A well-known hometown guy is back in the meat business and offering home chefs and backyard barbecue masters the fresh—never frozen!—prime steaks, lamb and pork cuts that our finest steakhouses serve.
It all comes in scientifically temp-controlled packaging.
Hence the name to remember: 35°, which offers its products online at 35degreessteaks.com.
Another name you’ll remember is the cofounder’s, Rick Nicholas, who started Newport Meats in 1975, delivering his premium meats to top-tier restaurateurs himself. He built the company into Southern California’s premier wholesale meat purveyor and in 1999 sold the business to Sysco, the largest food distributor in the U.S.
Rick and his son, Adam, run 35°. They provide home delivery of the same selections from America’s finest farms and meat producers that previously were reserved for the most demanding owners and executive chefs of top-tier restaurants and deluxe steakhouses.
Summertime barbecues will never be the same and you’ll probably become a culinary star in your social circle thanks to 35°.
The products include nine cuts of superior steaks that have undergone aging for flavor perfection. The beef cuts come from corn-fed cattle in the Midwest.
California and Colorado are the sources for the premium grass- and grain-fed lamb.
Kurobuta pork (from the famed Berkshire pig stock) is the epitome of pork flavor and tenderness, so add that to your 35° list.
Delicate pink veal comes from specially fed Midwest cattle that are humanely raised.
You can order chops, racks and roasts—or get a mixed package.
The website itself is like a friendly culinary book, replete with info on all meats, suggested methods of cooking, recipes, a clever blog, and beautiful photography.
Visit the website or call (800) 355-3535 for more (see related story, page 4).
Wine (and Food) Festival
It’s happening again! The most interesting and educational food-and-wine event in Orange County arrives with the Eighth Annual Newport Beach Wine (and Food) Festival at the Balboa Bay Club & Resort.
The event is set for the weekend of May 27 with some impressive seminars, dining possibilities, tasting sessions and marriages of refined location and top-tier flavors.
The kick-off is the Wines and Cuisine from the Rivers of Europe Celebration. It’s an entire evening on the beautiful waterfront, under the stars, featuring foods and wines of the many European regions nestled near legendary rivers.
Saturday there’s a whole new vision of pairing at the Lobster and Wine Matching Lunch. Wines will be wines chosen by guest master sommeliers, Ron Mumford and Ira Harmon, both icons in the field.
They’ll also lead the Pinot Noir Challenge comparing vintages from the West Coast and Burgundy.
Then celebrity mixologist David Nepove will reveal the tricks of the trade in his Making Classic Cocktails Seminar.
Saturday’s culmination is the Grand Tasting Gala. Selections from more than 60 wineries around the world, including many Estate and Reserve wines, will be offered with meats, seafoods, side dishes, globally famous cheeses and, as always, a vast variety of decadent desserts.
This is an intensive culinary day. You can pick and choose from the various offerings.
Sunday holds yet more charms via acclaimed chef Joseph Lageder’s showy European Breakfast Buffet.
The evening will see the first-ever Barbecue and Big Red Wine Finale. Wines and microbrews will meet rustic cuisine with live music and great camaraderie that will no doubt make memories to take away until next year.
This inspiring weekend will likely sell out, so get your reservations now. Reserve for any of the events or for the whole weekend. It might be nice to just book a room and be right there for everything, making it a mini vacation.
Call Balboa Bay Club & Resort at (949) 630-4146 for event reservations. Guest rooms can be booked by calling (949) 645-5000. Info also can be found at www.balboabayclub.com.
Note that a portion of ticket sales and a wine auction during the weekend will benefit two local nonprofits: Share Our Wine Foundation, which supports various children’s services; and the Balboa Bay Club 1221 Club Scholarship Fund, which raises money for exemplary local high school students who are college bound.
Anqi’s Singular Style
Anqi at South Coast Plaza has made some inroads into fashionable and trendy dining. For background info, this restaurant is part of the An family of restaurants, which includes the well-known Crustacean locations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Beverly Hills; Tiato in Santa Monica, and Thanh Long in San Francisco.
