Something Fishy - II

More adventures in the fish trade. We never did find an American provider for Tilapia. One customer told us there was a local Tilapia farm right here in eastern North Carolina. Then he leaned in close and said, "Do you know who controls the world Tilapia trade?" Of course, I didn't; but I knew he was going to tell me. "The Chinese drug mafia," he said. "They bring in suitcases of cash and buy out all this guy's fish to launder the drug profits." Well, that was certainly appetizing. I guess it's appropriate, considering Tilapia are bottom feeders.

So this month, since we're featuring North Carolina products, we decided to have shrimp-stuffed flounder on the menu. I thought it would be easy to get North Carolina flounder. We're located right on the Pamlico Sound, a prime flounder fishing ground. So I talked with my food service vendor. He told me the only flounder he could get was from Argentina! I asked him why he couldn't get it from the Outer Banks fishermen. He replied as if I were totally ignorant of the economics of the restaurant business. "The fish market down in Wanchese goes to the big Boston restaurant show every year and he contracts to sell his whole catch to them." I just couldn't accept that I'm operating a restaurant just a few miles from where the flounder are caught, but I have to use fish from Argentina because the Boston restaurants buy the local catch. Talk about globalization!

Finally, I've made contact with a local fish vendor - Fish-and-Stuff in Washington, NC. I haven't bought any "stuff" from him yet. But the flounder filets he cuts out of whole fish brought directly from the boats by local fishermen are fresh and tasty and have been quite a hit on our May menu.

After all these adventures, Chef Yvonne and I have decided each month we'll have a "Catch of the Day" seafood special. We'll get whatever local catch Mr. Fish-and-Stuff can get us, then we'll serve it up tastefully. We'll be supporting our local fisheries, providing our customers with fresh, clean seafood...and staying the heck away from the bottom feeding Chinese drug mafia.

Cutback Cuisine

We recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal about what they call “cutback cuisine”. It’s how the big, fancy restaurants in New York City are making changes in ingredients, portions and menu items to deal with the spiraling cost of foodstuffs.

High oil prices and a world-wide thirst for ethanol have triggered a run-up in corn, feed and transportation costs that is driving up food prices. Restaurant owners last year saw wholesale price increases of 7.4%, the biggest jump in nearly three decades.

At our Back Bay Café, we’re doing a number of things to keep a high quality dining experience, while not driving our customers away with high prices:

Less expensive menu options - We’ve started including pasta and vegetarian items along with our pricier protein-centered entrees

Portion control – We don’t mound up the plate with a lot of “filler” that gets thrown away. We aim for portions that leave diners feeling satisfied without being “stuffed” or needing to take part of the meal home.

A la carte menu – Instead of a $30 full meal that “includes” a lot of stuff you might not want, you can build as large or small a meal as you want. A Starter of Garlic Shrimp with a Main of Pasta costs only $16.

Prepared from seasonal ingredients – I’m always amazed when I see people loading up their food carts with prepared, processed food that seems cheap. But look at the price of a 5# bag of potatoes, as compared with 2 pounds of “tater tots.” At Back Bay Café we fix everything from scratch (and you can’t get “scratch” for chicken feed these days) changing our menu monthly to take advantage of the economies of seasonal abundance.

Efficient food use - Most world food traditions have great dishes made with “leftovers.” Think of fondue or bread pudding, where “stale” (in Europe that mean’s from yesterday) bread is turned into tasty treats. Trimmings from the finer cuts of meat are made into savory stews (and made more hearty with the addition of inexpensive beans). Locally sourced foods don’t cost so much to ship, and we use them when we can get them.

We believe dining out should be a relaxing, entertaining, satisfying experience. The music we play, the service and hospitality we offer, the way our food is presented…none of these are affected by the market price of grain commodities or the high price of oil. And we will continue to offer these to our customers. Along with a bit of “cutback” that doesn’t diminish the dining experience.

Something fishy

Chef Yvonne and I found a nice recipe for a "Tilapia with Mushroom Aioli," and we decided to include it in our April Dinner Specials at The Back Bay Cafe. I wrote in the menu about "US farm-raised Tilapia..." figuring we could easily get some. Wrong. One of our foodservice vendors said they had two kinds of Tilapia - one from China and one not. Where was the "not" from? No idea. We gave our standard lecture about how we, and our customers, are concerned about the sourcing and handling of the food we eat. We do not trust the food safety standards in China or other parts of Asia.

