New to Me: R+D Kitchen and M Cafe

Yabu, Il Fornaio and Musha are my favorite restaurants. They have great food and they're comfortable and affordable. I'd go to them every week if I could. Having said that, without realizing it, I'd fallen into a rut. It took my wife, Michelle, to shake things up and get me to try two new restaurants.

R+D Kitchen (310-395-3314) is part of the Hillstone restaurant group that includes Bandera, Gulfstream, and Houston's among others. Recently opened at 1323 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, R+D took over an address that was something of a black hole. Montana Lounge and Yu Restaurant had failed. Even a successful entrenpeneur like Wolfgang Puck couldn't make the space work for him. With the Aero theater directly across the street, this should be a good location.

Good design makes such a difference. The previous tenants had sealed off the space, creating dark interiors. Walking into the restaurant, it's easy to see that R+D came up with a fresh approach. With a minimalist design, a skylight in the middle of the dining room, an L-shaped bar to one side, and windows that open out onto Montana, R+D is inviting both inside and out.

Running along the street side of the restaurant is a window space that in warm weather is covered by almost invisible screen. The effect is complete openness.

A single sheet, bar-style menu focuses on a few choices: sandwiches (cheeseburgers, Reuben Sandwiches, Veggie Burgers), salads (Mediterranean tuna salad, chopped chicken salad, and an heirloom tomato salad), a few entrees (chicken, pasta, omelet, and steak), and one or two specials.

The night we visited the restaurant we came early while it was still light, all the better to enjoy the airy interior. The portions are large. The Featured Sandwich for the day was an ahi tuna burger which the kitchen obliged us by splitting. We shared a salad as well. The Newporter was a perfect salad entree, with pieces of roast chicken sharing the plate with a mix of apples, bacon, cashews and greens. Judging by the crowded tables and with a lively bar and a good wine list, R+D certainly seems to have hit a sweet spot on Montana.

M Café (310/838-4300) adds a macrobiotic kitchen to the ever-expanding restaurant row on Culver Blvd. Like R+D, M Café is a member of a larger family of restaurants. The Chaya organization in Los Angeles has always been known as a design-savvy company with an eye on fusion cuisine. M Café in Culver City is an inviting restaurant with a large space inside and a shaded patio out front. With its refrigerated cases, the offerings have the feeling of an upscale deli.

If you think that "macrobiotic" means a subsistence diet of whole grains and raw vegetables, you will be pleasantly surprised. M Café bends the rules to include fish. An avoidance of refined sugar, eggs, or dairy doesn't mean that the pleasures of the patisserie are ignored.

An extensive menu offers salads, rice bowls, sandwiches (hot and cold), sushi, and desserts. As befits a restaurant that has "fusion" embedded in its corporate identity, Cole slaw comfortably shares space in the deli display with whole-grain brown rice inari sushi.

Since Michelle has recently embraced a whole grain, sugar-free, largely vegetarian diet, M Café is a dream-spot for her. With the original M Café at 7119 Melrose, she can enjoy her new diet on the West Side and in town as well.

La Bruschetta Celebrates the End of the Writers' Strike with a Free Meal

La Bruschetta Ristorante, a West LA landmark, generously hosted a buffet lunch for members of the Writers' Guild. For 24 years, Angelo Peloni, the owner, has proudly served high-quality, affordable Italian food. Twenty years ago, at the end of the last writers' strike, he told his friend, George Kirgo, then the President of the WGA, that he wanted to make a meal for the writers to celebrate the conclusion of the strike. Today, he did it again.

In addition to the delicious meal, Angelo provided the opportunity to get together one more time, to remind us how much we all liked the community of writers we discovered on the picket line. With his lunch, Angelo was telling us that we should stay connected, and what better way than to do that than with a good meal.

We enjoyed a tasting from the menu. An Antipasto Misto Della Casa started the meal with an array of meats, marinated and fresh vegetables, and cheeses. On the buffet line, those taste treats were followed by 2 pastas (Pasta Farfella al Pesto and a Penne Bolognese); then a Vegetali Misti, steamed broccoli, carrots, and zucchini; and at the far corner of the long table, 2 meat dishes (Polpette di Carne, meatballs in tomato sauce, and Pollo Cacciatora). The meal ended with beautiful squares of Tiramisu.

There's nothing better than a good meal to stimulate conversation. To my thinking, the Italians are the best at doing that. They don't allow any one dish to dominate the meal. Progressing by differences, small portions lead through a series of flavors, textures, and sensations. Today, at La Bruschetta, that stimulation provoked conversation that was sometimes about the food ("Did you taste the grilled eggplant rolled around the goat cheese? And that roasted red pepper!"), but mostly the conversation was about our lives. What did we do during the strike? What are we doing now that things have returned to normal?

