This evening I present to you the third part of the Azul saga. You can find part 1 here and part 2 here. Go ahead and read them. I'll wait.

Caught up? Good. Before I go on to describe the events of the evening, I'll point out that the entire meal was courtesy of the house. Rest assured that if there were things that weren't good I would say that even if we didn't pay for the meal.

One more piece of housekeeping: Kristine & I were a little self-conscious about the whole setup. We were having a hard time balancing wanting to try multiple things on the menu and being worried about the running up a huge tab since we weren't paying for it. Sigh. Maybe next time it won't be so awkward, but this time it was a little.

We arrived for our reservation and were seated right away close to a corner by the windows overlooking the pool area. Our server, Alex, came over fairly quickly for our drink orders. I ordered a glass of the French Maid cabernet and Kristine ordered.... the Spanish Guitar cab/tempranillo? It may not have been called Spanish Guitar, but it was a cab/temp blend. When Alex brought out the wine, he also brought out rustic bread with garlic infused olive oil and a sundried tomato tapenade. Normally, I'm not a big fan of olives, but the tapenade was mild and I really found myself enjoying it.

For our next first course, we ordered the charcuterie for two (pictured up top - $15). This appetizer consisted of ample portions of breseola, speck alto, an herbed goat cheese, piave, olives, pickled vegetables and a couple of breadsticks. Everything was good (I particularly enjoyed the breseola), but the presentation was a little bit lacking. We both agreed that next time we'd probably skip the charcuterie and go with hot appetizers.

We ordered two entrees that sounded good to both of us with the intention of sharing both. We selected the scallop di stagione ($23), which was described as 'seared scallops over sundried tomato and caramelized fennel risotto with toasted pignoli dandelion greens pesto'. When the dish arrived, I was a little disappointed by the way it looked on the plate. It seemed as though it was plated in a hurry without much thought to the final appearance.

As far as taste went, though, it was a success. The scallops were nicely cooked and very lightly seasoned. The risotto was very good, with the rich flavor of the roasted fennel very much at the forefront. All of the components of the dish were nicely executed, but Kristine and I both felt like they could have been tied together a little better.

For me, the real hit of the evening was the special. Jumbo prawns with pearl onions in a lobster cardinal sauce, served with a paella risotto cake (~$27). The head-on prawns were beautifully cooked (and yes, I sucked the heads), the sauce was creamy with a little bit of spice and chunks of lobster, and the paella risotto cake reminded me of a crabcake, but with more delicate flavors. The only thing I could possibly fault would again be the presentation. The whole dish was basically orange/red, but I frankly didn't care because it was so good. Oh, and the wine pairing we did with this one was great. We had a Geode Chardonnay from Santa Barbara, which had great honey & tropical fruit notes that were a nice counterpoint to the rich spicing of the lobster cardinal.

Ok, finally about dessert. In the menu available online, they had listed a chili spiced chocolate torte with chocolate mint sauce and hazelnut gelato. It looks like they reworked that into a chocolate lava cake with hazelnut sauce and hazelnut gelato (~$10). Although I was looking forward to the chocolate/chile combination, the dessert we had was great (especially the hazelnut gelato).

The service from Alex was very attentive without being obtrusive or hover-y (not a word, I know). And when we had the one awkward moment of the evening (when he brought us the check!), he very graciously went off to investigate, coming back to let us know things were sorted out a few minutes later.

So the summary:
Very good food (though presentation slightly off), and very good service make Azul a place that we'll definitely go back to.

Do you ever see people taking pictures of their food in a restaurant and think to yourself, "Why is that person taking a picture of their food?"? I don't mean someone taking a picture of the person across the table, I mean camera pointed directly at plate.

I've wondered that, but last week I took a few pictures of food. It was slightly embarrassing, but I did it. And since I did it, I'm going to share some of the highlights with you, dear reader.

These will be in chronological order.

Day One:
I'm going to skip the breakfast at McDonald's in LAX.
Lunch was at The Crow's Nest in Santa Cruz - view was great, food was fine, but not really anything to write home (or a blog) about. We were pretty hungry by then, and would have pretty much scarfed down anything.
Dinner was at Esteban - and we just sat at the bar and had tapas. One that I enjoyed the presentation of was the Thai snapper ceviche with pear and potato chip (the menu said taro, but they changed that). I should have known by the way our server winced that we might want to pick something else, but we didn't. The only two discernable flavors were vinegar and the slightly burnt chip:

I still liked the presentation, though. The winner there was the artichoke hearts and serrano ham with tomato relish. It was fresh, the textures of the silky artichoke and the dry ham were great counterpoints to each other. It was simple and rustic, but we enjoyed it quite a bit.

Day 2:
The food highlight of the day was dinner at The Sardine Factory. Now before you yell, "tourists!" in our general direction, I'd like to say that we ate small plates in the bar with some fairly colorful locals (including one woman who wanted to buy Kristine a glass of wine). We had a couple of great items, including the Baked Monterey Mushrooms (stuffed with crab and super-good), and the Bloody Mary Oyster shooters:

We also had some grilled shrimp on polenta in a red pepper coulis, which we had to send back because the bottom was badly burnt (you can even see it in the picture!). The second one to come out was great, though. The polenta had a perfect texture, and the shrimp were cooked perfectly.