China's food regulations are complex, its monitoring system can be unresponsive, and the government departments that oversee and enforce policies have overlapping and often ambiguous duties.

Though the prices are low enough to be putting American fisheries out of business, we're not looking for the cheapest. We're looking for the best. And we also want to "vote" with our pocketbook for local, sustainably raised foodstuff. If we don't support the farmers and fishers and other producers who are working hard to bring us fresh, clean food, we'll be stuck with the cheap imports. I ended up putting a note in the menu that says until we get reliably sourced Tilapia it will not be on the menu. Now we're working with a fishmonger and several local fishermen to identify local catches before we make our menu decisions. We think our customers appreciate it.

Heretat de Taverners update

Just got Issue 175 of Robert Parker's Wine Advocate and am very pleased to find two of the wines we tasted at the Heretat de Taverners winery are highly rated. The 2005 Graciano that we first tried at Canela y Clavo in Xativa is rated 90 Points, with the comment: "Forward, full-flavored, and layered, it is meant for near term gratification." And the 2005 Mallaura got 87 Points. Still working on getting these fine wines to downeast Carolina.

Wines Tasted in Spain 2008 - I

…being some notes on our wine experiences during our vacation in January.

Upon our arrival at the rented house just outside of Xativa, the owners had left us a bottle of “one of the local wines.” It was Baron de Turis Tinto Garnacha 2006 with a Valencia DO. It was a nice thought, but the wine was rather thin and uninteresting. Turns out we saw it at the local Mercadona for less than €2! Cheap plonk, indeed.

On our first day of wandering in Xativa, we found an underground parking lot, then set out toward the center of town. Just around the corner from the parking, we found Bodega Tassalet, a small wine shop, with its delightful owner, Angel Aznar Serra. His first language is Valenciano, the local tongue, which like the better know Catalan further north, claims to be its own language but looks to me like a mix of Spanish, French and Italian. He did, of course, like all the locals, speak Castellano, and that’s the language we used in our discussion. I immediately told him that we own a wine shop and that I’m interested in good local wines. He took me to the section that has DO Valencia, DO Alicante, DO Utiel-Requena. He showed me a Valenciano and I asked him if it was Crianza. He explained that Crianza is a designation only for Rioja and elaborated on the Riojan system of Joven, Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva, etc. depending on how much time is spent in oak barrels. He scoffed at this, saying the Valenciano wines were very well made, spent only as little time as needed in oak, etc. I told him, “Me gusta vino; no me gusta roble (I like wine, not oak)” at which he laughed and agreed. We picked out several wines to take home with us that day, and I said we would be back many times during our three weeks’ stay. He was very please at that and gave me his business card, which has on the back of it a listing of evaluation levels of the various Spanish DO’s along with a rating (in Valenciano – “Collites de Vin per Anyades” – ranging from E=Excellent, through MB=Molt Bona and B=Bona, to R=Regular.

Valencia DO

The first wine Sr. Aznar Serra showed me was one he said was the best value in the shop. It is Les Alcusses 2005 (Celler Del Roure, Moixent), a DO Valencia tinto made of mostly Monastrell. The wine is rich and smooth, deep in color. We served it with tapas of cheese, olives & peppers. Perfect for the full-bodied wine. The name of the wine is taken from an ancient Iberian settlement in the area (Moixent/Mojente) , and the bottle label has Iberian writing that looks like cuneiform. You see this wine in restaurants and shops all over Xativa (even in the gift shop of the Castillo on the hill), as the locals are justifiably proud of it. If I could bring one wine home to the shop, this is the one it would be. A real treat.

Also from Moixent is reposo 2006 (€5.50). This features a label of a line drawing on a red background of a man sitting outside under a tree, a small table with wine bottle and glass nearby, and a gato sleeping on the top of a wall. It’s a nice little “by itself” wine. A bit heavy for food (14.5% alc.). I don’t know the grapes in the blend, but it seems to lean on Monastrell for its rich jamminess. It’s from the Pago Casa Gran winery in Moixent. We drove past the large, square bodega building when we drove through Moixent, but there was no one there.

