food and drinks

A friend brought over dessert last night and I am reminded of why chocolate and strawberries works so well together. Especially fresh strawberries and caramel brownies from Fat Witch.Fat Witch Bakeryaddthis_pub = 'FrontStudio';

We leave tomorrow for the 20+ hour drive back home to Minneapolis - woo! I think Gus will be the happiest... he isn't used to being cooped up in a small hotel room for this long. Gus isn't the biggest car-ride fan either, but he loves to bury himself in heaps of blankets and just hang out in his bed right behind us.It will be nice to be "home", but I am certainly going to miss the warmth down here! While it did start as a cold, snowy mess when we initially arrived, it quickly warmed up to the 60's and 70's, with brilliant blue skies that stretched as far as the eye can see - we will both be missing that! It will probably take us a couple days to get settled in and get the house stocked back up... for the first time in a long time, I think the refrigerator will be quite bare! In the mean time, I have a snazzy pancake recipe to share!We probably don't have breakfast-for-dinner nights nearly as often as I (or Jeff) would like, but since I also don't want to ruin the treat factor by doing them too often, I spread them out as long as I can stand it. Being that we were about to leave for Charlotte, I didn't know when the next time we'd be able to dish up homemade pancakes, which was enough cause for me to try out these Carrot Cake Pancakes recently!For a solid starting point to the batter, we used a combination all-purpose flour, lighter whole-wheat pastry flour and crunchy toasted walnuts. Cinnamon is the first spice that comes to mind when I think of carrot cake, which is certainly included in these pancakes, but we've also tried other cakes that had an appealing complexity to them, thanks to a variety of spices used. If that draws you in, you'll find that same robustness here by also tossing freshly grated nutmeg, cloves and ginger right in with the dry ingredients.You'll find the usual suspects to moisten the above mixture - tangy buttermilk, brown sugar, a couple eggs, a splash of your best vanilla and to round the ingredients out, just a bit of canola oil. These wouldn't be carrot cake pancakes without the carrots, but how you prepare them, in my opinion, will be the key to how these turn out. Since the batter takes just minutes to cook through, the carrot pieces cannot be very large or you'll be left with uninviting raw carrot bits. I tried using the shredding blade of the food processor to make short work of them, but after doing half a carrot, I thought the pieces were still a bit too bulky.I almost reached for the box grater, which probably would have worked, but then remembered I had a microplane-like hand grater in the drawer. Using that gave us shreds that were fine, yet not wet or mushy - the one I have is a bit coarser than one you'd use to zest a lemon with. Once the carrots were folded in, the batter was fairly thick and gooey - when you start spooning the batter onto the buttered griddle, be sure to give the mounts a gentle nudge to help them spread out a bit. Because there was only two of us eating, we served our portions directly from the final batch out from the pan. However, if you need to keep them warm until you can get all of the batter used, set the pancakes on a wire rack as they come off and place them in the oven, heated as low as it can go until you are ready to eat.You could go all out and take these over-the-top by whipping up a lightly sweetened cream cheese spread to smear over each golden flapjack, but because I didn't want to go too crazy for dinner, a dollop of honey butter worked out to be an enticing compromise! I knew these were a winner for us when Jeff said "I can't believe there are carrots in these! I mean, I can taste the sweetness of them in there, but if I was a kid who didn't like carrots, I would still love these!". We did have a few leftover, but those were quickly devoured the next morning - a quick stint in the toaster oven was just enough to warm them back up.RecipesCarrot Cake Pancakes

All recipes that appear in the L.A. Times' Food section are tested and perfected in our Test Kitchen before they're deemed fit to print. (That means you don't have to worry about a trial run before serving one of our recipes to company.) Rest assured, they should work the first time out of the gate. Here's a look at this week's recipes:
Chicken liver pate
Green garlic soup with strangolapretto
Sockeye salmon with green garlic and favas
Whole wheat spaghetti with green garlic and fried egg
Want more? Check out our recipe collection at www.latimes.com/recipes -- and bookmark it. We're constantly adding new dishes.
-- Rene LynchOn Twitter @renelynch
Join us on Twitter @latimesfood and Facebook at facebook.com/latimesfood
Photo: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

There were no English speakers at Big Wing Wong today aside from the two of us trying to speak over the din and cacophony of loud voices. It's usually a raucous lunch but today even more so than normal - to the extent that I could almost imagine we were in Hong Kong having lunch. Who knew Big Wing Wong could be so transporting?Big Wing Wong, 102 Mott St, NY, NY 10013 (below Hester)addthis_pub = 'FrontStudio';

Zinfandel is often called California's indigenous wine, but its story is not that simple. Some of the best Zinfandel-based wines from the state's best and most historic vineyards can't use the grape name on their labels.In these bottles, Zinfandel leads a supporting cast of grapes in a traditional blend that is now outright discouraged -- both by federal law and a skeptical market.Those who love these wines say that while Zinfandel may be the star of these vineyards, it's even better with a supporting cast. "Zinfandel's like Beyoncé: She's beautiful, she's talented, but the women dancing behind her, they're not bad either," says JC Cellars winemaker Jeff Cohn.The story goes back before Prohibition, but is causing controversy today. According to federal law, for a wine to be called Zinfandel or any other varietal name, it must contain at least 75% wine from that grape. The law is designed to protect consumers, but one consequence is that it has created several generations of American wine drinkers who believe a varietal wine is always better than a blend. Read more here.
Photo: Morgan Twain-Peterson, left, makes a Bedrock Heirloom Wine that's half Zin. His dad, Joel Peterson, makes a Ravenswood wine labeled Zinfandel. Credit: Robert Durell / For The Times

My son’s favorite game in the whole world is Let’s Play With The Other Baby! You Know, The One We Keep In The Mirror. We bring him over to this giant mirror in the hallway and he goes berserk, he paws at the “other” baby, kicks his legs, squeals and laughs. It cracks us up too. Babies: they’re so cute when they’re kinda confused!