The center piece of the brunch was Angelo's pastas, the sauces perfectly balanced. In the interest of stimulating meal-time conversation, I'd like to contribute a pasta recipe of my own.

Ziti with Mushrooms and English Peas

1 shallot, peeled, finely chopped
½ cup English peas, shelled, washed
2 garlic cloves, peeled, julienned
4 mushrooms, brown or shiitake, washed, thin sliced
½ box De Cecco ziti
½ cup Italian parsley, washed, finely chopped
1 cup pasta water
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons sweet butter
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons Parmesan or Romano cheese, freshly grated

A very simple pasta that is perfect as a second course, between a salad and a meat course, or as a side dish with a grilled chicken breast or steak. For my vegetarian friends, the sauce is made with pasta water, sweetened with a pat of butter.

Make the pasta first. Fill a large pot with water. Add 2 teaspoons of Kosher salt and bring to a boil. Add the ziti and stir well. Put a colander in the sink. Stir the pasta every couple of minutes. The pasta is done when it is firm but not too soft, probably after 10 minutes. Put a heat-proof measuring cup in the sink next to the colander. Empty the water and pasta into the colander, making sure you capture at least 1 cup of the salted, cooking water. Set the cup aside. Return the pasta to the pot, drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 tablespoon of butter, and season with a little freshly ground black pepper. Toss to mix well and lay a sheet of tin foil over the pot to keep warm. Set aside while you make the sauce.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a sauté pan, over a medium flame, and lightly brown the garlic, shallot, mushrooms, and peas. Add 1 tablespoon butter and 1 cup of pasta water. Reduce on a medium flame until the liquid has begun to thicken. Add the pasta and the Italian parsley and toss to coat the pasta with the sauce.

Divide the pasta into 2 portions. Top with the freshly grated cheese. For ultra-fine grating, use a microplane grater.

Serves 2. Preparation Time: 10 minutes. Cooking Time: 20 minutes.

Dim Sum at Din Tai Fung and Ginger Chicken with Sushi Rice at Home

Today started out as a really bad day. I had an important business meeting, but it...canceled. I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch, but he...rescheduled. A day that looked incredibly full was now...completely empty.

I checked the TiVo in the bedroom and watched the Chocolate Battle on Iron Chef America (Bobby Flay v. Graham Bowles). Since I had nothing better to do, it seemed as if it was time to finally clean off my desk. That's when I found a review I'd cut out from the Los Angeles Times by Susan LaTempa about Din Tai Fung, in Arcadia. She made their dumplings sound amazing, but Arcadia?

That's miles away from where we live. Besides which, how accurate a review is depends on the taste of the writer. I hadn't read her reviews before, so she was an unknown quantity. But I love dumplings and, if they were as good as she said they were, maybe it was worth the drive.

From where we live near the beach in Pacific Palisades, Arcadia is on the far, eastern edge of LA, a good 40+ miles by freeway, taking me east across the LA Basin, north through Downtown, then across Pasadena, and finally east again into the San Gabriel Valley.

The review had predicted there'd be a long line out in front. She was certainly accurate about that. I joined the queue and waited 45 minutes before I got a table. With some friendly advice from the waitress and guided by the review, I spent the next hour enjoying the highlights of the menu: a mound of sautéed garlic-string beans, 10 pork/crab dim dumplings, a large steamer filled with pork shumai topped with whole shrimp, and stir fried noodles with shrimp and spinach. One of the condiments that came with the lunch was a small bowl of finely shredded fresh ginger. Adding soy sauce into the bowl with the ginger made a dipping sauce that added the right amount of edge to the sweet dumplings.

Susan LaTempa's review accurately reported about the special qualities of dishes like the pork/crab dumplings: usually a Chinese dumpling has a stuffing of meat and some vegetables, but here the dumplings had an added "spoonful of fragrant broth in each".

Happily, the meal put me in a very different frame of mind. More than an enjoyable lunch, Din Tai Fung's dumplings made me want to go home and cook. The julienned ginger and soy sauce combination had given me an idea.

Passing through Downtown, I made a quick stop in Chinatown to pick up ingredients. An odd fact about Chinatown is that virtually all the large Chinese supermarkets are gone. What's left are mom-and-pop style stores like the Far East Supermarket at 758 new High Street. Although small, the market has a good collection of Chinese vegetables, fresh fish, and meats. I decided on deboned chicken legs, a nice piece of fresh ginger, baby bok choy, and some shiitake mushrooms.

Ginger Chicken with Italian Sausage and Bok Choy

You can use breast meat, but dark meat holds up better and won't dry out as easily. Asian markets sell deboned leg meat very inexpensively. If you're buying chicken legs from the local supermarket, cutting the meat off the bone isn't difficult. Combining the chicken and Italian sausage with the ginger and soy sauce puts an edge on the sweet and savory meats. You can serve plain, steamed rice, but using sushi rice adds another layer of tartness. The generous amount of broth holds all the flavors together.

