Posh Nosh - Emmy Governor's Ball Sneak Peek

The Primetime Emmy Governor's Ball Sneak Peek
Shrine Auditorium
Sept. 6, 2007

I've made a bit of noise here about my journalistic integrity. How I always pay for my meals and prefer not to let cooks and servers know that I blog about food, so that I receive no special treatment that you, my readers, wouldn't. But when I got an invitation to the Media Sneak Peek of the Emmy Awards Governor's Ball -- including tasting the food catered by Joaquim Splichal -- how could I refuse? I figured since you, my readers, can't actually buy this food, and unless you're Anthony Bourdain or Oprah Winfrey you probably won't be attending -- what could it hurt?

So Sa and I went and checked it out.

The Ball is held in the Shrine Auditorium's banquet hall adjacent to the theater itself. We stroll in the back door and within two seconds are proffered a tray of the signature martini of the event, "The Emmy." It's a mixology of Grey Goose pear vodka, a rare vanilla/hazelnut liqueur called "43," grape juice, and a twist. You know I don't generally countenance vodka tainted with fruit flavorings, and prefer my martinis dry and straight... but this drink is delightful. We have two. Okay, three, if you count all three of them.



We turn our attention to the room. It's pretty fucking fabulous. All done up in Art Deco black and white. A gigantic 100' by 40' billow of gathered white voile forms a faux ceiling. Four 10' by 10' fabric "chandeliers" in a shape suggesting a picture tube hang from the corners. (The 4x3 TV ratio is mirrored throughout the design of the room, from small hand-sewn sequins on the tablecloths to mirrored pillars).


Four silhouetted Emmy shapes --and she is the most graceful of the big awards statues -- billow languidly in fabric pedestals on the floor. Boxes of tightly bunched white roses form the centerpieces. White orchids grace Lalique vases around the hall. Calla lilies are wrapped in delicate bondage around flowing, nouveau, wrought iron stands. It's all unspeakably elegant.




After a not-dreadful amount of speechifying, the food comes out. First there are full-sized portions, meant for photography only. The press are snapping away with cameras the size of howitzers, and I feel a little out of place with my little digital Elph.

But we're soon distracted as the tasting plates go around. The appetizer is a Tower of Mango and Dungeness Crab, an architectural structure with chunks of avocado and mango on a bed of thinly sliced cucumber and topped with a lotus-root crisp. I say architectural, though you'd fire this architect as the thing falls to pieces at the first touch. It's delicious, though... with those ingredients, how could it not be?

Next came the main course and a beefy one it is: Filet Mignon AND Braised Shortrib, with Cippollini Onions, Marrow Flan, Potatoes Fondate and organic asparagus. This is all good stuff. My mignon, thin-sliced for the tasting tray, was overcooked. I doubt this will be a problem for the thick serving portion on the Big Night. The shortrib, braised in red wine, was to die for. Tender and not too slimy in the way that makes me generally avoid shank meats. The potato was a potato. But the marrow flan... oh my. As creamy and fluffy as the finest custard, with a mellow savoryness imparted by the marrow. This was a revelation. One can't help but wonder, though, why Splichal has chosen to serve asparagus, a famous wine-killer, when the bar is spilling a quite lovely BV Georges Latour 2003 reserve Cabernet (along with a less successful BV Chardonnay)?


For dessert, the Milk Chocolate Mousse with Champagne Gelee and Berries was lovely, though the Dove® Dark Chocolate Cup it came in was a bit much. (But then, Dove® is a sponsor of the event, along with Grey Goose® and BV®, so they may be forgiven.) The tiny "cherry vanilla cake" alongside was more breakfast muffin than dinner dessert.


I did wonder aloud to one of the servers if they had a vegetarian option; I was informed that not only was there a delicious butternut squash ravioli, but that the chef would be creating all manner of special requests on the spot to cater to the whims of whatever A-listers might order fussily.


Sa and I came away from our "tastes" quite thoroughly stuffed. She couldn't help wondering why they would bother serving larger portions to a group of people who, collectively, do not eat. The full size beef dinner is more than Calista Flockhart has eaten in her life.


Okay, I had one more of those "Emmy" cocktails before leaving. Which left me uncertain about much aside from this: if the food press regularly gets plied with alcohol at mid-day like this, you shouldn't believe anything they say in print, because they were drunk when they wrote it. As was, I suspect, the Emmy bigwig who announced: "The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is very excited about this Governor's Ball... in fact we're excited about BOTH the Governor's balls."

