"La Puerta" and San Diego beach life dreaming.

"La Puerta" A Review, of sorts, kinda.

A lady friend and myself recently made a somewhat spur of the moment overnight trip to a town called San Diego, it's located in the southernmost section of California, but is still in the Northern Hemisphere. Crazy right? I know.

We ate at a place called "La Puerta" which according to Apple's Translator Widget means "The Door" in English and "La Porte" in French, which when translated back to English means "The Gate".

It's a restaurant/bar located in the Gaslamp District (Spanish:Distrito de Gaslamp, French:Zone de Gaslamp, German: Gaslamp Bezirk) which is a pretty douched up area it turns out. Knowing this, and knowing that it was a recently opened establishment that has a DJ setup in the back of it, we were running a real risk of it being more style than substance. Places that look to recreate something authentic but remove either the dirtiness or danger of the original are rarely my cup of tea (Example: Stinkers a "bar" in Silverlake Los Angeles that sells itself as a "Truck Stop Bar". Knowing that every hipster wants to relish the irony laden context of drinking in a trucker bar but are too pussy to get stabbed or raped, they created a playful facsimile of one. About as authentic as Disneyland's French Quarter is to the real thing.). To be fair, there's some of that going on here. They play Lucha libre stuff on one of the plasmas and I'm 90% sure it's done in a ironic kitschy fashion.

However, in this case (and perhaps many others to follow) I say 'fuck authenticity! Let the food poke fun at it's origins! Have TJ Dogs on the menu (Bacon Wrapped Turkey Hot Dogs-Diced Tomatoes-Grilled Onions-Jalapeños-Ketchup-Mayo)! Take the spirit of Mexican street food and the selection from local taquerías, add a dash of higher cuisine to it and sell it back to my hipster trash ass!

That's exactly what La Puerta does and they do it well, REALLY - fucking - well. I had the 3 street tacos, which gives one a mix and match choice of six different tacos comprised of differing meats and accouterments. I told the waitress to give me whatever combination of tacos she thought most fitting. She did well, very well.

• First taco was Cochinita with pickled onion, I'd never had Cochinita before and saying so discredits everything I've ever said or written about pork before. It is in short, one of the more amazing pork creations I've ever had. I wish I could tell you more about it (I'll read/eat up and get back to you).
  
• Second taco, Carne Aada with Avocado Creme. Also very excellent, but I'm pretty tipsy at this point and just wanted to get to the third taco so I plowed through it.
• Third taco, Pastor. This was really something special. I was having a food orgasm while eating this taco. There's such a wonderful savory sweet thing going on with the pineapple here that I'm honestly at a loss to describe it to you. I enjoyed it so much that I can only remember the sensation of endorphins rocketing their way through my brain and can hardly put together a mental recollection of the flavors.
  

The street taco idea really worked. I was eloquently explaining drunkenly ranting to my companion about how serving a bunch of small tacos amuse-bouche style, could be a really amazing idea. Like a sushi bar, but tacos... OK never mind.

It was also happy hour when we showed up, this was was an incredibly pleasant surprise as it allowed me the pleasure of drinking four quality Cadillac Margaritas for a scant $20. This leads me nicely to my apology for not taking a single picture of absolutely any of this. There was simply too much drinking and good company going on for me to be thinking much about photographing the food/restaurant. I was getting all stary eyed and scrunching up for clavicle shits, you understand.

Anyway. La Puerta, they serve food until 1, it's hip-ish, the food is fucking amazing, the margaritas and tequila are cheap (at times).

Making Peanut Butter, Mayonaise, Spinache, Onion Bagle Sandwiches and Pretending it's The Weekend...

I woke up one fine morning, about a week from today and was filled with a most unusual craving for peanut butter. Normal people would quell this urge by simply having toast and peanut butter, or a PB&J (I hate that I just type that...). But not this guy. This guy wants to be bold, he wants to be bizarre and he wants to push the very limits of what people consider to be a acceptable flavor combination.

This is the result. I admit to googling peanut butter sandwiches and finding the mayonnaise idea as a result. The spinach and onion bagel however are all me.

What was the taste like? Here's where things get tricky. I think I may have a palate problem brewing here. I don't seem to dislike anything. With the exception of things that are 1) rotting, 2) really crappy quality or 3) poisonous. I'll eat whatever it is and most of the time, even if the flavors are really poorly paired and off the wall insane, I enjoy it. The simple fact that I've never had mayo and peanut butter together is enough to get me excited. So. Did I enjoy this? Yes. I ate it all and with a fair amount of pleasure.

But here's the real question. Would I make this again? No. Even though I enjoyed it as an oddity it was not a well crafted sandwich. There's simply too many other amazing things that could have been done.

In closing, life is too short to not mess around with food. However if I had been hit by a bus after eating this there's a lot of other things I would have rather had as a last meal.

Friday Poolside Lunch Porn

When Summer has given way to Fall and school nags at me to complete useless tasks of which I cannot force myself to care about, I will long for these days.

How Collin Got His Groove Back. Or, MAKING SHIT FROM THE HIP!