The vineyards for the Moixent wineries are west of the town in the broad valley of the Riu Cañoles. The soil is almost white, being made of sandstone and lime. They use different trellising systems, I assume for the different varieties. There are also orchard trees in the valley (peach & cherry). These seem to be fitted with drip irrigation, while the grapes are left to struggle on their own.

Some great values were the wines of Daniel Belda, Valencia DO (Fontanars del Alforins). We had the 2004 Tempranillo Crianca (10 months in oak barrels) and the CS04 (Cabernet Sauvignon 2004) Crianca, also 10 months oak. These are both very well made wines in classy, Euro-modern packages for around €7. The Tempranillo had 13% alc. and a production of 15K bottles. The CS had 13.5% and 80K bottles. We also had a Verdil from DB. Sr. Serra said this was “similar to Verdejo,” but I thought it was inferior to the great Verdejos we get from Rueda. It was green and tart, almost like a verjus, and Yvonne ended up using part of the bottle for cooking.

Marques de Caro Blanco Alto Turia 2006 - €2.50! This was tasted in the third round of Sr. Serra’s recommendations. A light, clear, simple wine, made from the Moscatel grape. I don’t really get the flowery nose he said would be there, but it is dry, as promised. This would be a great accompaniment to light flavored seafood, salads, etc. “Alto Turia” refers to the upper Turia river. This is the river that used to run right through the city of Valencia; but after many devastating floods, the city diverted the river around the city and turned the old river bed into a miles long city park with soccer fields, public gardens…and the same arched highway bridges that crossed it when it was flowing with water.
(Cherubino Valsangiacomo, S.A., Chiva, Valencia)

Castillo de Liria 2006. We got this blend of Bobal and Shiraz at the Mercadona Supermercado in Valencia. It’s an interesting blend of the signature grape of Utiel-Requena, Bobal, and Shiraz, which I saw very seldom used in Spain. It’s interesting that they call the second grape Shiraz, rather than the more common European designation, Syrah. It may be a vestige of the anti-French attitudes that are common, particularly in Catalunya and Valencia. 12.5% alc. makes it seem like a dinner wine, but the soft blend makes it very nice for drinking on its own. Interesting that the back label information is in Spanish, English, French and German – hitting all the wine-drinking markets. The message that the wine contains sulfites (now required on all EU products) is in 18 languages, most of which I didn’t recognize. “Sisaldab Sulfitid”?!
(Vicente Gandía Plá, Valencia)

L. Olaechea Crianza 2002 (€6.00) Made in Fontanares by the winemaker whose name is on the bottle, this is a blend of Monastrell, Merlot, Cabernet and Syrah aged 12 months in French and American oak, from organically grown grapes, unfiltered, 14.5% alcohol. With all that, it should be huge. It’s not. Pretty average. Maybe it was a bad year.

L’Antigon Vino Rosado. A grocery store rosé of Garnacha and Bobal from El Villar. The blend sounded interesting, but the wine was a bright magenta, slightly sweet concoction like the worst of American blush wines. Oh, well.

Alicante DO
The Alicante DO is actually in the Communitat of Valencia, so these are considered local wines in Xativa. The Laderas de El Sequé 2005 (€5.00) was an easy-drinking blend of Monastrell, Syrah and Cabernet, with full flavors of all the grapes but a reasonable 13.5% alcohol level to keep it from being overripe. I could drink this one every day.

From Alicante DO, Sr. Aznar Serra recommended a Chardonnay (they pronounce it with a hard “tch”), Enrique-Mendoza Chardonnay 2006 (€7). Though it is from vineyards at 550 meters, it’s still very ripe at 14% alcohol. Serra said this is his favorite Chardonnay, though he agreed with me that he thinks most California Chards are over-oaked. This one is full bodied, with a mouthful of tropical fruit and a tart, clean finish…more like a big Aussie Chard than like the clean elegance of Burgundy.

Bodegas Gutierrez de la Vega Rojo y Negro 2004. At €10.00, this was one of the most expensive wines of the trip. Not, unfortunately, one of the best. I bought it on Sr. Aznar Serra’s recommendation. It was a new one, just in, and he told me he liked it so well when he first sampled it that he finished the whole sample bottle himself. He was really excited about this wine. I recognized the enthusiasm. I’ve also had new wines I was very excited about and was anxious to share with customers I knew would enjoy them. The wine is 100% Garnacha (which they call Giró in Valenciano), so I expected something luscious and grapey. Instead the wine was very dry and a little tight, more like a Tempranillo to go with a meal.

