Another Chapter in Finding Great Value

Last time I checked, a night out in the lil' ol' underrated epicurean capital of international tastes that is Marina, Calif., jumping from Wild Thyme to Kula Ranch to D'Anna Thai to Coffee Mia, with maybe a bottle of Hahn Chardonnay and a bottle of Manzoni's superb Pinot thrown in, would run about $337.

Thursday, July 22, it costs $25. And there's a lot less driving.

The sixth annual International Flavors of Marina takes over The Dunes on Monterey Bay 5:30-8:30pm.

I remember the first International Flavors of Marina the city's chamber put on at UCMBEST by the airport. It was great—lively, welcoming, familial, and with more than a few discoveries to be made—a very solid value all around.

Now, whether it's the prevailing economic winds that continue to blow chills down our collective spine or the fact that they've only added restaurants and wineries as Marina has grown, the value feels even better.

There will be Marianne's ice cream, sparkling sippers from Chateau Sinnet, pannini from Coffee Mia Brew Bar, curry from D’Anna Thai Kitchen, queso from El Palmar and fresh produce from Everyone’s Harvest Farmers Market.

And the Chard from Hahn Winery, the Pinot from Manzoni Estate, island inspiration from Kula Ranch, and still other treats assembled by the 25-plus purveyors of flavor—The Ginger People, Tico's, Scheid, Otter Bay and Wild Thyme among them.

Live music, motorcycle displays and a tiki lounge upgrade the experience.

Not a bad way to stretch $25—and a silent auction means potentially more value to swoop upon.

Amen Marina.

Regestering Victory

It was midconversation late in the evening at last Thursday’s Stag’s Leap wine dinner at C Restaurant (375-4800) when Executive Chef Jerry Regester cracked a wide grin and said, “I’m having fun.”

When people have fun doing things they love, good things tend to happen. When said people are as talented as Regester, those things tend to be damn tasty.

Of course, by the time he told us he was loving the pairing inspiration, he had already shown us four different ways.

The short silo he constructed with sashimi grade wild king salmon, English peas and small slices of asparagus paralleled the 2007 Stag’s Leap Sauvignon Blanc in delivering clean, clear essence of incredible ingredients. (It was irrisitable enough that I couldn’t resist pouncing before taking a picture of its sleek presentation.)

A final magic ingredient was almost as rare as the fish caught during the super-small salmon season, and emanated from a tour/tasting Regester co-hosted during Cooking for Solutions this spring with David Masumoto. He liked the pioneering organic farmer’s peaches so much he pickled a batch and snuck some bits in the tartare salad. Yes and yum.

The sea scallop that came next made the Pacific proud with sweet and smoky carmelized pancetta-wrapped edges, a heart as tender as Mother Teresa’s and a brown-butter-and-black-truffle sauce that is irresponsible to attempt to approximate in words.

With a nibble of the grilled white corn that flanked its flavor and a sip of single vineyard 2007 Chardonnay from Stag’s Leap—someone aptly called it the essence of the Chard grape—it was a tabernacle choir-style hallelujahs on the palate. My tasting menu got some exclamation points scribbled on it with that one.

The wonder among wonders with the wines came next with Stag’s Leap leggy 100 percent 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon from its Fay vineyard. Look no further than the SL estate-grown cabs for irrefutable evidence that these guys get grapes, and deserve their status as one of Napa’s most distinguished dynasties.

Regester had fun with this pairing too, dropping a delicately smoked lamb rib chop with a clever stuffing spinoff he called porcini mushroom bread pudding and maple cap mushroom sauce.

We were already debating the impossible—which pairing was the most profound—when a closer to remember entered the game. The cheese course looked more like teased cheesecake or fluffy ice cream than what you’d expect from the cheese family. But whoah.

The whipped goat cheese and fromage blanc with spiced Hollister cherry compote and cocoa honey was world beating. This is why critics “rave” instead of simply partying. And the 2005 Merlot helped a touch.

The best news of the evening might be that chef is rotating some of these seasonal treats through his tasting menu, which changes every week. And the wine dinners continue, with

For more on the many other C Restaurant deals—from live music to happy hour scores—check out a recent post on the summer action there.

(Photos by Kelly Rose Anderson—besides the lame initial shot of the salmon. Check out more of her work here.)

We Heart Garlic

This weekend's L.A. Times Travel page says there's more to Gilroy than garlic.

Not that writer Scott Martelle doesn't first acknowledge the upcoming wonder that is the Gilroy Garlic Festival.

"The big attraction, of course, is the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival," it reads, "now in its fourth decade and expected to draw about 100,000 people to this small farm community during the July 23-25 weekend. It's the ultimate in do-gooder events, with thousands of local volunteers working to raise more than $500,000, half to be distributed to 150 local agencies."

But the punchline of the piece is this: "Yet there's more to Gilroy than the annual garlic throw-down. Gilroy could do a better job trumpeting its history and its agriculture, but it's a nice spot for a weekend getaway, or as part of a trip through a largely hidden pocket of old California with more than a dozen nearby Santa Clara wineries separated from Watsonville and Monterey Bay by a beautiful 45-minute drive through the Santa Cruz Mountains' Hecker Pass."

True dat. Read the piece here.

How to Eat Nothing and Love It (and Other Things I Have in Common With Demi Moore and Aston

Suddenly the Lemonade Diet, the time-honored regimen where the cleanser takes in only a blend of fresh lemon juice, purified water, cayenne pepper and maple syrup (and some teas), is trending near the top of Yahoo! topics.

Turns out our favorite self-absorbed celebrities, Demi Moore and Aston Kucher, are rinsing their intestines with the uniquely purifying-and-energizing juice.

