Every now and again, a home run.

Over the past couple years there have been a few times a dish knocked my socks off. Here is list in no particular order:

Wolfgang Puck did at his Spago in Beverly Hills, he served a chicken soup with winter vegetables made from a recipe he credits to his Grandmother. This bowl of soup was as perfect as the music created by Salzburg's other Wolfgang, Herr Mozart. The broth was rich clear amber essence of chicken and herbs accompanied by perfectly cooked root vegetables. Amazing and humbling to see somebody reach perfection with transparent simplicity. It was simple but absolutely as perfect as the first act of the Marriage of Figaro or the Ave Verum Corpus.

At the Spago in Caesar’s Palace Wolfie did it again, this time with something his Grandmother never made but mine did. This was a soup of clams and spanish chorizo in a white wine and tomato stock. While his recipe may be based on Basque cooking, it was all but identical to my Grandfather’s favorite Portuguese soup. The briny chewy perfectly cooked clams contrasted with the rich paprika and garlic smoked hard chorizo, the white wine mixed with the clam juice and the olive oil sautéed sofrito of onions, garlic, mild peppers and tomato make a bold savory but direct dish of warmth and depth. A perfect rustic marriage of the land and the sea. And he served it in a large iron pot with a big basket of crusty bread.

Another home run was served at Marin Joe’s on the 101 near San Raphael. This was a large platter of sweetbreads sautéed with mushrooms with wine, onions, herbs and sweet peppers. Awesome. The gamy earthiness of the mushrooms was the counter point to the delicate almost ethereal taste of the sweetbreads while both were bound together by the sherry enriched sauce of herbs and vegetables. Served with big crusty real San Francisco Sour Dough bread this was a memorable nostalgic meal.

Tafelspitz -- Austrian boil beef. Photo from Wikapedia

At a restaurant called with a kitchen and front staff of Hungarians, Maxmilian’s in North Hollywood I had tafelspitz, Austrian style boiled beef for the first time in my life. It has a wonderful concentrated but light real beef flavor served with half a dozen accompaniment including, the best cucumber salad I’ve ever tasted, a zippy sour cream and horseradish sauce, and other small enhancements. I know that in Vienna all the great composers gathered for a lunch of Tafelspitz, a deep satifying meal very much like a deep nostagic but vibrant piano quartet by Brahms. Boiled beef sounds flat in English, but this is not at all dull or boring.

My daughter Mara dazzled me one morning with a magnificent “Dutch Baby” apple pancake that was as rich and velvety as an omelet and sweet and just a bit earthy with still slightly crisp apple slices. The big rich pancake overflowed the large iron skillet she baked itg in and rose with unexpected lightness. It knocked my socks off with its richness and at the same time it’s lightness. Amazing accomplishment.

Finally, I have to include the very simple old fashion sliced tongue in a white wine vinaigrette they served as an appetizer at Noriega’s basque restaurant in Bakersfield. Unexpected, very traditional to the point of being almost a historic relic, this was a wonderful dish that was great in itself and even more an example of real authentic traditional cooking that we should appreciate and seek out much more often. Tongue today is very much an old fashioned item, rarely seen outside those unyielding ethnic cafe like Noriega’s and the other Basque restaurants and in authentic Mexican places where lingua is served and authentic means they cook with Manteca (pork lard) and they got to show you no stinking badges. Not even all Jewish deli’s still serve tongue.

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Balsamic this, balsamic that, so much hooey!

What is it with balsamic vinegar? It shows up in everything. A little saucer with a splash of black pungent balsamic vinegar under a quarter cup of olive oil is the first thing set on the table and unless you are lucky some sort of balsamic sorbet will be the last thing set before you. What is it? It is a long time and esteemed local specialty of Modena Italy. Until it became the vinegar to end all vinegar's, it was a thick sweet caramelized long aged product that played a role in Italian cooking very much like Worcestershire Sauce played in American cooking. It added a savory bass note to dishes and gravies, a few drops went into a Caesar Salad, a few more into a Bloody Mary.

Now it appears in everything and anything. A while back it was kiwi fruit that showed up in all the expected places and in the damnedest places too. Balsamic vinegar has some great uses, but it is not the elixir of love.