Anqi is a unique concept that started about 18 months ago, bringing Chef (mama) Helene An’s famous garlic noodles and other casual Asian pasta dishes at the state-of-the-art noodle bar tucked in one section of the restaurant.
The rest of Anqi is upscale, distinctive and somewhat exotic. A transitional glass runway through the main dining room and can be used for fashion shows or turned into one-of-a-kind seating for meals. A secret dining room peeks into the kitchen situated behind the bar. There’s an inviting lounge and another dining room that’s pure Zen relaxation.
Anqi has a style all its own.
A group of us recently sat around a huge table in the restful private dining room to try some of the new menu items geared to molecular gastronomy and a few other exclusive presentations.
For anyone looking to share an impressive evening with others, the next four Mondays (through May 23) will feature a la carte molecular dishes that will change weekly and vary in price from $10 to $40, depending on the item (appetizer vs. entree).
Coming to Q
Starting June 6 and running through the end of summer, exclusive molecular gastronomy menus will be offered every Monday during dinner hours in the Q dining room.
Menus can range from six to 10 or more courses, your choice. Plan on about $10 per course per person, food only.
The private dining room seats only 30 people and reservations at least a week before are suggested. Chef Ryan Carson will do a live molecular cooking demo of one or two items as part of the experience.
There were sighs of pleasure as our evening played out, many prompted by the tastes of the interesting food and the wines that we ended up sipping along with each of the nine courses we tried.
I’m not overly fond of a lot of molecular cuisine and its tendency toward rearranged ways of putting flavors in our mouths, but this was a meal whose creations were pleasing to my vision and taste buds. It sort of re-educated me.
Here’s the menu that took us through an almost three-hour evening.
Amuse bouche: Champagne and caviar (cubes of Champagne gelée, sturgeon caviar and white chocolate fizzy).
Oyster shooter (with yuzu lemonade) and 2008 Laurent Tribut Chablis (France).
Hiramasa Crudo (yellowtail kingfish sashimi with citrus marinade and avocado “silk”) with Yuki No Bosha, Akita Komachi, Junmai Daiginjo Sake.
Lobster summer roll (lobster mingled with mango, elderflower gelée, Vietnamese herbs and a chile-rose emulsion. We had Hou Hou Shu pink sparkling sake with that.
For our next two courses, we stayed with a 2006 Leth, Roter Veltliner from the Wagram region of Austria. It matched just fine with our next course of Hamachi Ssam (sweet chile-cashew sauce, golden garlic, rice noodles and hamachi fish to be wrapped in butter lettuce leaves), which was awesome with the pork belly (in a float of kimchi consommé, a flourish of freeze-dried banana and sprinkling of peanut butter powder).
Mid-Meal Stroll
We literally needed a little walk about before the last few courses—these tasting menus, in total, are geared to any full size meal and it’s pretty nice to take your time and really savor every course and its meaning.
On to our sixth course of Foie Gras Torchon (dappled with cherry-yuzu gel and a hard-to-describe but palate-catching layer of ginger-pineapple brioche).
For the seventh course we had Muscovy duck breast (fanned rare duck breast complemented with pickled garden vegetables) and 2006 Domaine Vincent Giradin, “Les Gravieres” 1er Cru (Santenay, France).
Almost done as we tuck into the eighth course: A filet mignon confit (with burn carrot—yes, it’s delicious!—shiitake mushrooms and little nubs of wasabi flavored potato) and our 2007 Hall Cabernet Sauvignon.
Finally we arrive at our dessert of cloud-like Elderflower parfait and sips of 2005 Royal Tokaji (Hungary), a 5 puttonyos wine (level of sweetness).
Keep in mind that Anqi also has full lunch and dinner menus of more readily recognizable dishes—albeit introduced in their own style—and a complement of their own creations beyond all the molecular items. Hint: pretty amazing wagyu beef sliders, tempuraed rock shrimp cups, Mongolian curried lamb chops, black cod glazed with miso (with red cargo rice) and osso buco short ribs.
Lunch items run $8 to $25. Dinner items are $8 to $29 a la carte.
Anqi: 3333 Bristol (part of the Bloomingdale’s complex facing the San Diego (I-405) Freeway, Costa Mesa (714) 557-5679.