I really don't know what that means, and I'm not sure I want to.

Most Underrated - El Pollo Loco

On foodie boards around town, there is a constant debate about what establishment most typifies Los Angeles. An out-of-towner will post "In LA for One Meal... Where?" They usually want something near their hotel, on a budget, not too adventurous, and a million other restrictions.

The most common replies are things like Spago, Pizzeria Mozza, and Saddle Peak Lodge on the high end; El Cholo in the middle; and Pink's, Tommy's, and In N' Out Burger on the low end. Now these are all fine places. But I'd like to propose that the quintessential, and perhaps most underrated Southern California classic for a quick, tasty, low-end meal is El Pollo Loco.

It doesn't get written up much. It's just there, plugging along as it has done since the mid-eighties. The menu continues to evolve, with burritos and tacos al carbon and, most recently, crispy-shell chicken tacos. But the staple is still the 2-piece chicken combo. Flame-grilled chicken in a unique, tangy marinade, taken fresh from the grill and hacked to the cuts you've requested before your eyes, and served with your choice of two sides, two tortillas (corn or flour), and a stack of goodies from the salsa bar. I strip off some of that hot, juicy chicken, lay it in a tortilla, add some of my whole beans and side salad (no dressing), some pico de gallo, a slather of the guacamole salsa, and some of my own Cholula... it really doesn't get much better than that at even the best taco joints.

I eat takeout from our local once a week or so; I wonder why have I never taken a visiting guest there? It's a uniquely SoCal chain serving uniquely SoCal food at great prices on every other street corner. You won't find anything quite like it west of the Mississippi. I think it's time someone gave Pollo Loco its due, and started talking it up. The time is now, and the one is me. What do you think?

The Good News From London

LA Food Crazy in the UK

My only excuse for not posting these past two months is that I've been busy, and traveling. I recently returned from a three-week long business trip to New York, London and Stratford. I came back with many tales to tell, of Manhattan publishing houses and West End theatrical intrigue and encounters with legendary Shakespeare scholars in Shakespeare's birthplace. But for my Food Crazy readers, I really have just one, albeit earth-shattering, item to report: English food no longer totally sucks.

In London, I was ensconced at the Arts Theater in Great Newport Street just around the corner from Leicester Square, where my old Reduced Shakespeare Company partner Daniel Singer and I were directing our newly-revised version of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary. (Yes, 20th... obviously we started performing the show when we were six!) The revival is going really well, thanks for asking -- you can see the reviews from the London press by clicking HERE.

Coincidentally, the Arts was the last place I performed the show in 1992. Back then, the neighborhood of the theater was a poster child for England's well-deserved reputation for crappy food -- bad pub meals, chip shops, kebab houses, Pizza Hut, Burger King, KFC. One could take a 15-minute stroll to some decent Chinese in Chinatown; there was a Mexican restaurant in Covent Garden, Cafe Pacifico, that made a passable facsimile of Mexican food; and there was always Pizza Express.

But now, Great Newport Street is emblematic of the culinary Renaissance that has hit London. The four closest restaurants to the Arts Theater, all within a minute's walk of the 's front door are: a tapas bar; an authentic Japanese Okonomiyaki restaurant, a 50's burger joint; a Korean place with kickass kimchi-chili pancakes; and an outpost of Britain's own fast food sensation Pret a Manger.

What happened since I was there in '92? Simply put, London has caught up with, and in some cases surpassed, California for food freshness, seasonality, sustainability, and yes, even convenience. Right across the street from the Arts is one of the many outposts of Pret a Manger, or, as locals call it, Pret. As the French name suggests, it's ready-to eat food -- sandwiches, salads, wraps, and coffee -- but with a totally fresh and organic aesthetic. No preservatives, no artificial flavors, no frankenfood, no transfats... think Subway meets Whole Foods. Sandwiches are made fresh every morning in each individual store, and packaged up for the day's business -- in cardboard rather than plastic. There's no such thing as "shelf life" at Pret... any leftovers at the end of each day are given to charity. The All-Day-Breakfast sandwich of egg salad and bacon with watercress on whole wheat bread was something I took advantage of often. The crawfish and avocado sandwich -- after the addition of some much needed salt and pepper -- was worthy of the trendiest Westside cafe.


You grab your sandwich or salad from the deli freezer, take it to the counter and request your beverage -- which can include a Coffee Bean And Tea Leaf-quality espresso drink -- and you're out the door with a perfectly satisfying lunch.