It was a year ago next week that the Weekly ran a cover story exploring the odyssey, one that for this cleanser represented a cultural experience to rank right up there with chewing coco leaves in the Andes and sharing a moped with a Spanish man, a Cambodian woman and a moped-taxi driver named Charlie in Phnom Penh.

You suddenly study your scat like a tracker. You spend hours squeezing lemons. And you learn lessons you didn't neccessarily anticipate. I unearther 10 across 10 days without eating. Check those out here.

In N Out Off Menu Moment

Rather than spend my energy penetrating one of the most intricate mysteries of the food universe—why In N Out employees are so damn happy—I’d rather direct it toward what unknown plunder lies off the In N Out (800-786-1000) menu. At least beyond the fabled “4 by 4.” (For the uninformed, that’s like a double Double Double, with four patties and four pieces of cheese; “teenagers and athletes like to order those,” one typically estactic employ told me.)

Before I started quizzing the smiley kid in the little white paper hat—somehow, the normal centipede line had evaporated to allow me to do so without holding it up—I had prior knowledge of the 4X4, the 3X3, and often ordered half-strawberry/half-chocolate shakes, animal style fries (despite the spendy-by-comparison $3.20 tag) and grilled cheese (with grilled onions).

So the young guy looked a little deflated when I asked for more off-the-radar riches besides the first few he rattled off. But then came some fun ones, like a shake that takes my strawberry-chocolate play a step further, a triple flavor treat they fittingly call the Neopolitan, and the flying Dutchman, two patties and two pieces of cheese, no bun. He also mentioned the rootbeer float.

You can customize burgers and buns in ways most are unaware of. Burgers can be mustard grilled, given chopped cascabella peppers on the bottom or layered with extra tomatoes, lettuce or onion for no charge; buns can be extra toasted, lightly toasted or untoasted—or swapped out for a lettuce sheaf in the "protein" version popular among Atkins freaks. Fries can be had well-done/extra crispy, "light well" and "light," salt-free and with just cheese.

Remember to ask for some piping little yellow cascabellas.

Salinas curently hosts the county's only outpost; word that the western chain might set up an outpost in Seaside generated as many Weekly reader comments as any recent food news.

The latest on that front: Seaside redevelopment manager Richard Glenn told me "we're still working though the process." Since it's in the coastal zone additional scrutiny will be paid by the Coastal Commission.

Environmental impact reports are planned to take a look at the issues, particularly traffic-related, of putting an In N Out at 1350 Del Monte Blvd.

"We haven't gotten any negative feedback," he says, "but it's a long process."

He says the soonest animal style advocates can plan on hearing that there's a project is mid 2011, which would also mark the start of construction.

Come Again Cupcakes

Weekly intern extraordinaire Ellen Huet was dispatched to scope grand opening weekend at Mrs. Delish's in Monterey, which Special Edible the Blog recently previewed. Here's what she came back with:

The grand opening at Mrs. Delish’s was a tiny affair in many ways: as with most boutiques, the store size is on the cozy side, but what it lacks in size, it made up for in sweet-toothed intensity.

The desserts of honor, carefully arranged on three-tiered display towers, go well beyond your basic flavors, including chocolate peanut butter, Oreo, coconut and double strawberry.

The storefront’s balloons brought in a steady stream of inquiring passersby, and Mrs. Delish herself and assistants were busy restocking the display and handling the customers faced with the difficult choice: which one to sample?

The chocolate coconut?

The everpopular red velvet?

The chocolate mint?

All this wasn’t enough to distract me from my epicurean conquest of the afternoon: the banana cupcake with cream cheese frosting (above). The cake hinted at banana bread while enjoying a much lighter buoyancy, and the cream cheese frosting—while sweeter than expected—was still a welcome aberration from the saccharine buttercream frosting that overdoses most.

Two of my favorite things to do are going to the beach and singing in the car. This was better than singing in the car on the way to the beach.

Mrs. Delish—or, sans fictitious name, Mary Font—started the cupcakes after a stint as a P.G. stay-at-home mom and began selling them at Pacific Grove, then later, Monterey farmers markets. But the store, she says, is a new milestone. “We’re just so excited to have our own place,” she says, before excusing herself to deliver a shipment of cupcakes to the farmers market. Let them eat cake.

Super Sub

In the name of chain warfare, there is a rather robust weapon available against the Subway onslaught snuggled between Verizon and Marshall's in Sand City: locally-owned Jersey's Subs (899-7677).

I've been meaning to check out their new salad bar for a minute, since there is a dearth of strong options around here. [Crazy Horse (649-4771) at the Munras exit off Highway 1 in Monterey and Jacks in the Portola Hotel (649-2698) top my short list—ask for the locals deal at Jacks, which our food writer Tony Seton just reviewed and save $2, BTW.]

The short of the all-you-can-eat salad bar: There are four lettuces including spinach; eight dressings; about 3o different toppings; basic fruit, macaroni and pasta salads; and individually wrapped squares of cornbread and some 4-inch rolls baked on site every morning.

It all arrives for just $7.95, $.50 off with a coupon that's been running in the Weekly.

But that same coupon has $1 off the turkey-avocado-bacon sub or the hot pastrami reuben—$8.75 instead of $9.75 for the TAB monster with the works on house-baked wheat you're looking at above—so I had to demur. Damn good and messy sandwich made me feel good about the decision.

I split it and the reuben (above) with a friend (actually split them with several friends, they're that big). A slim looker in line told us "I could eat [their reuben] every day. I'm buying one for now and one for later. I'm all for taste."

Consider her a sub teacher.