a nice little salad

Green bean salad with soy-Banyuls vinaigrette

• 1/4 lb green beans, tops removed
• 1/4  small red onion
• 1 stalk celery
• 4 radishes
• 3 oz baked or smoked firm tofu, cut into 1-inch batons
• A large bowl of ice water
• 2 Tbs soy sauce
• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 2 Tbs Banyuls vinegar
• Dash toasted sesame oil

Bring a large pot of salted water (it should taste like the ocean) to a rolling boil. Add green beans and cook until bright green and tender, 2-3 minutes depending on size. Plunge into ice water to stop their cooking. Once cool, remove from water and place on a towel-lined try to drain. If the green beans are large and thick, you can split them down the middle to make them more dainty.

Using a mandoline or knife, slice the celery, onion and radishes as thin as possible lengthwise. Place the sliced vegetables in the ice water for 20-30 minutes, then drain on the tray with the green beans.

Once all the vegetables are dry, mix them gently in a bowl with the remaining ingredients. Serve chilled.

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it was 42 degrees last night

That’s 6 degrees Celsius. So I made lentil soup. And I’ve decided that every time I cook something, I’m going to publish it to my little corner of the Web.

• 1 small yellow onion, 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks, 6 cremini mushrooms, small dice (1/4 in)
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped (2mm)
• 1 tsp chopped thyme
• 1 Roma tomato, small dice (1/4 in)
• 1 cup red lentils, rinsed
• 1/2 cup beluga or Du Puy lentils, rinsed
• 4 quarts chicken stock or water
• Salt
• A squeeze of lemon
• 1 qt (a generous handful) baby spinach leaves
• 3 tsp. unsalted butter

In a 6 quart or larger pot, heat the butter until foamy. Add onion, carrots, celery, mushrooms, garlic and thyme, season with salt, cover, and cook over medium heat until onions are translucent (around 10 minutes).

Add both kinds of lentils, the tomato, and the chicken stock or water. Season with salt and bring to a simmer. Cook over low heat until the beluga/De Puy lentils are cooked through, around 45 minutes. The red lentils will dissolve, thickening the soup.

Just before serving, give the soup a final seasoning, and add the spinach and a squeeze of lemon to taste. Give the soup a quick stir to wilt the spinach, then serve.

Yield: About 3 quarts.

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a plate of cold jellyfish makes me want a box of sharp objects

The company that I work for Monday through Friday (let’s call it “Lazydouche”) had its holiday party this last weekend. Given that Lazydouche runs a $25M per year racket and is headquartered in Long Beach, CA, there was only one logical place to have the party.

That’s right, a motherfucking Chinese restaurant in Alhambra! (more…)

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Maybe the best restaurant in the world

Orange, on the edge of Reykjavik harbor, is maybe the best restaurant in the world. Okay, the food at Per Se is better, but do they have alcoholic slurpees? No.

So I was wondering where to have dinner tonight, knowing that today was my last chance to eat the famous Icelandic lamb. I walked past several restaurants before I said “fuckit, I’m going back to Orange.” and while the second time lacked the personal service that comes from being the only one in the place, it was no less tasty or fun.

Basically I got a lot of the same gimmicks, but with different flavors. I also got Nina, the cutest waitress in the whole wide world. Here’s what she brought me:

Amuse: duck confit in a pickle jar.
Second amuse: roasted langoustine with confit tomato floating on a helium balloon.
1st course: Smoked artic char, apples, celeriac
2nd: wild deer soup, foie gras, mushrooms
3rd: monkfish, chorizo, olives, potato purée
4th: lamb, celeriac gratin, natural jus, sauce bearnaise
Dessert: brownie, skyr mousse, sorrel ice, liquid nitrogen ice cream

To prove that I’m internationally adept at crashing parties of large groups of women, a super-gaggle of Icelandic cougars bought me a green apple alcoholic slurpee. I also had a Dracula cocktail, made with blooberri, razzberi and red chile. Mmm and only 20 dollars! And when the kitchen was about to go down like a sack of shit, they stopped everything and the whole restaurant played Bingo for 5 minutes. Umm. Yeah. Let’s rock.

