Two Restaurants for Mother's Day: Michael's in Santa Monica and Maison Giraud in Pacific Palisades

Mother's Day is a special time to appreciate our mothers and the mothers of our children. A leisurely meal in a pleasant surrounding is the perfect way to celebrate the women who are so central to our lives.

Brunch is the preferred meal for Mother's Day, when a sunny late morning adds to the celebration.

Michael's Restaurant (1147 Third Street, Santa Monica, CA 90403; 310/451-0843), located on Third Street in Santa Monica, half a block north of Wilshire, has an elegant dining room with the relaxed feeling of a private home. Surrounding diners at the rear of the restaurant, a lush patio garden obliterates all traces of the busy city a few feet away.

By staying focused on farmers market fresh, seasonal ingredients, owner/chef Michael McCarty has pulled off a magic trick, staying contemporary and innovative even as the culinary landscape changed. When the restaurant opened, market fresh produce was a rallying cry for a few talented chefs. Nowadays, just about every restaurant says it buys locally and seasonally.

The difference then as now is that fresh ingredients are a good beginning but to be something special, they must be prepared by a talented chef with a great palate.

For the West Side, Michael's is a member of a small group of upscale restaurants. On the spring menu, starters are priced from $18 for a half dozen raw oysters to $22 for the Maine lobster gnocchi with mains ranging from $34 for the Jidori half-chicken to $44 for the rack of lamb and New York steak.

But Happy Hour at Michael's is a bargain and it begins early (Monday-Friday 5:00pm; Saturday 6:0pm). Michael keeps Happy Hour happy until closing. With flavors inspired by the larger menu, the snacks are as varied as an crostini with duck confit or with burrata, arugula and Parmigiano-Reggiano, truffle-thyme fries, Andouille sausage with beer caramelized onions, piquillo pepper and avocado salad and an upscale riff on Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles in the Jidori wings with maple syrup and chile salt (addictive!).

For Mother's Day, Michael's has a Sunday brunch from 11:30am-2:00pm. The prix fix menu for adults ($65.00/person) and for children under ten ($30.00/person) has four to five choices per course in a three course brunch. The dishes are elegant (oysters with blood orange mignonette, petit prime filet with English peas, Shimeji mushrooms and white corn) and familiar (Eggs Benedict, Cobb salad, blueberry pancakes with chicken sausage or smoked bacon). Dessert is sensible (strawberry-oatmeal crisp with creme fraiche ice cream) or complex and rich (dark chocolate cake with vanilla bean ice cream, chocolate ganache and raspberries).

If you want to toast mom, Michael's has an excellent wine cellar, including wines McCarty grows and bottles at his Malibu home, and a selection of delicious cocktails (a blood orange mimosa, Stoli bloody bull, "smoke love" with single malt scotch and smoked mescal, the "dark side of the moon," a wicked mixture of gin, vermouth, orange juice, lime orange oil simple and Creme de Violette! and a "frozen white lady," a sweet, ice cold, lemony confection of a drink).

Up the hill from Santa Monica, Maison Giraud (1032 Swarthmore Avenue, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272; 310/459-7561) is an outpost of French cuisine in suburban Pacific Palisades. Paired down and minimalist, the dining room is elegantly efficiently. Outside on the covered patio, diners enjoy eating at sidewalk tables, shaded by trees.

Alain Giraud wants the restaurant to be a relaxed gathering place for everyone wanting a good meal in a quiet setting. Like McCarty, Giraud is a habitué of farmers markets, looking for the freshest, best tasting, seasonal products he can find.

In the bakery he shows his deft hand with buttery, effervescent croissants, brioche, Danish, and other sweet and crisp pastries. 

For Mother's Day, Giraud will serve brunch from 10:30am-2:30pm featuring the usual menu with a selection of omelets, custardy scrambled eggs, French toast, Nicoise salad, grilled salmon, quiche and Eggs Benedict. For Mother's Day, he has added a green asparagus salad with citrus vinaigrette, roasted halibut and spring vegetables and for dessert, a strawberry and pistachio confection.

Besides dining at the restaurant, Mother's Day can also be celebrated at home by ordering from the bakery and the take-out menu.

