All About Food: A look at the best bites of 2014
1. The quaglia at Perrozzi in Corona Del Mar, is speck wrapped quail, stuffed with ground wild boar sausage and served on a bed of spectacular mushrooms. The perfectly cooked quail with a nice brown skin had a wrapping of crisped speck. It was stuffed with salty, garlicky, tender, wild boar sausage. The bird rested on a mound of sautéed, Southern mixed mushrooms that were indescribably good.
2. The house signature pasta dish at Al Forno Cafe in Costa Mesa is a rich and wonderful entree containing big fat rigatoni shells slathered in meat sauce, dotted with pulled pork, then topped with a smooth and luscious béchamel sauce.
3. The poutine at Bosscat Kitchen in Costa Mesa is served in a black skillet; a mound of long, fat, wedge-shaped fried potatoes is dotted with cheese curds and thin slices of Duroc pork belly. A duck fat fried egg rests on top, and you can break the runny yolk so it slithers onto the fries. There was some thin gravy at the bottom, but we never got that far. My dining companion and I agreed that the potatoes were the best we had ever tasted. They had the skin on and were twice cooked, which gives them a great crunchy exterior.
4. Soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung in South Coast Plaza are traditionally filled with finely chopped pork and, often, minced crab as well. In order to add soup to these dumplings, along with the pork, they wrap a meat aspic inside the thin dough along with the diced meat. Heat from steaming then melts the gelatin-gelled aspic into soup. Then they are served in a paper-lined bamboo basket. Condiments are on the table if you need them, including vinegar, soy sauce, shredded ginger and hot sauce. They are absolutely delicious. The experience of biting into the little package and having the wonderful broth explode in your mouth, along with the seasoned minced pork, is a delight.
5. At Provenance in Newport Beach, we loved the rack of four thick New Zealand lamb chops that were cooked rare as ordered. Resting beneath the meat was a cilantro pesto sauce that provided the perfect foil for the juicy, flavorful meat. On the side was a unique blood orange leek risotto completing one of the best lamb dishes we have ever tasted.
6. At Fireside Restaurant in the Crown Plaza Hotel, our absolute favorite of the evening was the mac and cheese. It was hands-down the best I’ve ever eaten. Four kinds of cheese made a luscious creamy sauce for the house-made noodles. There was an underpinning of spiciness and bits of the house-made salty, smoked sausages scattered throughout, along with slivers of onions. On top were crunchy bits of gribenes (deep-fried chicken skin that has been broken down into very fine pieces).
7. Fusion Bites is a new restaurant in the Ayres Hotel in Huntington Beach. Our favorite of all the excellent bites was the bowl of black mussels in a fabulous broth. The mussels were small and tender and they rested in a broth of mussel juices, green curry, white wine, tomatoes, onions, garlic, chives and a hint of cream. We sopped up as much of the broth as we could with toasted crostini and resorted to spoons to finish it off.
8. Mendocino Farms in Costa Mesa has a sandwich with prosciutto and free-range chicken, on ciabatta bread with Gioia fresh mozzarella, crushed honey-roasted almonds, basil pesto, balsamic vinegar and tomatoes. The chicken-breast slices were thick and moist; the prosciutto was some of the best I’ve ever tasted, delicately flavored with just the right amount of saltiness and a nice soft texture, not too chewy. The mozzarella and tomatoes added other layers of tastes, but it was the surprising crunch and sweetness of the almonds that made this sandwich outstanding.
Other favorites include: the pizza at Settobello, the Chimi wings at TLT, the Galbi tacos at Starfish, the pork confit at Taco Maria and the calamari rice plate at Tang 190. Happy new year.
TERRY MARKOWITZ was in the gourmet food and catering business for 20 years. She can be reached for comments or questions at m_markowitz@cox.net.