Tag Archives: Chicken

Shamshiri Grill

Restaurant: Shamshiri Grill

Location: 1712 Westwood Blvd. Los Angeles, Ca 90024  (310) 474-1410

Date: July 31, 2011

Cuisine: Persian

Rating: One of my favorite Iranian restaurants

_

Shamshiri is one of my favorite Iranian restaurants on the westside — and we certainly have an embarrassment of riches in this flavorful cuisine.

It’s located on Westwood Blvd right in the heart of Westwood.


I forgot to photo the bread, but in traditional person manner it’s accompanied by butter, radish, mint, and onions.


This is an appetizer combo platter: “A Family Size platter of Dolmeh, Baba Ganoush, Mast o’khiar, Humus and Falafel.” ALl good.

The regular “greek style” salad that is often an option with many dishes.


Parker gives this interesting Italian 92 points. “The 2008 Ramitello, a blend of 80% Montepulciano and 20% Aglianico, boasts fabulous clarity and freshness, with layers of vibrant dark cherries and plums that meld together with notable grace. Smoke, tar, menthol and licorice develop in the glass, giving the wine even more dimensions of expression. This is a terrific effort from Di Majo Norante. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2013.”


I ordered a side of yogurt with cucumber (and nuts and raisons). I’m obsessed with these yogurt sauces, I just love them, especially with grilled meats.


This is a vegan falafel wrap with humus.


“FRESH FILLET OF SALMON KABOB. Mesquite grilled Salmon Fillet (Atlantic Premium).” With french fries. I doubt this is very traditional, but it is pretty good.


Same goes with this Persian Pizza my son enjoyed.


Most dishes come with an obscene amount of good fluffy Persian rice.


This is one of my favorite Iranian dishes. “FESENJAN. Sweet-n-tart Walnut puree in Pomegranate Sauce
and your choice to Add Chicken, Lamb Shank or Veal.” In this case chicken. It’s superb here. The sauce is rich and simutaneously nutty, spiced (but not spicy), sweet, and tangy.


“GHORMEH SABZI. Fresh green Herbs, sautéed and stewed with Kidney Beans, dried lime and your choice to Add Chicken, Lamb Shank, or Veal.” Another great stew, eaten over rice.


“BAMIEH. Stew of Okra with Onions, Potatoes and Mushrooms in a Saffron tomato sauce. Served with your choice to Add Chicken, Lamb Shank, or Veal.” And another

And Shamshiri has a selection of fantastic kabobs. I particularly love the ground beef and lamb. They have these special chickens too that must be the size of Labradors because there are chicken breasts that are like 15″ long!

All and all, good stuff.

Click here to see more LA Food posts.

Eating the Skys – Continental

Restaurant: Continental Airlines

Location: Somewhere above the Atlantic

Date: June 30, 2011

Cuisine: Inedible

Rating: Barftastic

ANY CHARACTER HERE

So after an epic four weeks of eating in Italy — where the worst meal was merely mediocre — we boarded the first of our planes for home, specifically the Milan to Newark flight on Continental. And so, our final meal of the trip:


A lovely 2011 Ginger Ale, Seagrams.


Bread with softener and additives, served with pastic wrap.


A fine salad of wilted iceberg lettuces.


Soaked in packaged milk and emmulsifiers, it becomes… slightly more edible — and sadly the best item on the menu.


Chicken Parmesan with scalloped potatoes, mushy peas, and nitrate sausage. This was actually a kid’s meal (served to my son). As it was considerably more edible than mine (below) I picked at it.


Dry frozen rock hard chicken “breast” with teeth breaking noodles, soggy asparagus and canned tomato sauce.

Seriously Continental (and sadly they aren’t alone, really all the American airlines are just as bad) you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. This stuff is completely pathetic and was actually literaly inedible. You would have had to pay me more than $100 to try a second bite of that rock hard chicken. It’s not just a matter of cost, it’s a matter of giving a shit about all aspects of the product you offer. I think airline executives ought to be required to eat coach airline meals 100% of the time while on the job! That’d shake things up fast.

Click here to see more Eating Italy posts.

Passover Seder 2011 – day 1

April rolls around and it’s seder time again, the ritual dinner celebrating the exodus from Egypt. As usual, things have to be done in full Gavin style.

Various ingredients. There are all sorts of traditional requirements to this meal, the most significant of which is an avoidance of any leavening agents, yeast, etc.

Parker 92. “Bachelet’s 2005 Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes – from 60- to 70-year-old vines both below the route nationale and north of Gevrey in Brochon – offers lovely black fruit aromas with hints of anise and mint. A truly palate-staining intensity of vividly-fresh, tart but ripe black cherry and blackberry is underlain by firm, fine tannins (not precluding an emerging silkiness of texture) and augmented by bitter-herbal and stony notes. Although palpably dense and abundantly tannic, this outstanding village wine still comes off as juicy, sleek, invigorating and refined. Put it away for at least 5-7 years.”