Feels good to do something right even though you have no idea what you're doing at all. Last night was a good night with regard to cooking. I made the above, which is a combination of sweet potatoes, peaches, bacon and a fair amount of brown sugar. Rich, for sure, but good, oh yes.

This was a construct that I made on the fly with no clue what the end result was going to be. I simply began with the notion that I wanted to include peaches in whatever it was. Then I used what was laying around. The result was a really nice caramelized brown sugar flavor, with peachy fruitiness and that wonderful saltiness from the bacon. Not something you could eat a plate of, but it was nice to have there for nibbling throughout the meal.

One thing however. This dish did not fit the meal, at all. We had a large salad with this and it was the definition of a culinary shotgun marriage. No good. This Is something that would probably be better served with a big amazing thanksgiving dinner than a light summer meal. But oh well, it was fun so fuck it.

Dealing with food failure.

Last week I made baked macaroni and cheese with bacon. I largely followed Alton Brown's recipe although I added in some aged gouda and the bacon. The result was, to me, incredibly underwhelming. The dish lacked any sort of "pop", even with the its copious amounts of cheese and cream. It was dry, and with the exception of the occasional burst of bacon flavor, gave one little desire to dive into the next bite.

What went wrong? I don't know, in fact I don't really think anything went outright wrong. It just simply wasn't what I'd expected. This is a cooking lesson that I've been slow to learn: don't put a G.I. Joe Death Grip on a preconceived expectation of the end results. That's not to say that you shouldn't have some plan, or vision of the completed dish both in regard to taste and presentation. That's good, it's necessary. However focusing too hard on that idyllic result both stresses me the fuck out, and causes me to ignore experimental paths that the dish is screaming at me to follow.

I think this is one of the reasons cooking by recipe is such a downer for me. Let's look at this baked mac 'n cheese again. I really didn't read over the process prior to diving in. It was a rushed production. I was reading the next step and executing it simultaneously. Never really stepping back and seeing the process as a whole. Like a human's view of time vs. a tralfamadorian's... I didn't flow with it, I robotically executed and somewhere along the way that lack of complete understanding, the lack of passion, ultimately came through and fucked everything up.

In other words, I was cooking like this:

When I should've been cooking like this:

Crouque Something

So goes the last two slices of a rather lack-luster sourdough loaf (it bugs me when sourdough is shaped like white bread).

This was a perfect lunch, I fried up an egg just enough so that the yolk wouldn't burst when pressing the sandwich against the grill. It worked flawlessly. I gave it a bit of dijon for good measure, and I'll admit, a bit of horseradish. The blackforest ham I left hanging over the edges so that it would cook a bit while in the pan. Really killer little sandwich that's easy as hell to slap together.

Does anyone not use a bit of butter on their bread when grilling sandwiches? I feel like it's the only way to get a really decent crust going. Perhaps I'm wrong, or just making excuses to use more butter. Oh well fuck it, I'm going to keep doing it.

I choose you, Chicken Cordon Bleu!

This one got pitched on me late in the game. I had no idea I'd be making this, the ingredients just showed up and it was requested. So I did a bit of research. Looked to me like folks either bread their Chicken Cordon Bleu, and bake it. Or, go the more decadent (guaranteed awesome) approach of cooking it in butter... I went with the latter, however only till I'd browned the chicken to my liking, then I put it in a baking dish and let it ride in the oven to insure doneness (despite liberal pounding the cutlets were still easily 1/2" each, and I'm still a chicken doneness wuss).

I just winged the sauce, I had no real idea what I was going to come out with. Something that a sauciers would probably call a pitiful American gravy more than a delicately crafted sauce. Essentially halfway through browning the chicken I tossed two thinly sliced shallots into the mix and let them cook until near destruction. Once I'd pulled the chicken I added some heavy whipping cream and cooked stirring frequently until it thickened. It may not be the best approach (maybe it is, I really don't know) but the end result was like buttery magic so I'm not complaining.

A few things I did: I gave the chicken a decent coating of flour before putting it in the pan. I added some freshly ground green pepper corn, white pepper, black pepper and fennel to the flour as well. I'm really not sure that too much flavor was conveyed by this act. But before they went into the pan the green pepper corn aroma was certainly noticeable, and pleasant.

Something to add: BACON. Interestingly the black forest ham that was kinda hanging out the side (poor construction I know) crisped up nicely and was vaguely reminiscent of bacon. If there was bacon and cheese rapped up in here, oh snap...

A quick note/apology about the quality of photographs on this blog: I'm not a photographer, at all. I'm also currently limited to the lowly iphone camera as my only means of image capturing. I'm looking to change this and get something decent in the future... But I'm not sure when that will be. So for the time being forgiveness please, for the lack of quality.

Lunch, A Simple Affair

When I had a job that required me to go somewhere and sit in front of a computer each day, lunch was the only thing that got me up and into the office. Those lunches were different though. Often they were near feast-size proportions, huge burritos, foot long sandwiches, personal pizzas and any number of fast food offerings that were settled for out of apathy.