Three Days and a Dozen Meals in Kyoto, Japan

Writing about the trip I took to Kyoto meant going through hundreds of photographs.





With only a few days in Kyoto, we covered a lot of ground and ate a lot of meals.















Looking at those photographs, I get really hungry, wishing I could be back in Kyoto on a leisurely trip, enjoying food that is exquisitely prepared, delicious and beautiful.










Until that return trip, I'll have to make due with the photographs.

Pork Belly and Vegetable Pasta

I wrote a recipe for Zester Daily about my latest, favorite dish, a pasta with pork belly meat, flavored by Vietnamese style pickled vegetables.

I love pork belly but not pork belly fat. 

The recipe is my attempt to split the difference. 

I let the fat tenderize and season the meat. 

The only part of the fat I put into the pasta is the thin crackling layer, that luscious bubbling, crispy top layer. 

The cracklings are ground up and sprinkled on the pasta to give a sweet crunch to the tender, moist meat.

The pickled vegetables add to the pork's deep rich flavors. Included in the pickling are pieces of ginger which brings a subtle heat to bear on the dish.

Eating Our Way Through Tokyo and Kyoto

With only a few days in Tokyo and Kyoto, to take a snapshot of the food scene takes eating at half a dozen restaurants each day.

Starting early, we visited Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market to see the fresh catch of day being sold in the warren of stalls. While we were there, we ate at the dozens and dozens of food stalls that rim the outside and inside of the market. 

Our first stop at 8:00 a.m. was Ryu Sushi where we had a sashimi plate and a sushi sampler. The fish was what you would hope for--eating at a restaurant so close to the fish market--fresh, clean tasting and delicious. For me, there was a huge eye-opener: mackerel.  

The few times I have eaten mackerel in Los Angeles, it tasted fishy and oily. At Ryu Sushi the mackerel sashimi was mild tasting, sweet and buttery. Mark Bittman always writes about how much he likes mackerel. Now I understand why.

In our short time at Tsukiji we ate sashimi, sushi, tamago, pork ramen and soba with shrimp tempura. 

From the Tsukiji market we had lunch at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, Hard to believe, we were still hungry.  We enjoyed a delicious multi course lunch before we visited the Meiji Shrine and had a leisurely walk in the rain around the Yoyogi, the magnificent, forested park surrounding the temple. 

For a small donation, a member of the Shrine's staff will hand write your prayer that will be transcribed on a piece of wood and hung on the wall surrounding the tree at the entrance of the temple.

Dinner was back at the Park Hyatt Tokyo but this time at the New York Grill with its fabulous view of Tokyo. The steaks were delicious. Japanese beef is outstanding.

In the morning, some of us had American style breakfasts with eggs and pastries. I had a Japanese breakfast at the Park Hyatt. There were so many dishes, I would have happily stayed longer but we had a schedule to keep so off we went to Tokyo Station to get on the bullet train to Kyoto.

Kyoto has a friendly competition with its much larger rival, Tokyo. From a visitor's point of view, it is definitely an easier way to experience Japanese culture. Smaller, less crowded  and easier to navigate--traffic in Tokyo is a mash-up of rush hour mid-town Manhattan, Seattle and the 10 freeway in West Los Angeles. Going anywhere in Tokyo takes forever.  In Kyoto, you get where you want to without hassle.

Kyoto also is a great city to use to cool out and relax. The thousands of temples in the city offer locals and visitors the chance to enjoy nature and quiet contemplation. 

We had a Shojin vegan meal at a Zen temple at the Golden Pavilion and, at Ryoanji Temple, we enjoyed the plum blossoms, a sure sign that spring has begun. 

The Zen spirit is evident at Ryoanji as you walk around the lake, you'll notice that damaged trees are not cut down. They are lovingly supported with bamboo poles and tied carefully with rope to prevent further damage.

In my next post, I'll talk more where we stayed in Kyoto--the Hyatt Regency Kyoto--the temples we visited and put up more photographs from the Lantern Festival, the elegant French-Japanese fusion restaurant Misogigawa and our sake sampling at the izakaya bar, Ichi in the entertainment district.

