreds of craft beers and AC/DC, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Tom Petty tribute bands. (Firestone and "Free Bird"? Coastal Fog and "Freefallin'"? That's entertainment.) The Monterey Beer Festival (373-2843) is such a sacred event, in fact, that one couple chose it as the time and place to celebrate their holy matrimony, getting married on the very fairgrounds grass a year ago.

But event playcaller Jeff Moses has isolated several such improvement opportunities. MBF 2010's June 5 fest ($35) will still pour scores of brews from more than 70 breweries, but it will also include Thursday and Friday warm-ups and a film festival he's calling Short Pour Film Fest looping throughout the 12:30-5pm affair. Thursday is a concert with Bria Skonberg and Band at Forest Theatre in Carmel; Friday's a celebration at Culinary Center of Monterey
with Mary Pagan food and a preview of some of the tastes to come; the snippets will be all about beer. Two teasers are imbedded here from some webcasting beer freaks known as The Happy Hour Guys and the so-called Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project.



Any beer-in-media content is fair game—Moses says he's wrapping up a bunch of 3-4 minute short films, beer podcasts, beer TV shows, Old Pabst commercials, a minimovie on a San Francisco Beer Week pub crawl, and a segment of the documentary Beer Wars.

"It'll be an interesting thing to watch," he says. "On the flow, sit down, take a break." Then get back to drinking beer in the sun. Two words: I do.

Dory Ford's Recipe for Truffle Cheese Fondue

You gotta love a guy who's always grinning, whether he's describing what he likes about a particular local grower's goods, calling his former GM a "dweeb" or sipping dry-ice margaritas at the Pebble Beach Food & Wine post party. Speaking of PBF&W, at the grand tasting two days after the post party where I saw him, Dory Ford (above left) was doing ambitious things—he had three times as many tastes going as his peers—perhaps as a coming-out of sorts for the former Ventana and Aquarium head chef, as he's now devoting himself full-time to his anything-under-the-sun catering outfit Aqua Terra. ("Aqua Terra—land and sea," he told me at the Chanterelle Cook Off, where he won Best Dish for his strudel. "We make anything from the land and sea and serve it anywhere on land and sea. OK—700 seared chicken dinners delivered to a hotel ballroom, done; romantic dinner for two on Big Sur cliffs, you name it.")

"Aqua Terra specializes in farm to table products that are responsibly sourced with an emphasis on seasonality, quality and minimizing environmental impact…from farmers Ford knows and trusts," goes the more scripted mission. "Each menu is custom developed to match the lifestyle, personality and culture of the client."

Looks like he's got more excitement where that's coming from. He'll be doing butter-poached Maine Lobster with truffle scented mashed potatoes (with fava beans and shaved truffles) at Cooking for Solutions Friday, May 21.

Monday, May 24, he's on KGO-TV's View From the Bay with Spencer Christian and Janelle Wang making some mouthwatering fava raviolis and truffle cheese fondue (!). Here's the recipe to the flavor revolution:

Crispy Fava Bean Raviolis with Truffle Cheese Fondue

Fava Bean Ravioli Filling
2 Cups fresh fava beans - blanched and peeled
1 small clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons Arbequina Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Chicken or Vegetable Stock
2 Tablespoons Fresh Tarragon, finely chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Place fava beans in food processor, pulse until coursely ground. Add remaining ingredients and puree until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Raviolis
1 # Pasta Sheets - 6"X22" (approximately 5 sheets)
1 egg, beaten
1 cup bread crumbs
Canola or olive oil for frying

Lay pasta sheet over large 2.5" 10 count ravioli mold, depress to indent spaces with indent plate. Fill each space with 1 1/2 tablespoon of fava bean filling. Brush another sheet with beaten egg and lay over top of filled raviolis, egg side down. Seal, turn out and cut apart. Par cook 2 minutes per side in boiling salted water. Remove to tray lined with towel to drain breifly. Toss in bowl with bread crumbs, remove to tray to dry. Heat oil to 325 degrees, fry raviolis in small batches until crisp and golden brown. Serve warm with truffle cheese fondue.