Day Three:
Wow. There was some great food this day. I'm going to go up until dinner and then stop for the time being...

Ok, breakfast was the contintental buffet at the hotel. Look, it's not great, but it's cost effective.

Then we were off to Carmel-by-the-Sea for a fun day of sightseeing, beaching, shopping, and, of course, eating. There may or may not have been some wine involved as well. Ok, there was.

Lunch was at The Village Corner, and we had a spinach salad with grilled shrimp and mandarin oranges, and crab/ricotta ravioli in a tomato pesto sauce. The sauce on the ravioli was full of fresh tomato, basil and parmesan flavors, but it way overpowered the crab filling in the ravioli. That was too bad, because that's what drew me to the dish in the first place.

We then hit a couple of places for wine: The Galante Winery tasting room where we tried some great local wines (I was very partial to the Blackjack Cab) and an argument with the proprietor over whether or not he could ship wines to Arizona. I said he couldn't, but I was wrong. Turns out the laws have changed recently so that if we were to buy it in the store and have it shipped home it would be fine.

We stopped in a Vino Napoli, which just opened the week before. They had some kinks to work out but we got great service from Alana. They specialize in building flights of 2 oz. pours, and had probably 25 different wines to choose from.

Upon a local's recommendation, we also went to the bar at The Cypress Inn for a glass. We discovered that it's partially owned by none other than Doris Day - which explained the large collection of DD movie posters used as decoration. We knew we were in the presence of locals because everyone had a 10 lb. dog on their lap. Carmel is a VERY dog-friendly place.

Ok, this posting has gone on far too long! I'll pick up with Day 3 dinner (teaser: at Christopher's in Carmel) later on.

Thanks for making it this far!

-TFD

Hi Food Folks!

On Saturday, my sweetie, one of her girlfriends & I headed out for wine tasting in Sonoita & Elgin. The unfortunate thing is that I ended up being the driver, so I didn't really get to taste a lot of wine. Even so, the trip was a whole lot of fun, and I found out that there are some high-quality wines being produced right here in our own backyard. All of the tasting rooms had a charge of some sort ($4-$7), but if you bring your own glass most places knock $2-$3 off of that.

The trip down there probably took an hour or so. The first winery we hit was Callaghan. They were tasting eight wines (dang!), and the tasting was $7.00 (which included a 21oz souvenir glass). It was the most expensive of all the tasting rooms we hit, but the wines were worth it. I did taste all of these wines, which was when we knew that we were defnintely going to need a designated driver. The Buena Suerte was a standout - a Cab/Petit Verdot/Merlot blend, it was a little earthy, not overpowering, but with a long finish. Oh, if aesthetics in a tasting room are your thing, you won't get any here. It's big, with stacks and stacks and stacks of white boxes. That's pretty much it.

From there, we headed about 1/4 mile down the road to Canelo Hills. The winemakers were out of town, but their pinch-hitters were very friendly and knowledgeable. Since I didn't really get to taste anything here, I'll have to rely on second-hand reviews. The Sangiovese was well received, as was the Nebbiolo Rose. The second one surprised me, because my honey isn't much of a rose fan. It had a little bit of oak to it, which was probably the clincher.

Next was Kief-Joshua. This was by far the swankiest of the tasting rooms we encountered, but there was a little too much other stuff going on there for my taste (jewelry, powdered dips, books, and other stuff for sale there). The wines were good, and we met up with a foursome that ended up being our traveling companions for the rest of the trip.

From here, it was off to the Village of Elgin winery. This place was a bit of a mess - they had about 40 wines to sample, and not a lot of guidance besides a single sided sheet with one-line descriptions of all of them to go by. All of the wines my companions tried were cloyingly sweet, even the ones they described as dry. There was also an odor of cigarette smoke in there, which seemed to be strongest by the A/C unit. I don't know if there was someone outside of it smoking or if they really needed to change the filter, but it was pretty offputting. The good news is that with our own glasses it was only $1.00 for four tastes.

By this time, my steadfast compatriots were pretty blitzed. I really began to realize that when they began singing "Let's Hear it for the Boy" at the top of their lungs in the car. I appreciated their enthusiasm for my willingness to drive, but that was more than I expected!

Then it was down the road a mile or two to Sonoita Vineyards. They also leaned pretty heavily on sweet wines, although their MeCaSah blend was pretty good.

Finally, we headed back the way we came and went to Wilhelm Family Vineyards for our last stop. Winemaker Karyl was extremely friendly and willing to share her knowledge and thoughts on winemakining. Having a very friendly weimareiner wandering around was a big hit as well. Our favorite wine there was the Kevin's Choice. This mostly tempranillo blend was lush with black fruit and a little pepperiness.

That was the end of our wine tasting tour, but we went to The Steak Out at the 82/83 junction before going home. That'll be another posting, though, 'cause this one has gone on way too long!

Happy wining!