Lets talk about vinegar's. There are lots and lots of them and unlike Balsamic most of them are great in salads and other things too. To begin there is red wine vinegar and its twin, white wine vinegar. These are meant to dress salads. The more rustic and Mediterranean, the more it cries out for a good red wine vinegar. The more refined and delicate salads like Bibb or Boston lettuce call for a more refined white wine vinegar. The classic french dressing calls for red wine and olive oil with a bit of salt and pepper and a teaspoon of dry mustard and sweet paprika. A more elegant Parisian Dressing calls for white wine vinegar and olive oil salt pepper and a healthy spoon of smooth Dijon mustard to give tang and emulsify the dressing. Seafood salads call for a tarragon white wine vinegar. Other salads need the robust dark richness of a Sherry Vinegar from Spain, something that is used more in main dishes than on salads where it tends to overwhelm.

There are other vinegar's, for example apple cider vinegar, an amber acid with a hint of apple sweetness, malt vinegar used mainly in the British Isles where its rich sharpness and hint of malt sugar gives a robust bite. In Asia rice vinegar's are the staple, they combine a sharpness with a mild slight sweetness. They are available in their natural state or seasoned and slightly sweetened. These seasoned rice vinegar's are mild enough to dress a salad alone, no oil need which is very useful if you are watching calories.

The one fine vinegar that has fallen out of favor and I regret is tarragon vinegar. In the USA it is usually made with apple cider vinegar, which gives an earth Midwestern flavor. The best Tarragon vinegar's from France and Italy are white wine vinegar's that have a large sprig of tarragon in the bottle to infuse the musky herbal flavor. The one place they are absolutely and vitally necessary is in seafood salads, especially calamari or octopus salads. This is the perfect herb to bring out the subtle briny essence of these particularly ugly but wonderful tasting creatures.

Four Favorite places in Santa Barbara

There is a German saying, “Happy as God in France.” In California we don’t think He would prefer France, but as a writer once put it, “God would live in Santa Barbara, if he could afford it.” When the town was devastated by a major earthquake in 1925 the city fathers decreed that in rebuilding they would do it in a Spanish Colonial Revival style and so we have the city we know today, a west coast Williamsburg where even McDonalds and KFC’s look like 18th century Mexican bodegas and the courthouse looks like a Viceregal Palace. Hundreds of Mexican revival villas and haciendas dot the landscape. Montecito is home to millionaires and Oprah Winfrey with oak trees, stables, formal gardens and the musty smell of old money or barely dry ink aroma of crisp new money.

Far beyond what you might expect in a city its size, Santa Barbara is a center for innovative and traditional restaurants, food stores and bakeries. This is not a review, just quick a summary of places my family likes a lot. There are at least a dozen more I could and should mention. They will get their turn later.

The Summerland Beach Cafe is a small Victorian house with terraces around it. Only open for breakfast and lunch, it does very well thought out California dishes and serves them cheerfully in a welcoming ambiance. Organic, pretty much. Vegetarians are welcome, but they also make a near perfect club sandwich on whole grain bread and make a huge selection of sandwiches, hamburgers, salads, omelets and egg dishes. Even the side dishes like their potato salad, onion rings, cole slaw and garnishes show imagination and nice but not fussy flair. Breakfast or lunch here is our customary first stop on a long weekend or mini vacation in Santa Barbara where sitting in the sun looking over the 101 freeway at the Pacific begins our decompression.

Another favorite is Anderson’s on State Street, a Danish bakery and restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. The bakery is exceptional and has wonderful breads and then pastries that show what very gifted mortals can do with butter, marzipan and skill. They make their own off the chart good orange preserves and raspberry preserve too. They even offer a real Danish breakfast -- no eggs, just a platter with two kinds of rye bread, a huge slice of homemade liver pate, a pile of sweet and salty Danish ham, slices of dill Havarti cheese and some garnishes and samples of their breakfast pastries. Phenomenal. This is usually our last stop where we buy bread, pastries or tubs of fresh fruit preserves to take home.

Not far away is Ca Dario, a small Italian restaurant with a Venetian accent. Lunch there can be a celebration of life. A soup of local shellfish in a briny broth, a platter of homemade zesty Italian sausage & peppers with fried polenta. At night, they serve a striped bass that is magnificent.