There are a lot of places that do this kind of gimmicky shit, but none can match the quality of food. Orange is clearly deserving of a spot on the top tier of restaurants worldwide.

Tags: food, iceland
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why iceland sucks at football

So, Wednesday night I attended the Island v. Skotland World Cup qualifier match. It. was. awesome. In addition to thousands of kilt-wearing Scotsmen (and approximately 2 skirt-wearing Scotswomen) patrolling the streets of Reykjavik, you had kids wearing Viking helmets in the Icelandic color palette and other displays of national pride. In US and A, wearing anything with an American flag on it makes you retarded, or Texan, but here the nationalism is quite charming.

Icelanders, you'd have more goal-scoring celebrations like this if you had better fight songs!

So, Iceland lost, 2-1, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. They had many more scoring chances, they had better kits, they had the home crowd. Why, then, apart from taking a stupid penalty and giving the Scots a free kick, did they lose?

In the eyes of this impartial observer, the answer is simple: Scotland had MUCH better chants. The main one seemed to be a version of “Let’s Go,” you know, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap, clap-clap-clap-clap, SCOTLAND! They also had a tight-knit version of “Hey Baby,” and some other melodic chants that sounded very well-rehearsed. They brought bagpipers, they were loud, they made the difference.

Iceland, meanwhile, has two lousy crowd anthems: “Island, clap-clap-clap,” and “Afram Island (Go Iceland), clap-clap, clap-clap, clap.”  What the fuck? If I were in charge of the Icelandic Sports Federation, my first duty would be to commission some new fight songs using a percentage of the 38% income tax and 24% sales tax everyone pays here. Icelanders, you deserve better results from your exorbitant tax rates! And another thing, if there’s any country in the world that needs its own national cheerleading team, it’s this one. Other countries would scarcely be able to focus in the face of gyrating, leggy, ridiculous-hot blonde girls! Get it together, Iceland.

After the match, which clocked in at a tidy 2 hours, I walked a couple blocks to Vox, home of lox that rocks your socks. Actually, I can’t speculate as to the quality of their smoked salmon, but the tasting menu I had was pretty good. They emphasize traditionl Nordic flavors and ingredients, but with soigne technique applied. It turned out pretty well, though it wasn’t as good or as fun as Orange. The Duckling was amazing though, paired with a Hautes Cotes de Nuits Pinot Noir. mmm.

Tags: food, iceland, soccer
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Reykjavik day 7 – lunch

It’s a beautiful day today, 60 degrees and sunny, so today I’ll be walking around randomly some more. My first stop is the Seafood Cellar, a restaurant that comes highly recommended by my flight attendant on Icelandair. There’s a bit of a problem, though: what am I supposed to do with bread, oil and chopped nuts??? I settled on dipping the bread in the oil, then the nuts–whither bread with nuts baked into it? The bread is straight bush league compared to the other bread I’ve eaten here. I’m pretty sure they buy it frozen, par-baked, and bake it here.

First course is cured hamachi with cream cheese and some sort of jelly. Ummm. I like the idea of cured hamachi, and the cream cheese and jelly go great with the bread. At least the plate was cool.

Next up is tuna with pumpkin and sesame seeds, and my hopes are low. I should mention the techno-accordion music that’s pounding away.

But wait, the tuna saves the day! With a spring roll of eel and langoustines (of course), enoki mushroom and miso sauce, it’s effing delicious. A bit over-garnished (raw bok choy???), the fish gets a little lost, but all the flavors are there. Good. And filling.

Dessert is called savarin “I’m a donut,” which I hope is a reference to Eddie Izzard’s take on John Kennedy’s line, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” wherein he meant to say “I’m a citizen of Berlin” but actually said, right, “I’m a donut.”

And…the plate is covered with Pop Rocks!

Okay, sjávarkjallarinn, you win. This was a comeback of 2004 ALCS proportions, as you’ve keep my good food streak alive at 7 days.

