Anne Fishbein

the invisible restaurant critic

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Dear Mr. Gold:
Is there anywhere in L.A. where I can find angulas -- Spanish baby eels?
--Anthony Pan, via Facebook

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​Fire and rice. No, James Taylor has not released a new album. We're talking about paella. Really good Paella by Castillan chef Alberto Herraiz, owner of Fogón, a tapas bar in, of all places, Paris. Yeah, it's going to be one of those summers of sweaty culinary contradiction. Aren't they all.

The just-released cookbook - with a very cool white cloth cover trimmed in red stitching, incidentally -- is highly focused on the subject at hand. As the press release reminds us, "Most people don't realize that [paella] can be savory or sweet, and can include ingredients as diverse as rabbit and crab, coconut and mango. Paella doesn't even have to be made with rice - it can be made with bulgur, quinoa, or almost any other grain. Alberto Herraiz presents [paella's] limitless variations."

Great. So how's the book?

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Ben Calderwood

Slivers of Jamon Ibérico glisten

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Consider for a moment the casual brutality of the jamonera, little more than a wooden plank and a upright clamp in which to mount a leg of ham. The shank end is secured to the clamp via a spike or bolts, making it easy to shave the gelatinous flesh from the bone. It's a utilitarian apparatus, albeit one conceived for the exclusive purpose of butchering the skinned and dismembered thigh of a hog. One cannot deny the fascination, even appeal, of such an atavistic display, where no attempt is made to disguise the carnality of the act.

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La Vida

​Memories of the Columbia Bar & Grill become increasingly distant with each successive new restaurant that occupies the building at the southeast corner of Sunset and Gower. Sort of like thinking back to the Harry Cohn era of Columbia Pictures during the studio's -- and the establishment's former namesake -- Coca-Cola years. The Patina Group's Pinot Hollywood and eat. on sunset gave the space a go but couldn't make the magic happen, and starting this past Tuesday, La Vida Restaurant and Lounge tries to inject some, er, life into the spot. Maybe using the two hospitality categories that have firmly supplanted the "bar and grill" titles preferred in the 80s and 90s will make a difference.

Sunset Entertainment Group (Pig N' Whistle, Cabana Club) has chosen Southern Spain as the inspirational jumping off point for decor by Touster Wright Design and California-Spanish eclectic lunch, happy hour, dinner, and late night menus by Executive Chef Joseph Panarello (formerly of Rivera). Specialties include baked black cod with verde sauce and Serrano ham, crispy squid with aji amarillo chile aioli, heirloom tomatoes with burrata and curried eggplant, black bean brushed quail, champagne braised branzino, various paellas, and anchiote rubbed Kurobuta pig steak with braised raisins.

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Ferran Adrià knows how to control a news cycle like an immersion circulator, although he'd probably rather not be at the center of this one. Last week The New York Times broke the story that Adria's famed restaurant elBulli was closing permanently, only to have Adria refute the story in a Spanish newspaper the next day. Yesterday Time Magazine wrote that Adria won't close his restaurant, at least not exactly, so much as reinvent it. ElBulli will be turned into a a nonprofit foundation, a "think tank" where young chefs will explore new culinary directions.

elBulli.com

elBulli Restaurant Flow Chart

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Photo credit: Anne Fishbein

Mr. Gold, with dim sum menu

​Dear Mr. Gold:
I love this big giant melting pot we live in, but why do we have such little representation of Spanish food? Am I missing something?
--Matt Armendariz

Dear Mr. Armendariz:
Probably because L.A.'s best maker of charcuterie, La Espanola, is Spanish, the flavors of Spain have never been easier to find in Los Angeles: Its great chorizo shows up on the menus of local tapas joints and hamburger boutiques, expensive French restaurants and downscale deli counters. The Iberico and Manchego it imports make it into supermarket cheese displays, and the acorn-fed Iberico ham is an object of desire in almost every high-end restaurant in town. The custom of serving Spanish membrillo, quince paste, with cheese is everywhere. Canny wine drinkers have learned to look to wines from Monsant and Jumilla where once they depended on Chianti. Spanish expats Placido Domingo, Pau Gasol and Penelope Cruz are hometown heroes.

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You probably already know him as the second best player on the defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers. But what you probably don't know (unless you read our September interview with Lakers trainer Gary Vitti) is that he's also the team's resident foodie. He is, after all, from Spain. Squid Ink caught up with a relaxed Pau Gasol after practice in Phoenix on Sunday, just hours removed from the team's double overtime win against the Sacramento Kings.

NBAE/Getty Images

Pau Gasol

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It's a jungle out there. Angelenos text while driving, arguments break out in parking lots over front row spots, parking cops hover like vultures, and locavores throw elbows for choice produce. Shopping at our city's farmers markets and gourmet grocers may fill the larder, but venturing out of the house can be downright hazardous. Add the fact that Los Angeles measures more than four hundred square miles, and suddenly shopping for a handful of key ingredients can seem like a high stakes, cross-country journey.

Maybe that's why so many modern hunters and gathers shop for specialty foods online. If facing clogged streets makes your stomach lurch, here's a list of the top 10 sites for purchasing food and gourmet gifts online.

Brooke Burton

Gourmet Home Delivery

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It may not always look like it, with the limos circling the driveway and the fashion-intensive hotel guests filling the 'indoor piazza' and an interior design that resembles an unlikely confluence of Salvador Dali and Monty Python, but The Bazaar is at heart a tapas restaurant. And on the menu, in addition to miso linguini and 'Hilly cheesesteak,' you will find a plate of simple sautéed garlic shrimp. The dish, which has been on the menu at The Bazaar since it opened--and on the menu at José Andrés' Washington, D.C. restaurant Jaleo for about the last 15 years--takes less than 15 minutes to make and requires the kind of basic ingredients that you can pick up at any Latin market or Vons.

Sous chef Michael Turner, who has also been at The Bazaar since it opened and who was on hand for a quick cooking demo yesterday, says that the trick to the dish is not to overcook the shrimp. As far as garnishing the seafood, which at the restaurant is served over pretty dots of parsley purée and confit garlic purée, Turner says that "we just try and elevate it. At home, just add a bit of parsley at the end." You can always order it at the The Bazaar ("that's the one dish that's never leaving"), but try making it at home. Dress up in a little Balenciaga number and get some dry ice for the bar if you need a little more atmosphere. The recipe is after the jump.

Photo credit: Amy Scattergood

Gambas al ajillo at The Bazaar

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Photo Courtesy of Bar Celona

Bar Celona, host of the Pink Slip Mixer in Pasadena.

​The unemployed don't take holidays, so this Labor Day, Pink Slip Mixers are being hosted in cities across the country, with our local version being held at Bar Celona Restaurant in Pasadena, with complementary water and soda. The goal is to use social media tools, as well as actual human interaction, to help those without jobs find work.

At the last Pink Slip Mixer, with the aid of day-long coverage by CNN and updates via Twitter and Facebook, over 500 guests attended the event. Pink Slip Mixers is not a job fair, but rather a volunteer community event in which ordinary people come together to help each other during a tough economic time.

The wholly non-profit festivities kick off this Monday, September 7th , with social networking classes at 2 PM, and the event itself at 3 PM.

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