Category: travel

fried zucchini flowers

mario batali.  I kind of struggle with him.  I don’t know what it is exactly, the crocs, the red hair, the attitude.  I feel like he really knows the food of  Italy but is a know it all at the same time.  Maybe, as in most things, it’s just me.  The undisputed fact is that he does have restaurants in LA.  So, based on glowing comments of published food writers and sorely missing decent pizza crust we made a reservation to eat at Pizzeria Mozza.  It is in Hollywood off of Melrose so added to our forays over packed highways.  We took the groom to be with us and were seated in a side room panelled with bookshelves filled with old tomes and bottles of wine-taking me into what I vaguely felt could be a old road house set someplace in a European winter.  In our run down of the menu we saw ricotta filled deep fried squash blossoms.  We have seen them all over food television and had a real desire to give them a try.  They had a mildly earthy flavor that I couldn’t place as zucchini.  It was interesting but didn’t leave me wanting them on any kind of daily basis.

A bit dark but I didn’t feel right using the flash

The pizza however -divine.  We ordered three, a funghi and fontina, a pepperoni and fresno chile and a bacon, potato and egg.  I judiciously sampled my way through all three.  The pepperoni and fresno is the kind of pizza you crave.  The dough was amazing-crusty and thin but still with a chew.  The pepperoni for flavor and mouth feel along with the heat of the chile.  I could eat it weekly so it is a good thing it is a couple thousand miles for takeout.  The funghi was loaded with several varieties of mushrooms but the Bacon, potato and egg was a glory with a raw egg just beginning to cook on top of crisped porky bacon and thinly sliced potatoes.  Amazingly oozy and satisfying in the way only an egg can be.   If this is the real food of Italy, and of Mario Batali, my respect has been gained.

we went to the Los Angeles area last week for a wedding of a lifelong friend of Z.  He was one of two ‘best men’ which is to say that unsurprisingly Joel did not play favorites.  We figured that while in LA we had better try food that we can’t get at home.  Our reward for getting up at 3am to catch our flight was to have lunch at the Border Grill Stop.  Border Grill Stop is a teeny tiny lunch spot carved out of what could easily be a coffee bar or bus stop and is the brainchild of Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger (recentely of Top Chef Masters) and was right in downtown LA amid the skyscrapers.  It was kind of incredible what they produced out of this little spot.  We had some amazing tacos on soft corn tortillas.  I had a potato rajas and a citrus chicken taco along with a spinach empanada.  They came with the most incredible green sauce that was super bright and if I could replicate it I would do it today and eat it on eggs daily.  I have a recent and new abiding love of this type of mexican style cooking.  Z had the daily special of lamb tacos with beans and rice.  We capped it off with some yummy churro tots and a side of barely sweetened cinnamon spiked whipping cream.  It was a highly auspicious start to our trip.

a bad photo for a yummy treat

when I heard that macaron’s were the new cupcakes I couldn’t imagine how it could be so.  They are ultra pricey and such a fleeting wisp of a bite.  They are highly flavorful but don’t leave me with the satisfaction of a cupcake.  Maybe I am selling them short but I haven’t been convinced.   One thing I have seen over and over in blogs and magazines this summer is the paleta.  A paleta is the Mexican ice pop made with fresh fruit.  The idea has been further expanded to the most unbelievable flavors that are all over the place.  We stopped into a great little place called Spuntino for dessert.  They have the most luscious gelatos and a reach in filled with a dazzling array of paletas.  I had a great Vietnamese iced coffee and Z had black pepper honeydew.  Mine was incredibly refreshing and cool on a hot night.  The honeydew was really interesting and weighty in flavor with a hit of pepper left on your tongue.  If you see a food truck or street vendor selling a paleta-pick one up and be prepared for a cold pop of flavor.

alarm clocks aside, we stopped in for breakfast with friends at Snooze Southglenn during our vacation.  An ‘AM Eatery‘ devoted to high energy creative breakfast dishes that highlights the mighty pancake.  They have a creative breakfast menu and I really wanted something other than pancakes but couldn’t quite resist at least trying them.  I had a flight of pancakes that included sweet potato (light and fluffy, by far my favorite), the blue mesa (blue corn with corn inside and chile maple syrup) and the daily special of toffee bacon which was filled with – toffee and bacon (overly sweet for me).  I had a cup of their specially sourced Guatemalan coffee and found it to be a bit week.  Z had lovely breakfast pot pie of puff pastry filled with rosemary sausage gravy (I am going to figure this out… I swear it) and scrambled eggs with a pretty side of nondescript hash browns.  While I wished I would have had eggs our time with our friends was sweet.