Wines Tasted in Spain 2008 - II Utiel-Requena

Utiel-Requena DO

We visited this region, on the high elevation meseta just on the edge of Castilla-La Mancha. We drove between mountains from Xativa, west then north, into an area of extensive vineyards but left behind the fruit orchards, the olive trees, the cactus and rosemary of the Mediterranean climate. The temperature is Xativa was 15° C., while up in Utiel it never got above 8°, with a heavy, depressing cloud cover. We parked in front of a little workman’s café by the train station, got a quick café con leche, then went to check out the Museu de Vinos, located in an old bodega (winery).

I went into the Consejo Regulador for the Utiel-Requena DO and asked whether we could see the museum. The man there told me he would call a compañera who would give us a tour. I asked if the tour would be in English, and he replied, “Cualquiera tu quieres” (whatever you want). The young woman who was to be our guide took us into the large, round building (the bodega redonda), saying her English was “no so good” but that she would try. She showed us around the old building (which was freezing inside…good for winemaking, but not good for the comfort of my other compañera – Yvonne) pointing out how the grapes were brought in at the upper level, poured down a central shoot, then the juice pressed into tile-lined vats that surrounded the central chamber. The vats are now open rooms, containing displays of various winemaking and vineyard devices, such as hooked pruners, sulfur sprayers and plows. The rooms that used to be vats are now covered in white stucco, but our guide pointed out that they used to be white tile, so they could be cleaned. As the wine never reached the level of the arched ceilings of the vats, these were covered with a motley assortment of hand-painted tiles (azulejos) from wherever they could be gotten. The upstairs level was dedicated to the various prizes and awards the Utiel-Requena wines have won. There was also a wall of famosas Españolas (“famous Spanish people”) who had visited the Consejo Regulador. Most of them were Spanish movie and sports stars who were unrecognizable to us even when she told us their names. But one couple was very recognizable. It was King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia, the king being depicted with a very large glass of red wine in his hand. Our guide told us “a el Rey le gusta mucho el vino” (“the king likes wine very much”). It’s great to be in a wine loving country!

Selección de Otoño Crianza 2004 (€6.50, Cherubino Valsangiacomo, SA) A blend of Tempranillo and Cabernet (which the Spanish pronounce “ka-bare-net”, not ca-bare-nay in that wimpy French fashion). Nice drinking food wine but nothing really special. Similar to a lot of Cab blends we get in the states.

Castillo de Utiel Reserva 2000 (€4.40) I got this one at El Corte Ingles in Valencia, and it’s one of the best we had. 12.5% alcohol made it perfect for the pork roast we served it with. It doesn’t say the grape, and I would expect Bobal from Utiel, but it tasted more like Tempranillo – like an excellent Rioja. This is one to look for, though I doubt we can get any 2000 Reservas in the States.

Coto D’Arcis Bobal 2004 (€4.00) From Sebiran, SL (www.bodegassebiran.com). What a find! This is the best single varietal Bobal I’ve ever had. It brought out the grapes fullness and roundness. Deep purple, laced with violet hues. We had this with a dinner of stuffed pork chops, but it would be an excellent all-around sipper.

They also do Tempranillo in Utiel-Requena and we purchased the Marqués de Chivé Crianza 2004 at El Corte Ingles in Valencia. Only 12.5% alcohol gave a light body for food, and it was tasty but nothing special. It’s made by a large producer, Vicente Gandia Pla, SA, in Chiva, just outside of Valencia. The label on the bottle was in Spanish, English, German, French and Polish…so I guess they export it. We might be able to find it at home.

A Trip to Fontanars dels Alforins

We had been trying for several days to get El Bodegero (based on “the one who operates the bodega” – my translation of “Wine Guy”) to help us set up a visit in one of the local wineries.He had given me a phone number to call in Moixent, but I demurred, my phone Spanish not having the benefit of gestures, facial expression and written notes. We passed a big winery on the outskirts of Moixent and saw signs for others, but that was the day we had company with us, and we limited our visit to the Iberian village at Les Arcusses.

