Christina Waters

What’s not to like about New York? And since my mom and I both love the Big Apple, we spent a few quality days there last week - taking in a show, museums, the action in Central Park (in full spring bloom!), the NFL draft (my mother loves men in groups), and feasting on midtown architecture, old and new.

We decided to do the all-out tourist thing, so we stayed in the very conveniently-located midtown Hilton. Our room on the 34th floor offered a sprawling view of skyscrapers, theaters and verdant Central Park. A block away was the Museum of Modern Art, where we feasted on Monet, Rauschenberg and Pollock and then went upstairs to The Terrace cafe for lunch. Btw, the dominant language in NY these days is French! (Good euro, bad dollar.) More…

Rockefeller Plaza is a magnet for visitors and celebrities and we had fun swilling coffee and some of the finest pastries in New York, at the chic Dean & DeLuca coffee shop that overlooks the “Good Morning America” crowds gathering to wave and scream for the cameras. This 25-foot mosaic/mural at the Plaza (left) was made entirely of throw-away cell phones!

The elegant WPA architecture of the Plaza’s suite of buildings and courtyards holds its own in a sea of contemporary super-skyscrapers. A few blocks away, the mighty Michael Graves’ postmodern landmark - once the Hancock building, now headquarters for SONY’s digital lab-theater - knocked us out. A true secular cathedral, this building was playfully “invaded” by a 40-foot floating sculpture of Spiderman.

Our pastry quest continued up at the lovely Cafe Sabarsky, inside the beautiful little Park Avenue mansion that Estée Lauder’s son turned into the Neue Galerie, home to the $138 million Klimt painting. Definitive apple strudel, mit Schlag of course, and a pot of black tea fueled us for the afternoon, and another cultural pit-stop at The Met.

Röckenwagner for our last lunch of 2007 - and Parkhouse Eatery for the first lunch of 2008. Delicious in both cases. Especially the plump old-fashioned apple pancake with crème fraiche at Röckenwagner Cafe & Bakery in Venice’s Abbot Kinney boutique district, absolutely packed with the young and the beautiful, fueling up before New Year’s Eve.

We hit the crowded cafe after a trek up to the Getty Villa Malibu, where the gazillion dollar refurbish of the once-glorious villa left us cranky and hungry. Antiquities in a theme park, aggressively framed by dining and shopping opportunities - that’s what the Getty money bought. If you remembered the old Getty villa from years gone by, you will be aghast. Get on a plane headed for Sicily or Pompeii instead, where the environment matches the collection. But back to the food.

At Röckenwagner, we consumed a mixed bag of sensational German apple pancake (right), tiny tuna sandwiches on brioche with designer salads, and an unsatisfying niçoise salad with over-cooked “poached” eggs. The breads, and especially a nut-filled scone, were lavish and wonderful — the Rockenwagner bakery continues to impress. By the time we finished up lunch at 1:30pm, the temperature was 80 degrees.

Bay Area chef Chris Kobayashi and his brothers have joined the new transformation of downtown Paso Robles into a food and wine destination. Their smart dining room - Artisan - offers a wine list of local all-stars and serious, accomplished local, organic foods to match.

Since our longtime favorite Paso Robles restaurant, Bistro Laurent, was closed on sunday, we made reservations for dinner at Artisan on our way to Thanksgiving in the Mojave.

From two sensational local wines - one a cab from Firestone, the other a “Cuvee des Artistes” blend from RN Estate - to a mini dessert of warm cookies, we were charmed right down to our trail runners.

The opening dish of seared yellow fin tartare, arranged in a fan of crimson seafood, arrived with a tangy fried green tomato and frisee salad. Killer. Jack’s entree of natural pork porterhouse was tender and juicy, sided with sweet potatoes and baby turnips. My Kobe beef cheeks came with stupendous buttermilk mashed potatoes, broccoli rabe, infant heirloom carrots and more of those thumbnail-sized white turnips. Even though the beef tasted more like gelatinous pot roast than anything else, the side dishes were better than great.

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That would be the “Original California-Style” hot pepper sauce known as (ta-da!) The Pepper Plant.

We discovered this zippy hot sauce at Margie’s Diner in Paso Robles on the way back from the Mojave last week. Made in Gilroy, this all-natural product is saucy and thick (unlike Tabasco). It is also much, much more peppery than Tabasco, and lacks Tabasco’s distinctive vinegary subtext. The Pepper Plant is loaded with jalapeño puree, chili peppers and garlic. It adds miles of peppery panash to even the most ordinary soft boiled egg. Your condiment shelf needs this product!

You owe it to yourself to stop at Nine-Ten, smartly tucked into the landmark Grande Colonial Hotel on Prospect Street. Here you can taste what California cuisine has transformed itself into, thanks to the feisty imagination of chef Jason Knibb. The chef brings a blazing trail of culinary conquests to this little dining room in the upscale seaside village. He’s worked with Wolfgang Puck, Roy Yamaguchi and most recently as executive chef of Robert Redford’s Sundance Village. Credentials are great, but the proof is in the eating.