Parker 94. “The profound 1997 Barolo Bussia boasts intense aromas of molasses, cherry liqueur, melted tar, licorice, and toast. Dense and full-bodied, with enormous quantities of glycerin and fat, this hedonistic, thick, viscous Barolo can be drunk now and over the next 15-16 years.”

And for those who crave the old school sweet and alcohol finish of the classic kosher wine, the Kesser. No vintage listed or needed.

This is a traditional seder plate. It contains each of the ritual elements of the dinner. Starting at the egg on the right and heading clockwise. Egg, horseradish, lamb shank, lettuce, horoset, parsley.

Hard boiled eggs. Dipped in salt water before eating.

A glass of wine is left for Elijah, the prophet. He gets the cool cup.

Parsley, dipped in salt water.

Matzah, or unleavened bread. When the Israelites escaped from the Pharoah Ramses (check out Exodus if you aren’t clued in on that) there was no time to leaven the bread. So matzah, an unleavened cracker, is eaten in symbol remembrance.

More traditional accompaniments. At the top, Horoset (mixture of apples, nuts, and spices — homemade of course), the green is parsley, the pink stuff horseradish with beets, the white atomic horseradish! Mind bendingly potent. The water in front is salt water.

Another seder plate.

Matzah is traditionally eaten with the horseradish and horoset. This is called the Hillel sandwich, for more on that click here.

Gefilte fish. This is housemade from Pico Kosher Deli. It’s various chopped fish, boiled. A sort of unfried chicken McNugget of the fish world. Yummy with horseradish.

A big dinner requires a big pot.

Matzah balls prior to cooking.

The matzah ball soup. A very tasty vegetable/chicken stock with… matzah balls.

Start of the stuffing for the chicken.

The stuffing. Onions, matzah, peppers, etc.

The stuffed chickens.

On the BBQ. The grill is really the best way to cook whole chickens. You do need something like this foil to protect the bird from the direct heat.

The spread.

The plated chicken and stuffing.

Potato kugel.

Carrot fritters and pesto.

The salad and dressing.

My plate. You can compare to the litany of Thanksgiving plates.

The dessert spread.

The sponge cake in its early stages. Because no leavening agents are allowed, sponge cake is traditional. It’s fluffed up with egg.

It’s served with strawberry sauce (basically strawberries and sugar).

Fruit slices, also traditional.

Cookies.

Matzah, coated in chocolate and carmel.

Home toasted almonds.

The flour-less chocolate torte.

Iced.

Iced, decorated with almonds and chocolate dust.

With finished decoration.

Very full!

To see day 2 of passover, click here.

Quick Eats: Sunnin

Restaurant: Sunnin

Location: 1776 Westwood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024 (310) 475-3358

Date: December 24, 2010

Cuisine: Lebanese

Rating: Cheap tasty Lebanese

 

A couple years ago I had an office a couple blocks from Sunnin, and we used to go at least once a week. In those days Sunnin was across the street from where it is now, in a total hole in the wall. There they served on styrofoam with plasticware. It was it its best with “mama” behind the counter. The sons served (slowly), but the humus was amazing, and the garlic paste for the grilled chicken. Now they’ve moved across the street and they have real plates, a bigger space, and slightly higher prices. The sons still loiter about. The food hasn’t really changed.

The menu can be found HERE.

“Deep fried Cauliflower served with tahini sauce.” Fry, as usual, what’s not to like. Cauliflower has a lot of surface area, better to pick up the fry, and the sauce, which cuts the fry nicely.

“Fresh yogurt and cucumber slices mixed with garlic and dry mint.” I love yoghurt sauce, and it’s a fundamental part of what I call the “lamb yogurt flatbread continuum,” that band of culinary couplings that roles from Greece all the way to north India.

Pita.

“Sanbousek, Homemade dough stuffed with ground beef, onions and pine nuts.” Tasty thick pastry stuffed witha  savory mix of meat and spices.

“Lamb Kebab. Cubes of lamb grilled on a skewer served with hommos, rice, Lebanese salad and pita bread.” Tender lamb chunks. Zesty salad, and the humus. I’ve always loved the humus here, it has a lot of garlic, and a good amount of lemon in it. Then it’s brightened up with Lebanese olive oil (I’ve seen the jugs) and paprika.

Beef instead. The beef is more tender, but the lamb has a bit more flavor.

The chicken kabob is great here too, and it comes with the garlic paste — I love the garlic paste.

Red Medicine is the Cure

Restaurant: Red Medicine [1, 2]

Location: 8400 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills, Ca. 90211. 323-651-6500.

Date: Dec 22, 2010

Cuisine: Modernized Vietnamese

Rating: Pretty awesome!

 

I’m a loyal reader of Kevin Eats and two weeks ago when he posted an opening night review of a new Vietnamese inspired restaurant named Red Medicine I instantly knew I had to go. Boy am I glad I did. I love good traditional Vietnamese for its intricate flavor palette (see my review here). This new place takes it to a new level, updating and modernizing. This is highly innovative stuff — at least when you consider the sea of Japanese and Italian clones that overwhelm our fair city.

