Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 99

LudoBites 8.0, Lemon Moon

Imagine a restaurant that's not really a restaurant but, rather, an event that will exist for only a limited period of time. What you've just imagined is a pop-up restaurant, a phenomenon that's sweeping the food world and that's been spearheaded, mostly, by L.A.'s Ludo and Krissy Lefebvre. I met them both back in July when they came over to my New York apartment (what!) and I fed them a piece of Melissa Clark's pecan chocolate chip loaf cake. We talked about the fact that I was moving to L.A. and how, once I got here, I'd have to eat at LudoBites. They offered no help, though, in securing a reservation. I'd be on my own. I was ok with that.

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Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting

What's a birthday dinner without birthday cake?

There has to be cake. And after polling Craig on his preferred dinner option (the aforementioned birthday lasagna), I queried him about cake. His response: "Yellow cake with chocolate frosting, please." That's when a hyperlink appeared in my brain sending me to this cake recipe from Smitten Kitchen.

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Birthday Lasagna

For Craig's birthday this year, I didn't take him to a fancy dinner as I've done in years past (see here, here and here). This year his birthday had two components: (1) a dinner at home with his favorite foods; and (2) a weekend trip to Palm Springs. You'll hear about Palm Springs later this week, but this post concerns that dinner at home. When I asked what he wanted for his entree, Craig, a little like Garfield, had one word in his speech balloon: "Lasagna."

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Three Chicken Dinners: Meyer Lemon Stuffed Chicken Breast, Italian Sweet & Sour Chicken & Chicken with Lentils and Marsala Gravy

If you cook the same thing over and over and over again, eventually you get really good at it.

That's what happened with me and chicken: I'm really good at cooking it. And though there are many who find chicken boring, that's usually because chicken, when stripped of its skin and bones, is, indeed, very boring. So the first rule is: never cook chicken without the skin or bones. The second rule is: be generous with salt. I've quoted this often, because I never forgot it; when Mario Batali had his old Food Network show he showered a raw chicken with salt and said: "No one ever says 'this chicken's too salty.'" He's right–and that salt makes a huge difference.

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The Eggslut

Confession: Before Saturday, I'd never been to a food truck.

Predicted reaction: WHAT?! OH MY GOD!? YOU'RE A FOOD WRITER AND YOU'VE NEVER BEEN TO A FOOD TRUCK OH MY GOD I'M TOTALLY NOT GOING TO READ YOU ANYMORE AND I'M BURNING MY COMPUTER RIGHT NOW TO RID IT OF YOUR EMBARRASSING HUMILIATING ATTEMPT AT BEING A DECENT HUMAN BEING.

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Cupidity

It's a day early, but the new banner's up and I think you'll get a kick out of it. I play Cupid (hence my posing nude; don't worry, that's a pre-gym picture), bringing together three unlikely pairs Lady & The Tramp style. Thanks to Lindy (the banner designer) for pulling this off! See a gallery of Lindy's previous work here.

Green Drinks and Coconut Water

Little by little, bit by bit, L.A. is chipping away at me. First: I joined a gym. Then I started cooking quinoa. Most recently, I met my friend Isaac (pictured above) in Silverlake for coffee; only Intelligentsia was so packed, we agreed to a change of venue and journeyed down the street to a juice bar. Isaac ordered the green concoction that you see him holding and I bought myself a coconut water.

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Honey Butter Biscuits

Andrew Carmellini, in his new book American Flavor, shares a biscuit recipe that he calls "the world's best biscuits." This is a bold claim, even for a chef as revered as Carmellini, but in his defense, when he started serving biscuits (and fried chicken) at his pre-The Dutch Italian restaurant, Locanda Verde, the critics gushed. In fact, while working on a different book proposal, I called Carmellini to have him coach me through biscuit-making on the phone. The man knew his stuff.

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Pig: A Restaurant

[Photo credit: Gothamist]

We just saw a hilarious skewering of the food world at L.A.'s U.C.B. (Upright Citizens Brigade) called "Pig: A Restaurant." Actress Lauren Adams tackles everyone from Gael Greene to David Chang in this play written by Leila Cohan-Miccio and directed by Caitlin Bitzegio. Based on real world food experiences (Leila ran the blog Grub Street and Lauren worked at Balthazar and D.B. Bistro Moderne), the show imagines a Brooklyn restaurant called Pig: A Restaurant where the hostess answers the phone "This is Pig: A Restaurant, I'm Aurora: A Hostess." Like most hip restaurants nowadays, every dish there is made with pork (to the chagrin of the owner's dead husband's kosher-keeping parents) and the signature drink is a Brooklyn ("which is the same as a Manhattan, except you drink it in Brooklyn.") The show flies along at a clip and for anyone with passing knowledge of the food world (at the opening night party, Thomas Keller is turned away because he's "not on the list") you're bound to appreciate the knowing, wicked humor of these very talented restaurant industry vets. And if you're in L.A. you're in luck: there's another show on February 2nd at 7 PM. Go see it; you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll crave pork belly.

Bäco Mercat & La Casita Mexicana

Two things are making me more of a restaurant adventurer here in L.A. than I was in New York: (1) nicer weather and (2) a car. In New York, on the bitterest, most miserable days of January, I would stick to a very specific loop that involved lunch at Hummus Place, coffee at Joe, and a slushy trek home. Here in L.A., it's just a matter of unlocking my car door, rolling down the windows, cranking up the Original Cast Recording of "Next To Normal" and hitting the road.

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