So on the Wednesday of our last week in Spain, we tried again. El Bodegero made a phone call in rapidly spoken Valenciano. He said “hoy, por la tarde” would be the best time because “el oenologico” would be there to answer any of our questions. He suggested around 4:00 or 4:30, as it was now close to 2:00, the beginning of the two-hour Spanish lunch hour. He wrote down a phone number for “Juan” at the Heretat de Fontanars winery, with instructions that we call him from the “gasolinero in Fontanars.”Vale (the all-purpose Spanish word that corresponds to our “OK”), we would go get a bite to eat at a local Xativan café and head for Fontanars, via Ontinyent…a drive of perhaps 30 minutes.

We had a menu del día at a crowded, faux rustic restaurant called El Rincón (“The Corner”). We started with sopa de verdures for Yvonne and arroz for me, followed by pollo for her and emperador con salsa verde (swordfish) for me, including a glass of wine and followed by café con leche (we skipped the postres/dessert). A large meal, but standard for mid-day in Spain. No wonder they need a two hour lunch break!

We picked up our car at the underground parking and headed for Ontinyent.We were very low on gas, but since we were meeting at a gasolinero I figured I just get some there. We successfully navigated the series of roundabouts that took us to the highway to Ontinyent, then through the town, another prosperous Spanish pueblo with wide, clean streets and sidewalks, complete with welcoming row of ornate streetlights.

We followed the route out of town toward Fontanars, but in one of the roundabouts was a sign with extensive verbiage (in Valenciano) about the route being “corta por obras” (closed for works) and listing some alternatives. It all went past too fast for me to catch, but I should have been suspicious when the “Fontanars de Alborin” on all subsequent roundabouts had been blanked out with white tape.We pressed on through the countryside until we came to the place where, indeed, the road was cortado. In fact, it was nonexistent. They were building a completely new section. We turned around to return to Ontinyent to pick up another route, one anxious eye on the gas gauge.

Another series of roundabouts, with Yvonne brilliantly applying her rapidly developing Spanish navigation skills, and we found ourselves following signs to Fontanars – 27 km. It was a beautiful countryside, with rough, rocky gorges, steep cliffs and broad sloping fields full of grapevines and fruit trees. The high ridge of the Serra Grossa stood guard in the distance.Finally, on the horizon Yvonne spotted a tower crane, a Spanish town marker now more ubiquitous and seen from farther away than the church bell tower. It was tiny Fontanars. We followed the signs for “Centre Urbano” to a quiet, uninhabited square. No gasolinero. No one about to ask.Finally, we saw a lone woman walking, stopped and asked “Gasolinero?” and she gave us directions to the outskirts of town. We found the gas station/convenience store/café (with a little fenced McDonald’s style playground), just as the orange gasoline pump light came on in our car.

I pulled in and asked the helpful young man for the proper amount of gas. As he was filling (very few self-service places in Spain), I asked him if there was a public telephone there. He said no, so I tried to explain in my 4-year-old version of Spanish that I needed to call a person at the winery so he could come pick us up. The young man said he would make the call for me. I went inside the store, gave the man the number, and looked around while he called (it took several tries, as the line was busy). Finally, an answer, the man handed me the phone and I asked “Está Juan?” and then tried to explain who I was, a speech that I had been practicing but got very tangled up with when confronted with an unknown person on the other end of a phone line.Juan silenced my stammering with “I meet you there in five minutes.”Excelente!

Five minutes later, there he was. We exchanged greetings and he said “you follow me.” I could do that. About 5 kilometers later, through that rolling vineyard countryside, we turned into the entrance of Heretat de Fontanars, climbing a rutted dirt driveway to a parking spot on the side of a renovated 17^th Century house.