Yield: 4 servings

Time: 60 minutes.

Ingredients

2 pounds deboned, skinned, chicken leg meat, washed, cut into 1" pieces
4 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped
1" piece of ginger, peeled, julienned
2 Italian sweet sausages, cut into 1" rounds
1 bunch baby bok choy, ends trimmed, quartered length-wise
6 shiitake mushrooms, washed, thinly sliced
2 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 cups Japanese rice
2 ½ cups water
2 tablespoons Japanese rice vinegar
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper

Method

In a wok or chef's pan, brown the sausage rounds in the olive oil then remove, drain on a paper towel, and set aside. Sauté the chicken meat, shiitake mushrooms, ginger, and garlic until lightly browned. Add the chicken stock, soy sauce, and the sausage. Simmer for 20 minutes, then add the bok choy, lightly cover with a sheet of tin foil, and simmer for another 15 minutes.

Making the rice: I have to confess I have used a rice cooker for so many years, I couldn't begin to tell you how to make Japanese rice without it. With the rice cooker, add the rice and water, cover, push the button, wait for the button to pop up, use chop sticks to fluff the rice, put the cover back on, and leave alone for 5 minutes. Put the cooked rice into a large metal bowl, add the Japanese rice vinegar and sugar and toss well. Cover the rice to keep it hot.

Put a large spoonful of the sushi rice in the middle of a bowl. Ladle the chicken, sausage, and bok choy with plenty of liquid over the rice.

A Perfect Meal: Salad, Pasta, and a Good Stiff Drink

A friend and I had a tough day and we needed a quiet place to have dinner and recover. We happened across Matteo's, a West LA fixture since the Frank Sinatra Rat Pack days.

The menu is Old School, with sections for Antipasti, Salumi, Insalta, Pasta, Seafood, Chicken, Chef's Specialities, and Weekly Specialties. I'll definitely come back for Tuesday's Roast Pig alla Porchetta Dinner. Tonight I settled on a Caesar salad, Spaghettini alla Vongole, and a Perfect Manhattan with a twist. I have to say, the combination was about as right as it could have been.

The dinner reminded me that a salad, pasta, and a drink was a good way to settle down and switch gears from work-manic to social. Tonight I decided to do my own version of this trifecta and make an Arugula Salad with Feta and Olives, Spaghetti with Parsley and Bacon, and a Perfect Manhattan.

Perfect Manhattan

A Perfect Manhattan mixes up easily and should be the first thing you make, so you can sip while you cook.

Yield: 1 serving

Time: 2 minutes

Ingredients

4 oz. Bourbon or Whiskey
½ oz. Sweet Vermouth
½ oz. Dry Vermouth
1 twist of lemon peel, 1" long, ¼" wide

Method

Keep the Bourbon in the freezer so it will be extra cold. Pour the Bourbon and both vermouths into a martini glass, stir, drop in the twist, and sip contentedly.

Arugula Salad

Yield: 4 servings

Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

1 bunch arugula, washed, dried, the leaves pulled off the stems
10 oil cured black olives, pits removed, cut in half
1 scallion, washed, trimmed, sliced, the white and green parts
¼ cup feta, crumbled
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons reduced balsamic syrup
Freshly ground black pepper
Sea salt

Method

Toss the arugula, olives, scallions, and feta in a salad bowl, then drizzle the olive oil and reduced balsamic syrup. Taste and season with pepper and sea salt as desired.

Spaghetti with Parsley and Bacon

Yield: 4 servings

Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

1 pound dried spaghetti
½ cup Italian parsley, washed, the leaves finely chopped, the stems not used
4 strips of bacon, already cooked, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup homemade chicken stock or pasta water
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Freshly ground black pepper
Sea salt
Freshly ground Parmesan or Romano cheese

Method

Put a large pot of salted water (1 teaspoon of Kosher salt to 1 gallon of water) on a high flame while you sauté the parsley, finely chopped bacon, and garlic in the olive oil until softened, not browned. Add the dried pasta to the boiling water, stir well, and check every 5 minutes, stirring each time, until cooked al dente.

To capture 1 cup of pasta water, put a measuring cup in the sink next to the colander. Empty the pot into the colander, filling the measuring cup with pasta water as you do. To keep the pasta hot while you finish the sauce, put the spaghetti back in the pot, drizzle with olive oil, stir well, and cover.

Use the chicken stock or the pasta water to deglaze the pan, adding the butter and mixing with the parsley-bacon-garlic mixture. Simmer for 10 minutes until the sauce has thickened. Taste and season with sea salt or black pepper if needed. Serve with grated Parmesan or Romano cheese.