Above, the striped bass, below the artichoke salad. Photos by Mara Kelly

Take your time, it is small and often jammed. It is not a red check table cloth ItaloAmerican cafe, but very very much like a cafe in the Veneto, the most cultivated and orderly region of Italy. You would do best to eat a bit later than usual to avoid the meal time tides. Ask the servers about the menu and the day's specials, Ca'Dario is full of unexpected and authentic surprises like their cold artichoke appetizer which is unique and the best salad that doesn’t look like one since the Spanish invented gazpacho.

Finally, there is Cafe Buenos Aries (It originally occupied the small place where Ca Dario is now). My late wife loved this romantic place, especially at night when latin music and tangos were playing and candles and tiny lights lit the courtyard. This is a large restaurant you enter through a courtyard with arcades on two sides and outside fireplaces. The dinning room is tile floored and feels like it has been there a hundred years. They mix all the great national cocktails of the Americas (mojitos, caipirinhas, pisco sours, margaritas and more). They then serve steaks that are either flown up from the Pampas or cut locally in the Argentine manner. These are served with perfect fried potatoes and chimichurri, the herbal tangy national condiment. Romantic is the only adjective.

Andersen's Danish Bakery & Restaurant

1106 State St

Santa Barbara, CA 93101

(805) 962-5085

www.andersenssantabarbara.com

Ca' Dario

37 E Victoria Street

Santa Barbara, CA 93101

(805) 884-9419

www.cadario.net

Cafe Buenos Aires

1316 State Street

Santa Barbara, CA 93101

(805) 963-0242

Summerland Beach Cafe

2294 Lillie Ave

Summerland, CA 93067

(805) 969-1019

In Glendale, tastes from the Balkans & Buenos Aries

Elena's

One hidden away gem is a little place on Glendale Avenue called Elena’s. Run by a couple of Armenian ladies, this little place serves what my Bulgarian friend Boiko says is real Balkan soul food. The style is a mix of Greek, Turkish & Armenia staples that is not dumbed down for American taste. A great favorite with the LAPD from the near by Northeast Station and the local Glendale cops too, Elena's offers wonderful simple healthy food in a combination of Greek, Armenian, Turkish and Lebanese styles. All the dinner plates come with either a bowl of soul filling lentil soup or a very nice salad of lettuce tomatoes, onion, herbs and a vinegar lemon juice dressing that is just sharp and zesty enough to set off the vegetables. The following dinner plates are a large serving of rice pilaf with a grilled Anaheim pepper and a grilled tomato with onions and a side dish of pickled cabbage and other vegetables that is sort of mild Balkan take on kimchi. On this generous plate you can get various kabobs: chicken, lula, beef, lamb or a combination of them plus felafel, stuffed egg plant, stuffed grape leaves and a few other meatless dishes. The meats are well seasoned in the tangy Balkan Levantine way and full of zest without hiding or distorting their natural flavor. For myself, I almost always get a combo plate with one stick of lamb kabobs and the other of herb dusted chicken. While there is no beer or wine, a wide variety of soft drinks are available including the house made yogurt drink which is the prefect drink to go with the food. Finally some more good news about Elena’s is that almost all the dinners are less than ten dollars. They also have take out and also make pita sandwiches.

El Morfi

Another little place that I enjoy for its honest ethnic focus and direct simplicity is El Morfi, a block south of Porto’s Bakery on Brand across the street from the Alex Theater. An Argentine place, El Morfi (BA slang for a snack or quick bite) serves food in the unique Italo-Latino style of Buenos Aries. For example on the menu you will see “ñque” which really puzzled me until the young waiter explained it was how you spelled “Gnocchi” in Spanish. "¡ñque, ñque, ñque!" It is that kind of place.

What I particularly like there is their salad, an Argentine version of a chopped salad in a clean vinaigrette, papas Provenzale -- great french fries salted then tossed with garlic and parsley and their milanesas. The Neopalitana is a wide thin breaded beef cutlet topped with a herby marinara sauce and melted provolone and a few strips of roasted red pepper. (You can get chicken milanesas if you prefer.) There are many other dishes including pasta, pizza, empanadas and other Argentine specialties. They carry a good selection of wine and beer from “BA” and make a very flavorful house made Sangria that is not too sweet but very full of red wine character. Prices are quite fair, cheap by those used to the West Side and Santa Monica. It is a simple little place popular with both English and Spanish speakers.