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iceland night 6 – liquid nitrogen ice cream

So after buying my new shoes and making my bus loop-de-loop, I arrived at Orange Restaurant, and my meal was as good as any I’ve had anywhere but Per Se. I was the only one in the restaurant–for the second night in a row–so I received extra special attention and a very memorable meal.

Orange’s motto is mixing fun with fine dining, which seems hackneyed unless you just say “Fuckit.” So when they floated out a deep-fried, peanut-encrusted shrimp attached to a helium balloon, I just went with it. The shrimp was very good–all the shellfish here is somehow velvety in texture–and came alongside a pickle jar filled with artic char, wasabi tobiko, potatoes and lime foam. Good. I should mention that, due to my ordeal in getting to Orange, I ordered the wine flight with dinner. This will explain the photography. Also, I should mention that the name of the tasting menu here is “Let’s Go Crazy.”

So speaking of wine, the first drink to arrive was the Tony Montana cocktail, a champagne glass filled wigth some champagne, a shot of vodka, a dissolving sugarcube and some red stuff, and dusted with powdered sugar, so that when you tilt your glass back, you get Chris Farley Nose. (Aww. Too soon?)

Every restaurant here seems to feature Icelandic langoustines–and with good reason, because they’re freaking delicious. At Orange they came with a sunchoke puree and a frothy pumpkin soup, served out of a Tetrapak container of milk. Perfect. Next was a tuna carpaccio with seared foie gras and porcini, then salt cod stuffed with more lobster and pickled asparagus. The meat course was local beef filet with heart attack potato galette and wild mushrooms–unexpectedly classic, but very good, and excellent with an Argentinian Malbec. Then it was time for dessert, a suite of passionfruit custards and foams and ice cream, which the waiter made tableside using a bowl of liquid nitrogen.

Now, I’ve been sceptical about the whole liquid nitrogen ice cream thing for a long time. It seems far to gimmicky to be true. But the reality is that it yields something totally unique–popcorn-like chunks of crispy, melty frozen goodness that tastes an awful like Dippin’ Dots (the ice cream of the future–today!) but better. Another interesting fact: You can stick you hand in liquid nitrogen; your hand won’t instantly freeze and shatter like in a Wesley Snipes movie.

So after dessert and 6 or 7 glasses of wine, I’m absolutely wasted. But I haven’t sampled the alcoholic Slurpees! That’s right, they feature a rotating menu of alcoholic slushies in such flavors as bloo razzberi (my spelling) and green apple. And the cocktail menu has the following quote:

“Here’s to alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

Score!

Then it was a shot of Brennivin, this odd cumin-flavored schnapps that Dave Grohl apparently loves, before I stumbled back to the hotel and passed out. Good times!

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reykjavik day 4

I approach my trip with renewed energy today. Maybe it’s because I did not stay out until 7 am last night? Anyway on my way to lunch today I noticed two interesting art installations on the sides of buildings. They are made of of sequins, like the Sparkletts water trucks, except they have pictures of Icelandic scenery:

Today I am eating lunch at b5, which is the kinda of place I wish LA had more of: Spacious, tasteful design (well, maybe not the horse penis), subdued ambience (“Song For My Father” playing on the stereo), and yeah, really good food. I’m eating seafood stir-fry/curry with local scallops, tiger prawns and langoustines. Yay! The scallops, in particular, are pillowy and sweet. Mmm. Do I wish it weren’t $40 for lunch? Maybe.

Anatomically correct sculpture of wild Icelandic lampshade-headed horse

They even gave it a squeeze-bottle swirl of hot sauce *hearts*

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reykjavik day 2 part 2

You know how when you’re in Vegas, at, say, The Venetian or Bellagio and you see the Mandalay Bay and it looks super-close, when in reality, it’s like 2 miles away?

Yeah. Reykjavik is like that. Stuff seems really close and then you realize you’ve walked a 10k. (more…)

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Boston 1, everywhere else 4,723

Ok, it’s well-known that I hate Boston and everything it stands for (the city, not the band, btw) but I have to say that dunkin donuts coffee lives up to it’s reputation. Now that my starbucks allegiance has been severed I may have to switch. Go lakers.

Addendum: but the donuts themselves suck. Eff you, Boston. Eff you so hard.

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