My mom and I splurged on lunchtime wines by the glass, because this food demanded respect. Her entree of thickly sliced wild halibut filet was done just to the translucent point, and adorned with tiny chanterelles, Chino Farms fresh corn and a handful of orichiette pasta. My sea scallops (above) bordered a central island of carrot risotto, dusted with toasted hazelnuts and infant arugula. Soft clouds of coriander-scented foam infused the scallops with a subtle spice. More…

Granted this is high-end tourist dining, but still…when in the belly of the downtown LA art scene — I refer to the splendid, if self-congratulatory performative smorgy known as the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Mark Taper Forum, the Disney Hall, yada yada — you will invariably find yourself with few dining choices. Of course you could always buck the worst traffic this side of the East Bay and head to some chi-chi hot spot on Melrose, or in Santa Monica. But let’s say that like me you’ve got only one day and one location — the Music Center complex. Your options are limited - and pricey. But you know that going in. So. Last Sunday, armed with a ticket for a 2pm matinee of Mozart Dances, I needed a light lunch, and a light post-performance dinner, before heading back to LAX and the flight home.

Kendall’s Brasserie obliged with the lunch part - Kendall’s is very conveniently located in the street-level front of the Dorothy Chandler, i.e. downstairs from the huge plaza and performance hall itself. Right across the street, the Frank Gehry crumpled spaceship that is Disney Hall blazed in the late morning sun. The huge boulevards were largely empty, it was already 85 degrees out — a typical Sunday in downtown, Civic Center Los Angeles.

Kendall’s — part of the spiffy Patina empire of performing arts caterers — is a comfortable, generic grill with a no-brainer menu of crowd-pleasers. I chose a ballotine appetizer ($13.95) of Long Island duck, studded with pistachios, foie gras and a violet mustard sauce. A fluff of lettuces, and an entire jar of cornichons (I counted 14 of them) topped the tasty, if uninspired creation. Wonderful grainy bread and a too-chilled, but generously poured Covey Run 2005 Sauvignon Blanc rounded out my meal. Maybe the glut of little pickles signaled that this was a dish for a man? But in the same generous spirit, there were at least 20 pistachios in the delicious duck paté. Service was perfunctory, but given the convenience of the whole thing, it wasn’t exorbitant. I left half the wine so as to be able to soak up more of the amazing dance performance.

After the performance, I roamed the broad sidewalks outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion along with most of the Mark Morris Dance Group audience — we were trying to come back to earth. Across the street in the gleaming Disney Hall is Joachim Splichal’s flagship Patina, one of the icons of California cuisine. I had wisely made an on-line reservation for an early dinner there - in time to unwind, have something clever to eat, and still get back to LAX for the flight through the burning hills, and home.

Pretentiousness reigns at Patina, where the woman at the front desk is wearing BCBG and two guys show you to the bathrooms. One points, the other opens the door. The head waiter/sommelier has a French accent — which might be genuine. Or not. I decide that ordering well is the best revenge, and begin with a glass of Tempranillo. A Viñas del Cenit Tempranillo 2003 ($14) to be precise — lots of fruit and bold tannin. Another waiter brings around a tray laden with bread possibilities — I choose something with enormous whole grains and several tiny rounds of sourdough that are fabulous. An amuse is presented by waiter person number 3 - it is a morsel of lobster hiding under a transparent disk of daikon, sauced with something too sweet containing perhaps grapefruit. It is very pretty - and almost flavorful enough to be called delicious. More…

There are still a few things that justify enduring the slings and arrows of outrageous airport security checks, sitting for 10 and a half hours in a tiny, cramped seat, being rudely herded through the Frankfurt airport - and then getting into a smaller plane and sitting for two more hours.

Italy is one of them.

I spent last week in the perfect Mediterranean climate of Florence, where the Renaissance and its passionate architecture are still alive and well. Dining is effortless here, even though the dollar went on its all-time plunge while we were in Euro-land. But the artwork was our real destination — and this visit was wrapped around an eccentric Mannerist painter named Pontormo, and a visit to his frescoes in cloister outside of town, up in the extreme Tuscan landscape dotted with vineyards.

Like many visitors who’ve already seen the obligatory sights, we let the days stretch out into more wandering, lingering and relaxing than in previous trips. Aiming toward a particular restaurant each day, we focused on a destination each morning and another in the afternoon, and tended to seek out cool corners of a cathedral, to draw in sketchbooks or take notes and let the 500-year-old ambience transport us to a time before the internet or expiration dates.

The first afternoon, for example, we let the cool opulence of San Lorenzo wash over us and our jet-lag, and then had a simple dinner of caprese and niçoise salads at the splendid Caffe Gilli on Piazza della Repubblica, where our hotel is located. More…

The maccioroncini with wild rabbit and celery ragu at Beccofino.