And then there is the real reason to enjoy El Morfi, their home made Chimichurri. This condiment is addictive, it sings with herbs, teases with the smoothness of olive oil, it enchants with herbal complexity, and pinches your tongue with a tang and a zing. I dip bread in it, and spoon the green and golden elixir over the papas provenzale. I think I could eat cardboard dipped in. It is made in house and can be bought in mason jars and taken home. Don't miss it.

There is a story the the name Chimichurri comes from the name of Irish soldier who fought with Argentine rebel army in their war of Independence from Spain, Jimmy McCurry. Who knows? I suppose you could even say El Morfi is Irish too, a phonetic spelling of Murphy. I had an old nun when I was a child who said whenever you have a good story, there usually was an Irishman as the bottom of it.

Other places you should know about in Glendale are Damon’s, which has been there since the 1930’s. It looks like a local take on the Trader Vic’s, Don the Beachcomber school of Tiki restaurant. While it serves a wide variety of Tiki Room rum and fruit juice drinks in the grand Dorothy Lamour, Hope & Crosby “Road” pictures style, the menu is very much old time LA steakhouse. Near by is Jax’s, a bit more up scale but also long time LA steak house.

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A few words about Glendale.

Glendale does not make it that often into the food blogs, however occasionally a local place gets attention. For example, not long ago the food writer of the LA Weekly discovered Billy’s Deli on Orange Street. He liked it and was surprised it had slipped his attention since it has been there for over 50 years and has been used in movies and TV series as the interior for a New York deli or old fashioned Italian restaurant depending on what ethnic decorations replace the photo murals of pre-WW II Glendale. Billy’s makes all the New York Jewish Deli standards and have well priced daily specials. When many deli’s are drifting farther and father away from their traditions Billy’s stay close to the old ways. On the hottest day of summer the year at an outlet of the Jerry’s Deli’s chain, a Latino waitress tells me that don’t served cold beet borscht because nobody but a few old guys ever ordered it. That was as shocking as finding an Irish saloon that didn’t served Jameson’s or an English pub that didn’t have Fuller’s London Pride. What is the world coming to?

Billy's, how authentic is it? One example, they serve a breakfast special of fried baloney & eggs. It is quarter inch thick slices of Hebrew National Baloney fried until there is a scorched crust. You can't get much more old time authentic than that. My daughter says it is too disgusting to even think about. Hey, but does she know about real food. I have it on good authority that President Obama likes Spam Fried Rice just like everybody who grew up in Honolulu.

Another place that I feel is unfairly omitted from most food blogs is Mario’s Italian Market on Broadway. Mario’s is an old fashioned Italian market like there used to be all over San Francisco, San Jose and the rest of the Bay Area and many other parts of the country. My daughter last year had a problem with her foot and went to see a specialist recently moved to the San Fernando Valley from New Jersey. During one appointment the Doctor said that he had not been able to find a real old time Italian Market. Mara told him he should try Mario’s in Glendale. The next time she saw him he told her, “Thanks for telling me about Mario’s. Ya’ know, I opened the door and it smelled just like I was back in New Jersey.”

At Mario’s they make dozens of Italian hero sandwiches with a wide variety of salami’s, sausages, and other cured meats on their own torpedo shaped rolls. I always ask for no mustard or mayonnaise but extra olive oil and vinegar dressing. Mario’s carries a wide range of Italian and other Mediterranean imports, anchovies, canned fish, dozens and dozens kinds of pasta, cookies, candy, olive oil, vinegar's, spices, olives, etc., etc. Personally I would rate their hero sandwiches as good or better than those at Bay Cities in Santa Monica, but that is just me and doesn’t mean that I don’t think Bay Cities is a fine place.

Billy’s Deli & Café

216 N. Orange Street, Glendale, CA 91203

Phone: (818) 246-1689 | Fax: (818) 246-3210

Mario's Italian Deli & Catering

740 East Broadway

Glendale, CA (818) 242-4114

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