Vietnamese is tough stuff to pair with red wine, but a Grand Cru Burgundy is soft and fruity enough to manage. Parker gives this one 93 points and says, “I loved the sweet cassis aromas of the 2002 Echezeaux as well as its powerful, intense, syrupy personality. Medium to full-bodied and gorgeously ripe, it bastes the palate with thick black fruit flavors. In addition, this wine reveals great depth and a lengthy, fruit-packed finish. Projected maturity: 2007-2017.”

The menu. This is all small dishes (the way I like it).  We ordered 12 savories and 3 deserts for 4 people and that was about perfect.

“KELLEY’S MOM’S FARM EGG / brassicas, pickled rose hips,  chili, fried garlic, boiled peanuts, lovage.” This dish typifies what the chef’s are doing here. It mixes all sorts of flavors, and a lot of fresh herbs, vegetables, and pickled vegetables. The peanuts were those large soft Asian ones and this egg was so soft it ended up in the dish like egg noodles. The overall flavor was salty and herby — and delicious. Plus HOT. Those red peppers were a bit of surprise, but a pleasant burn.

“fluke cured with lime leaf, radishes,  charred cucumber, pine needle.” This was another very interesting flavor combo. Hot again (there are serrano peppers in there) and strong notes of basil and pickle. Delicious!

“BEEF / fermented soy bean, bacon XO, chinese eggplant,  purple cabbage, celery stem, nuoc cham.” The beef and eggplant had an intense charred flavor, like filet minion BBQ or something. The purple cabbage paired with it like a kind of Asian variant on the cole slaw one might have with Southern BBQ.  Wow.

“CHICKEN DUMPLINGS / caramelized sugar, pork fat, lemongrass, confitures.” The elements (chicken, mint, pickles, scallions, sauce) are combined on a lettuce leaf as shown below. I nabbed a healthy blast of the red stuff. Hot again!

Other than the heat, this wasn’t as strongly flavored as the other dishes (and I like strong). It was good, but not as good.

“kabocha, burnt onion, chinese sausage, chrysanthemum,  creme fraiche.” This was basically BBQ squash with yoghurt and sweet BBQ sauce. It was really good.

“kohlrabi, tofu cream, grapefruit,  fish sauce, lettuces, sunchokes.” This was my least favorite dish of the night. Again, not bad, not just not as exciting. It was cool and refreshing.

“BEEF TARTARE / mustard leaf, water chestnut, spicy herbs, nuoc leo, chlorophyll.” Under the green is the beef tartare. You shovel it on the garlic rice crackers. It was incredible. Not intense, but a lovely flavor.

My brother enjoys some of the squash.

“WILD STRIPED BASS / brown butter-soy milk, verbena,  pomelo, raw chestnut, lettuce stems.” This very nicely cooked fish was bathing in this garlicky butter sauce. Nice too, but pretty rich.

“CRISPY SPRING ROLL / dungeness crab, calamansi, pea pods, fines herbs, chili.” Excellent varient on the crispy spring roll tradition. I liked the creamy bits of sauce.

Red Medicine has a very nice list of sweet whites, including many from Zind Humbrecht. They have a $25 corkage (normal enough), but if you buy a bottle they waive it totally. So I bought this nice riesling for $55 and essentially it cost me $5 (I saved 2 corkages). This is probably a 92-93 point Spatlese. Its apricot and pear sweetness did pair perfectly with the food.

“‘BANH MI’ / foie gras, pate de campagne.” Wow these were good. The fois meshed nicely with the bit of serrano, the pickles etc.

“PORK / caramelized black vinegar and honey, prunes, sorrel, dried almond.” This was a tremendous BBQ pork. The fluffy stuff is almond poppy seed puff rice. It mostly added texture and a vague nuttiness. The pork however was incredibly soft, the sauce almost mole like. The net affect was a pit like South Carolina pulled pork without the vinegar.

“DUCK / 5-spice, charred frisee, chicory, tamarind syrup,  grains of paradise.” This duck was also awesome, like confit — or maybe it was confit.

The open kitchen. The place was packed too, even on a holiday Wednesday, after having been open a mere two weeks.

The pastry chef here is world class.

“COCONUT BAVAROIS / coffee, condensed milk, thai basil, peanut croquant, chicory.” This was fantastic. All sorts of interesting textures (check out those fish eye looking things), and a soft taste of coffee, a good dose of peanut butter — and basil!

“LEMONGRASS POTS DE CREME / sweet potato, orange blossom, red bull, bergamot.” Creme Brulee basically, but lemongrass! Unusualy, but excellent.

“BITTER CHOCOLATE / kecap manis, oats, pear, parsnip,brown butter.” This was also good, crunchy, drier — pretty.

I’m very excited about this place and its new flavors. I’ll head back soon. I hope, though, that they switch up the menu with great regularity. Not that what is there isn’t great, but it would seem a waste to stagnate this kind of creativity.

For a second meal at Red Medicine (different dishes for the most part), see HERE.