For The Truffle Cheese Fondue
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons shallots, finely chopped
½ cup white wine
½ cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 ½ cups shredded Bothwell Black Truffle Cheese
Truffle oil, optional

Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over gentle heat.
Cook shallots until soft. Add wine and reduce by ½.
Add whipping cream and simmer for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to low.
Mix shredded cheese with cornstarch and add,
Whisking constantly until all of the cheese is melted.
Puree wuth hand blender until smooth and glossy.
Hold in warm place until ready to serve

*Be careful not to boil the fondue once the cheese is added.

It's Cooking in The Kitchen

In any house worth hanging in, the best room is the kitchen. That's where great sharing—conversation, snacks, wine, food fantasies—really simmers. And that's one reason why Kitchen Studio of Monterey Peninsula (899-3303) on the border of Seaside and Monterey on Canyon Del Rey is a cool spot: Virtually all its many rooms are kitchens, and beautiful ones at that.

Yes, there are other reasons. For one, Steven Whyte sculptures are on display through the end of May.

And there are all kinds of sleek surfaces and samples and stuff to lose track of time stroking and staring at. These are different drawer fixtures in a room filled with fun and inventive elements.

Here's a wild water spout. Arty.

And a recycled cork ceiling. If that's not cool, I don't know what qualifies.

My favorite reason to love The Kitchen, though, is this: GM Jillian Clark and company are doing a "Breakfast Series" to benefit the Food Bank for Monterey County. A $20 donation feeds three local families for a day and earns access to a demo-tasting in the main-event kitchen, like Tuesday's chocolate adventure with Scott Lund (above, with silky chunck of cocoa butter) of the artisan, ooh-la-la Lulu's Chocolates. The 9:30-10:30am date includes juices, espresso and breakfast.

Lund took tasters through a wheel of bitter choc and cocoa butter, white and dark, refined and powdered, raw and processed. Some interesting morsels:

• Good chocolate melts in your mouth because cocoa butter responds to body temp—no melt, and you're working with a vegetable-oil based chocolate (imposter!).

• "Chocolate is a commodity," Lund said. "There are only 12 makers in the country, and only one in California." Lulu's buys in bulk, 30,000 Swiss-style pounds per contract, delivered 5,000 pounds a pop, from the Golden State's Peter's Chocolate. "The Swiss flavor is why people love Lulu's," Lund added.

• Real white chocolate is actually off-white because cocoa butter is that color.

• Dark chocolate is healthier—it has a lot more (good) fat and less sugar than other chocoloates, and lots of antioxidants. But: Grandma Lulu only ate milk chocolate and lived to 99.

One breakfastgoer's lap dog foreshadowed the next event there, Saturday's 2-4pm Animal Friends Rescue Project Benefit Pawty. Brandon Miller of Mundaka does a cooking demo, Scott Campbell Photography shoots pet portraits, Cornerstone Wellness Center does a Pet Biofeedback Therapy presentation, Quail Lodge conducts mini massages (for two-leggeds), Paradise Catering provides teas and Ventana pours wines. $40 to a good cause, 50 person max, RSVP to 394-3303.

The next Breakfast Series event is Tuesday, June 15, with tea master Shoko Matsuda leading "Tea Time: A Journey for the Senses." Come Tuesday, July 6, Charlotte Muia of Fattoria Muia Olive Oil leads a 15-oil tasting called "The Mysteries of Olive Oil Revealed." Call the above number for one of the limited slots available.

New Idea: Drinking As Fitness

With a discovery straight from the obscure alcohol-as-health-care file, longtime Weekly food contributor and all-around top tastebuddy Jeanne Howard turned me on to Devotion, a new vodka produced in Northern California and being poured in local watering holes as I type.