Lost and Found in Tokyo

Staying at the Lost in Translation Park Hyatt Tokyo, a beautifully sleek and elegant hotel. Last night I had  dinner at restaurant Kozue in the hotel. 

The tasting menu had 28 "things" to taste that covered raw, grilled and simmered. 

The beef was amazingly delicate and melt-in-the-mouth tender. 

The soups had clear broths.

Salt pickled vegetables were simple and clean tasting.

Soba with duck broth and leeks, delicious.

The trip is crazy-short. Only one day in Tokyo, then a bullet train trip to Kyoto. Two days there, then back to Tokyo to return to LA.

Nutty and such great fun.

Here are some photographs from last night's dinner.

More to come.

An Oscar Party's Best Snacks

Unless you use a dvr to record the Oscars so you can compress the show to fifteen or twenty minutes of highlights, you'll need some good snacks to keep you going during the 3+ hour festivities.

The easiest route is to order-in.

A large pizza with your favorite toppings and a green salad will do nicely. Getting one from Dominos is ok. From Pizzeria Mozza in West Hollywood or Milo + Olive in Santa Monica would be even better.

If you want to treat yourself but do very little cooking--just enough so you showed you care about what you eat--a big bowl of freshly made popcorn, seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and tossed with a goodly amount of melted sweet butter will definitely keep you happily snacking through the first hour. (Be sure to have plenty of napkins for buttery finger-and-face-clean up.)

On the other hand, you could put in the time to prepare an elegant dinner party, served in front of the television.

Prosciutto and a soft cheese like triple cream with crackers for an appetizer, home made gnocchi with fresh vegetables, grilled lobsters stuffed with sautéed onions and shiitake mushrooms and a banana walnut chocolate cake and coffee at the end would be delicious.

This year, we'll have a simplified version of a dinner party for our friends who are coming over to watch the Oscars.

During the opening monologue and the first awards, we'll have a homemade tapenade with butter-olive oil fried lavash crisps as an appetizer.

For the main course, we'll have a tossed arugula salad with carrot rounds and a reduced balsamic-olive oil dressing and a spaghetti with farmers market vegetables.

We'll save dessert for the last half hour so. As the final awards are announced, we can be enjoying a plate of Valencia orange sections and a selection of the chocolates I've been making (and devouring at an alarming rate).

Tapenade


Better quality olives produce a better tasting tapenade. Use whatever olives you enjoy. Green, black or red. The choice is yours.

Yield: 4

Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

2 cups, pitted olives, black oil cured or cracked green

1 cup Italian parsley, washed, finely chopped

2 tablespoon capers

1 garlic clove, peeled, chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

¼ freshly ground black pepper

Cayenne, a light dusting

2 anchovies (optional)

1/4 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)

Directions

Put all the ingredients into a blender and pulse until the olives, capers, and parsley have combined into a paste. Slowly drizzle olive oil into the pulsing blender until you have the desired consistency.

Lavash Crisps

Fresh lavash is available in most supermarkets. If you live near a Middle Eastern market, you will find a good selection of whole wheat and white flour lavash. Check the labels and find ones without chemicals.
Yield: 4 servings

Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

2 large sheets of lavash

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup olive oil

Sea salt and black pepper

Directions

Spread a single sheet of lavash on a cutting board. Using a sharp knife, cut the sheet in half. Lay that sheet on top of the first and cut in half again. Cut the lavish into pieces approximately 2" square.  Stack them up and put aside. 

The uncooked squares can be stored for several hours in the refrigerator in sealed plastic bags.

Place a layer of paper towels on a large plate or cookie sheet.

In a large frying pan, melt half the butter, add half the olive oil and season with sea salt and pepper. Heat the oil over a low flame. Cook the lavash in batches. 

Add lavash squares to the pan being careful to avoid overlaps.

As they cook, be careful they don't burn. Turn when they brown on one side and remove when they are brown on the second side. 

Remove the lavish crisps and place on the paper towel. Do not overlap. Place a paper towel on top.

As you fry the crisps, add more butter and olive oil as needed.

Serve the crisps at room temperature. To keep them crisp, serve immediately or store in an airtight container.

Variation

Just before serving, on top of the lavash crisps sprinkle freshly grated Romano or Parmesan cheese with rosemary.