It took us a few weeks to realize how sad this game actually is. My little monkey is so outgoing and eager to make friends that he’ll play with an imaginary baby that lives in the mirror to get his fix. Perhaps, we realized, hanging our heads in the shame of being the worst parents, ever, it is time for him to meet some other babies his age that he can paw and squeal at in person and they can hopefully paw and squeal back. But, of course, this isn’t a story about Jacob’s first playdate, it’s about what I made for breakfast.

... Read the rest of breakfast pizza on smittenkitchen.com

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How many high-end restaurants can Vegas support, particularly in this economy? Easily a dozen more just opened in the new $11-billion CityCenter complex on the Strip, and a number of them definitely have enough wow factor to pull in the hungry tourists.Admittedly, the planning for CityCenter began long before the slump. Still, here comes Michelin three-star Paris chef Pierre Gagnaire joining his illustrious (and extravagantly starred) colleagues Joel Robuchon, Alain Ducasse and Guy Savoy in a gambler's paradise. Ten years ago, the idea of such world-renowned chefs deigning to grace Vegas with their cooking seemed preposterous. Today, though, Gagnaire's debut at the Mandarin Oriental with his first American restaurant seems almost ho-hum.Yet I can't help but think that this new group of restaurants from Masa Takayama (Masa in New York), Shawn McClain (Spring in Chicago) and Julian Serrano (Picasso in Vegas' Bellagio), among others, may be the last such extravagant wave of restaurants for quite a while. They're sophisticated and glam, reflecting the thrilling architecture of the complex designed by some of the world's most lauded architects. But what a disappointment inside the Aria casino: Instead of taking the opportunity to redefine the genre, MGM Mirage has gone with the same old, same old and scribbled over the space inside with busy ornamentation as if the beautiful plain spaces made the bosses nervous.Here then, for your dining explorations, is my pick of the CityCenter crop.
-- S. Irene Virbila
Photo credit: Los Angeles Times

Federal prosecutors Wednesday filed criminal charges against a Santa Monica sushi restaurant and one of its chefs, alleging that they sold endangered whale meat. Named in the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, were Typhoon Restaurant Inc., owner of the Hump restaurant at Santa Monica Airport, and chef Kiyoshiro Yamamoto, 45, of Culver City. Both were charged with the illegal sale of a marine mammal product, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a maximum fine of $100,000 for an individual and $200,000 for an organization. Read more here:
Photo: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Shanghai's cuisine, whether served at a dive or a white-tablecloth restaurant, often is typecast as an impossibly rich parade of braised meats and overly sweet, heavy sauces. But at 4-month-old Yu Garden, chef Bin Hu focuses on a lighter, more streamlined Shanghainese cooking style. It's the sort of food found in casual, modern eateries that have popped up to serve the Chinese city's outlying urban sprawl — call it Neo-Shanghainese Cafe Cuisine.
From Yu Garden's façade, possibly one of the drabbest storefronts on Valley Boulevard, there's no hint of the buzzing energy within. At busy mealtimes, the small, narrow room throbs with city life: girlfriends gossiping in the upholstered booths, a lone businessman slurping noodles at one of the faux black granite tables; families and shoppers, their puffy plastic bags resting on the stylishly rustic tile floor, perusing the bargain lunch menu. The polished décor, inherited from several predecessors, gives the plain space a bit of urban chic. Read more here:
Photo: The green leaf wonton soup on the menu at Yu Garden Restaurant in San Gabriel. Credit: Axel Koester / For The Times
 

The nice counter guy at Falai called these "swiss leaves cookies" or that's what it sounded like he said over the bustling din of their lunch time crowd. But when I look for more information on the internets, there is nothing. Any Swiss readers out there who can enlighten us? Because whatever these are, they're pretty delicious. They're like a slightly flaky, crunchy and thin version of a sugar cookie.Caffe Falai, 265 Lafayette St, NY, NY 10012 (below Prince)addthis_pub = 'FrontStudio';

Sometimes we come across people who work in the neighborhood who don't have a supportive lunch network so we immediately make plans to meet as we are such big fans of this most underrated meal of the day. Today's guest luncher is Christine who works on Walker. An hour passed pretty quickly discussing the merits of Pittsburgh, the importance of lunch and how cappuccinos could possibly be hard to digest.Cafe Select, 212 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012 (at Kenmare)addthis_pub = 'FrontStudio';

Sorry we missed posting this yesterday! But preparations were underway for the opening of the Landscapes of Quarantine and we lost our heads. I'm happy to report we're back on track with good old reliable Dreesen donuts picked up from Balthazar earlier yesterday morning. Which we did actually eat yesterday afternoon.Balthazar Bakery, 80 Spring St, NY, NY 10012 (near Crosby)addthis_pub = 'FrontStudio';