It's an 80 proof, triple-distilled vodka with one paradigm-cracking difference: It contains a proprietary infusion of casein, a a protein precipitated from milk and very popular with body-builders and other fitness-minded people. It can be found as a pure supplement in many nutritional stores.

The spirit is the atypical love child of founder Drew Adelman's two passions: nightlife and fitness.

Their idea: “If you're going to be bad, be good!” Hmmm.

The good news is that it was created in San Francisco, original home of the martini, is produced and bottled in San Jose (localvores rejoice) and doing well on taste scorecards. "This vodka has a huge smoothness to it," one reviewer writes, "a medium bodied thickness almost mimicking that of a reposado tequila with a finish that reminds me of Saké."

I like the historic (and poetic) context Howard provides: "From Russian czars to the modern bars of Monterey County, vodka is a blank slate for all of our cocktail hopes and dreams. Though vodka is adored for what it lacks—color, flavor, aroma, hangover-causing congeners, telltale scent on breath—it has been infused with every imaginable kind of edible: fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, roots, flowers, vitamins, sweeteners, vanilla, chocolate. It would seem that nothing new could be added to vodka." Until now.

Check out the Devotion website here. Try the spirit at Piatti Ristorante & Bar in Carmel; The Running Iron in Carmel Valley; The Sandbar, El Palomar, Alfredo's in Monterey; Embassy Suites or American Legion Post in Seaside; Old Town Bar & Grill in Salinas.

I'd love to stick around and tell you more, but I gotta go "work out."

Of Sandals and Sandwiches

Of all the things I love about Vietnam—the little Hanoi beer shops with warm cups of local suds and tiny plastic chairs right there on the side walk, the relentless flood of mopeds, the absurd deals on tailored suits, Saigon's industrial bustle, the fact that their currency is called dong, and you get millions of dong for your dollars—I like a little shirtless senior I met by the river in Hoi An the very best.

We shared no common language, but we shared a plastic table by the river and an afternoon, sipping on fresh push-cart pho and pouring each other beers in short glasses. For as little as we had in common, I am still amazed how much we made one another laugh. When it was time to leave, he offered the barefood backpacker I was at the time his turquoise sandals. After extended protest, I realized it would be a greater insult to deny them. They turned out to be the best I've owned, carrying me across Laos and Thailand (and California a few times over).

The Next Best Thing About Vietnam is as easy to identify: the Vietnamese sandwich. I was there on a shoestring budget, so the $20 cross-country bus ticket and these well-less-than-a-buck mysterious goodies on French baguettes were lifesavers. For as much as I ate them at ubiquitous, often-improvised roadside grills, I never stopped to figure out what was in them beyond fresh herbs and sliced veggies—whatever it was, the tofu-cheese-like textured bulk of the meal was damn good. What I do know for sure is that they've never surfaced around here.

But now three month-young Chopstix (899-2622) on Fremont has added them—to an already rockin' lineup of boba teas, rice and noodle dishes, solid phos and DIY yogurt bar that continue to pack people in—and they arrive fast, 8 inches long on a worthy baguette, and only $3.25. I tried the barbecued pork, which was crisp, crunchy, fresh and fragrant thanks to shards of carrot and pepper, cilantro and onion. I encountered more fat and gristle than I'd like, but hey, the thing is still a steal. The vegetarian, with veggie ham and tofu and the pile of greenery, translated to less taste but less rough spots.

But there was no traditional mystery Vietnamese option (there's steamed pork and meatballs and more but everything seems slightly Americanized). I asked young owner Mikey Nguyen why there wasn't the one I was looking for.

"There is!" the already happy-as-hell 30-year-old entreprenuer told me. It's just not on the menu. The mysterious ingredient? Pâté.

I'll be back for that—and not just because Mikey offered to let me pay him for my sandwiches next time since they only take cash (though I thought that play was damn classy in an old-school neighborly way). Next time I want to wear my turquoise sandals.