No longer. In the years since my office days I've come to see lunch as a meal that needs to be defined by two things: simplicity and quality (It should also be seasonal because I'm a nerd like that). This means that lunch can simply be an orange and a peach, a simple freshly made salad, some bread and cheese, or a sandwich that is small enough not to pitch oneself into a catatonic food coma by 2:00. That's a big thing, because Growing up American the realization that small portions of quality food can actually be much better than large portions of mediocre food was something of a food epiphany. (Shut up Europe)

So in the vein of simplicity and satisfaction comes todays lunch. It is blatantly ripped off from here, an apple, cheddar, horseradish mustard panini. Due to my grandmother's kindness I have exactly 4 metric tons of fresh homemade horseradish on hand so I simply mixed a heaping helping of it with some dijon and had a really, really great thing going. The end result was good enough to make it into my rotation. I'm a sucker for horseradish though (I'll often just eat a spoonful of the stuff), so I have a feeling I probably over did it for normal human tastes, but for me, perfection.

In closing. Yes I am one of those people that drinks coffee with lunch.

Maudlin Monday Hangover Grilling, Part TWO

Carne Asada Completion

Carne Asada: I'm a convert to the world of simplicity with this dish. It should have a taste that separates it from a standard steak marinade. Much more fresh. The picture that should be painted is mainly that of citrus, and herbal aromatics, backed by the savory meat and garlic to leave you with something to hold onto.

What really shocked me was how devoid of salt I made this things. It really worked though. In fact one of the continually reaffirmed discoveries of my culinary voyages is that I used to drown out important flavors in favor of a saltier taste. Really, cook something with no salt and it forces you to notice what's been hidden in plain site. Then once you have a really good understanding of the base ingredient you can build on it with salt if necessary.

One thing that could have gone better. If i had a real grill (not a the base of a terracotta pot that I fill with charcoal and span with a tediously balanced grill top) I would have cooked the meat quicker and hotter. I might be alone on this, but even skirt steak needs to have a crust of some sort, and while i got some of that, I think it could have been obtained quicker and with more impressive end results if I had the meat closer to the coals from the get go.

Other than that, a fine meal. Wish I had a good wine or beer to go with it but I'm a broke ass motherfucker and it just wasn't feasible.

Maudlin Monday Hangover Grilling, Part 1

Carne Asada

I'm essentially an alcoholic bum that works on websites every now and then in order to earn booze money. Somedays (this day) I do next to nothing at all. In order to maintain my sanity and feel useful I'll cook something.

Today, Carne Asada is that something. I've got 2lbs of flank stake floating peacefully in a marinade of oil, lime juice, cilantro, jalapeno, garlic, salt/pepper, dash-o-sugar and some cumin. I'm looking forward to the results.

In times gone by, times in which I was much lazier, I would buy pre-marinaded carne asada from the supermarket butcher counter. Which is good, I won't lie, I like it. But it's very different from what I've got going on here. The store stuff has a marinade that seems chili-pepper focused, saltier and generally more red than my efforts.

Things I'm hoping don't go wrong: Too much citrus. Lime juice is tricky like that, if you go over the cliff of sourness there's no going back. I like a blast of lime on meat, but I don't want to be eating the steak equivalent of lime infused vodka, sha know? Besides that grilling flank steak is as fool proof as any grilling ever really gets, so I'm not too concerned.

I'll post up the finished product in the epic finally to this two part series.

These are the things that collin has made... Last night.

Penne Alfredo w/ Whatever the Hell Vegetables I had

First dish. I'd not eating a whole hell of a lot this week (portion size restriction, you understand) so this meal was going to be filling and fucking rich. I settled on a pasta dish, a creamy alfredo-y pasta dish, with enough vegetables thrown in to make it seemingly "light and summery" (it was not).

Sauce: Alfredo sauce is incredibly simple to make. So long as you don't try to pair back the extravagance that is necessary for its success. Simply combine heavy cream, butter, garlic and a crap load of Parmesan and you've got dairy heaven going on. I've read that folks dislike using parmesan because it doesn't fully melt into the sauce sometimes, but that's fine, I liked it. Having more dense, nearly stringy sauce seems to me just a reminder of the fact that so much wonderful cheese is in there.

The Rest: I sliced up some zucchini, red bell peppers, shallots (yeah you heard me right mother-fucker!), garlic and some fresh tomatoes. Threw them all in a pan with some olive oil and let them go till I felt good about it. I wished I'd had some swiss chard, but I didn't. So I sliced up some leafy green lettuce and chucked it in there late in the game until it wilted. This was really more for the aesthetic, not much flavor was derived from it.

Things Learned: If you make a sauce that is loaded with cheese butter and cream, the rest can really figure itself out.

The red peppers didn't work. Something just wasn't jiving. The taste didn't match the creamy sauce and I realize this now. No more, instead I should have gone with Asparagus. Quite the difference I know, but think it really would have worked, chopped into 1" lengths.... It would have worked... Damn it..

The wine:

Don't ask your sweet, but uninformed mother to pick up a bottle of "decent zinfandel" and expect to get what you had in mind...

Tasting notes: Like a sweet, white wine vinegar, with a capri-sun squeezed into it...