Tag Archives: wine

Good Eatin’: French country cooking-by-the-sea

March 31, 2012   admin   No comments

La Bicyclette, Carmel, California

In a town renowned for its charm, no dining establishment is more charming than La Bicyclette, the little French cafe in Carmel-by-the-Sea at the corner of Delores and 7th, once the site of the same proprietors’ fabled La Boheme, the eatery that more or less kicked off the foodie movement in the region. Sharing the ramshackle romance of Casanova,  its venerable (and more famous) sibling on 5th Avenue at Mission, Smoked duck croque madame at La Bicyclette, Carmel CAthe kitchen of the bustling bistro applies the traditions of Belgian-French country cooking to fresh, mostly local and organic ingredients (with some produce coming from the Carmel Middle School Hilton Bialek Habitat), rendering meals that are as deceptively simple as they are deeply satisfying. The selection of entrées changes daily: you can find sample menus here, but don’t expect that the smoked Serrano honey-lacquered Bobwhite quail with wood-fired petite yams or the slow-braised Berkshire pork and cabbage will necessarily be on your table tonight. A specialty of the house is thin-crust pizza from a wood-fired Mugnaini oven. The wine list never fails to satisfy.

And that vintage French bicycle parked outside? It may look like a prop, but it functions as the delivery vehicle  should you decide to order from Casanova’s more extensive wine cellar a few blocks away.

Don’t miss an opportunity to stop at La Bicyclette the next time you’re passing through (or anywhere near) Monterey Peninsula. The Detourist has been known to go 100 miles out of the way to feast at La Bicyclette.

File: La Bicyclette restaurant, open every day (breakfast 8-11am, lunch 11:30am-4pm, desserts & appetizers 3-5pm, dinner 5-10pm — wine tastings anytime!); Dolores Street at 7th, Carmel-by-the-Sea CA; 831.622.9899; http://www.labicycletterestaurant.com.

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Good Eatin’: La Cachette Bistro

August 11, 2009   admin   No comments

Santa Monica, California

When I first came to Los Angeles four decades ago, there were maybe six gourmet restaurants in the entire town. Now there are more than that just on Santa Monica’s Ocean Avenue, and they’re about to joined by another. Jean-Francois Meteigner of La Cachette in Century City will start serving patrons at La Cachette Bistro on Saturday in preparation for a full-blown opening in a couple weeks. La Cachette Bistro, 1733 Ocean Ave (between Pico Blvd and the Santa Monica Pier), Santa Monica; 310-434-9509.

Update: Now closed, alas.

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Good Eatin’: The news isn’t all bad

June 03, 2009   admin   No comments

A new study by a University of Scranton professor, Jon Vinson, has found that coffee is the best natural source of the antioxidants that help protect cells in the body from damage caused by unstable molecules known as free radicals. Among other harms, free radicals may cause cancer.

Along with other good news — that red wine improves cardiovascular health and life expectancy and wards off the common cold; that dark chocolate helps prevent diabetes and lowers blood pressure; that virgin olive oil is not only good for the heart, but fights cancer, diabetes, asthma and arthritis, and obesity, and that garlic, the staff of life, will cure everything from cardiovascular disease to the plague — I feel blessed to have spent so many years doing the right thing.

Given what she was told, your mother was doing the best she could when she tried to get you to eat your broccoli, but she might have done better to have poured a little vino on your Cocopops.

For it to turn out that java is superior in the antioxidant department to foods such as carrots, collard greens, wheat germ and kale that we have been made to feel guilty our whole lives for not eating is sweet revenge. It only remains for someone to document the incontrovertable health benefits of Häagen-Dazs coffee & almond crunch….

(originally posted to Impractical Proposals 2005-08-30)

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"Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Vino?" *

May 29, 2009   admin   No comments

From the monthly newsletter of Library Alehouse, 2911 Main Street, Santa Monica:

Once, the term “big house” conjured ghosts of Paul Muni, Paul Newman and Clint Eastwood scheming to shed their prison grays. For those longest in their cups, the term might bring up memories of Chester Morris, pardoned for saving the guards in the great 1930 prison flicker, “The Big House.”

Now, at the Alehouse at least, “Big House” means just one thing: Ca’ del Solo California Big House Red, a dense, richly erubescent vino from Bonny-Doon, the somewhat pixilated vintner from Santa Cruz. Ca’ del Solo is what Bonny-Doon calls Italian-style wines; Big House is a blend faintly remindful of Gallo’s Hearty Burgundy, celebrated in less cosmopolitan days as the vessel on which many Americans traveled to vineland.

There is no escape from this Big House, a thick, fragrant, rustic libation that envelops the palate like honey. Despite its heft, this is a beverage with balance and grace, an elephant poised on one leg, gorgeous crimson in color, redolent of esoteric spices and ripe sugarplums, hints of rosemary and black raspberries persisting from its Piedmontese heritage.

Bonny-Doon Vineyard, with its insistance that “wine should be as much fun as government regulations allow,” is a pleasure to visit on line, with delightful visuals and cheerful prose, and such assets as wine clubs, 30-second Python-meets-South Park promos, and relentless advocacy on behalf of bottles with screw tops.

Befitting a winery that believes that “we should champion the strange, esoteric, ugly-duckling grape varieties of the world,” the current online-special is a naughty Framboisified Syrah Port called “Bouteille Call.”

* With apologies to James Cagney.

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