My readers know that I'm crazy for Korean food, so you can imagine my shock and surprise to find a restaurant called Corean Chilli (okay, they haven't learned how to spell in the UK) on the nearest corner to the theater.


I was in like a rocket for lunch on our first day of rehearsal, and had a sublime version of the ubiquitous Korean egg-and-kimchee pancake. Perfectly cooked, and reddened through with a piquant tang that absolutely demanded something to wash it back. You guessed it: soju, just as chilled, refreshingly delicious, and sneakily alcoholic as you find it in Seoul or on Olympic and Vermont. (A bottle smuggled into the theater helped me get through the stress of opening night!) The side dishes, panchan, were a little less generous and varied than I'm used to here, but the sweet, grilled beef bulgogi and the bibimbap were just like home.

Directly across the street from the theater is Abeno Too, a Japanese restaurant specializing in okonomiyaki. Some of you may remember my earlier post about my quest, on behalf of my friend Kent, to find the Osaka comfort-food specialty here in L.A. The sauce-drizzled grilled cabbage and egg concoctions here were superior in every way to those in Little Tokyo. Made with Japanese precision and style on the stainless steel grill in front of you, the wasabi mayo and special okonomiyaki sauce were drizzed on, not haphazardly, but in a mandala-like design of concentric spirals that made it almost too pretty to eat.


Nice! Mine, with pork and scallop, two of my favorite foods but rarely found in combination, was simply fantastic.

Even Cafe Pacifico, still hunkered down in a side street, has come up in the world of Mexican food.


Mex food in the UK, even in London, used to be so hard to find and poorly executed (we're talking "enchiladas" made of a crepe filled with canned baked beans and white rice, and topped with catsup) that Sa and I would travel there from California with salsa, bags of tortillas, and cans of Rosarita refries in our luggage. (Note to self: don't drop luggage from a high place when filled with jars of Pace Picante. ) We once took a two hour train ride from Nottinghamshire just to have lunch at the Taco Bell that once graced Leicester Square.

No longer necessary. True, grocery stores still don't stock Mexican ingredients beyond boxes of stale Old El Paso taco shells and beans, but you can go to Cafe Pacifico and have a thoroughly credible Mexican meal. A pitcher of margaritas and a basket of chips with fresh pico de gallo started things off nicely. But I nearly fell off my chair when my order of "five assorted street tacos" arrived, and looked exactly like tacos I might get from a taco truck in L.A.


Good, too. Though the lamb was marred by a cloyingly sweet sauce, the carnitas and carne asada were both crispy and tender, the grilled shrimp juicy on the inside and nicely seared on the outside. The duck (foreground) was out of this world. All were garnished with perfectly authentic onion and cilantro, and a comfortingly familiar bottle of Tapatio stood on the table, ready to do its Tapatio thing.


Of course, the Indian food in London is as good as it has always been. My hosts took me to their local, Indian Ocean on Holloway Road in Islington. Look upon it and weep.




But the London culinary revival isn't confined only to restaurants.

My hosts had just finished planting a large herb garden, and treated me on my early-morning arrival to an omelette made with organic, free-range eggs, a bit of artisanal cheese, and tomatoes and herbs fresh from their garden. Their local grocery store, Waitrose, specializes in organic, sustainable foods, fresh local produce, and environmentally-sensitive household products. Even the scariest local pubs now generally serve a decent house wine -- though you'll still get the odd look for ordering it. And the week after I left, all of the UK was going smoke-free in restaurants and bars, so pub owners were nervously erecting outdoor patios and beer gardens that promised to give dreary old London a positively Parisian flair during warm weather... which, thanks to global warming, is becoming increasingly common.

But fear not, my culinary life in London wasn't all Asian food and organic veggies. I had an occasional pasty, a fish and chip or two. I even decided to re-visit the traditional English Breakfast. Turns out that those once-scary piles of pork sausage, bacon, roasted tomato and eggs make for a fine low carb repast, and now that I've swapped my glycemia-bomb former breakfast of cereal, fruit and yogurt for a more protein-based first meal, this (leaving aside the beans) was right up my alley. I even discovered that the mushrooms in your standard English Breakfast are likely some of the best to be found anywhere.



In short, this is no longer the London of greasy Chinese takeaway, gloppy pub curries, and overcooked vegetables. To my great joy and surprise, I returned from the UK a bit... just a little bit... London Food Crazy.