We got out and Juan asked “You prefer English or Spanish?” I told him how poor my Spanish is and he agreed to give us our tour in English (which he speaks fluently and well). He started outside, showing us the vineyards, most of which, with the exception of a small plot on the other side of the hill that rose behind the winery, was visible from where we stood. Across the road were several rows each of Cabernet Sauvignon,Tempranillo (which Juan pronounced “temp-ruh-NIL-yo”), and Graciano, with Merlot higher on the north-facing ridge beyond, and even higher than that, where it’s cooler, Sauvignon Blanc. On our side of the road we had Garnacha and more Tempranillo, the other side of the ridge being reserved for Chardonnay (“TCHAR-do-nay”) and Monastrell. The older vines (the Monastrell) are only 20 years old, and the other vineyards are being replanted field by field. The soil is sandy and rocky, but no irrigation is used in Spain’s hot weather.Instead, they allow grass to grow between the rows. This interplanted strip holds the moisture of the rains that come in October and November, shaded in the summer by the rows of trellised grapevines. Juan told us there are no really bad vintages in Spain but that some are better than others. The harvest of the Tempranillo and Cabernet begins in the middle of August, and the last to be harvested are the Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, usually by the end of September. The only viticultural issue they have is trying to get enough acidity in the grapes, due to the limestone soil, low levels of rainfall and warm temperatures. This is the reason they don’t do malolactic fermentation with the white wines.

We went into the “cellar” where the wines are made.It’s small, reminding us of the West Bend winery in North Carolina. Against one wall are the stainless steel fermentation vessels, then stacks of oak barrels (American and French), floor to ceiling racks for allowing the wine to settle in bottles (something I had not seen before but which Juan says he likes to do for 6 months before shipping the wines out). They do not bottle their wine here, sending it instead to a larger winery (probably Daniel Belda, the biggest in the region) to be bottled. Juan said they have plans to add an addition to the bodega that will double the cellar size, and they will add a bottling line at that time.

Currently the Heretat de Tavernars wines are exported to France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, UK, Switzerland and Italy. A small amount is exported to the United States by Steve Miles of Colorado. Miles has a warehouse in Barcelona where he consolidates shipments from various European wine countries until he has a container that can be shipped to the states. Juan and associates will be going to the US in the spring (to New York and Colorado) to help Steve Miles sell their wines.

Juan next asked us if we’d like to taste the wines – “Por supuesto!” I replied.

He took us into the old house which has been restored in traditional style and color (pale yellow walls, wooden shutters on the windows and azulejos, hand-painted tiles on the risers of the stairs). We were in the kitchen/dining area which Chef Yvonne marveled over.Juan grabbed four bottles of wine and placed three groups of 4 glasses on the big oak table.

Reixu (ray-SHEW) a Valenciano word for “the drops that gets on the leaves in the morning” – dew. It’s only sold at the winery and is a blend of 80% Chardonnay and 20% Sauvignon Blanc.It was wonderful – rich and full-bodied initially, then with a burst of crisp Sauvignon Blanc on the long, dry finish. We coveted this one, but we couldn’t bring it back in our suitcases. Yvonne characterized the wine as one for sipping on the dock as she waved at sailors going by.

El Vern means “the birch” in Valenciano, the same tree that is pictured on the label of all of their wines. This is their “entry level” red, a blend of 50% Tempranillo and the rest Cabernet Sauvignon and Monastrell. It is light and fresh and benefited from being served at the cool temperature of the room. This is an all-purpose, everyday wine that could be served with meals or just drunk on its own.

Mallaura (my-YORE-uh is the closest I can come, but Juan said “this is a hard word for you to say”) means “the top of the hill,” referring both the field where the old vine Monastrell is grown and to the fact that this is the top-of-the-line for Heretat de Taverners.Robert Parker tasted this one and like it because it is fuller in body, like the wines of Rioja and Ribera del Duero. It’s a blend of 40% Cabernet Sauvignon with approximately 20% each of Tempranillo, Garnacha and Monastrell. This is a deep reddish purple wine with a nose full of spice and oak, much more in the international style that is much in demand around the world. We were a little disappointed in this, preferring the Valenciano wines that are more expressive of the tierra and tradition of their birthplace. But I can see why this small family winery wants to use a wine like this to bring Valencia to world attention.

The last to be tasted was their Graciano, which is made of 100% the grape of that same name. Juan told us that Graciano is a grape of Rioja and is not allowed in the Valencia DO, so they had to get a special dispensation to produce the wine. We had already had this one on the recommendation of the waiter at the Canela y Clavo restaurant in Xativa, where we shared it with visiting family and a lovely culinary lunch. It was as good as we remembered it, smooth and lush with a singing lightness on the tongue and a good acidity that makes you want another bite of food.

The most respected wine critic and writer in Spain is José Peñin who writes a magazine called Sibarita.