Author Archive for agavin – Page 101

Takao Sushi Taking Off!

Aug16

Restaurant: Takao [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Location: 11656 San Vicente Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90049. (310) 207-8636

Date: August 6, 2011

Rating: 9/10 creative “new style” sushi

I’ve already covered Takao in some detail HERE and then separately here, here, and here, but we went back (we go often) and I built another “custom omakase” trying some different things. The full menu and some information on the history of the place can be found through the first link.

As you can see comparing this to the other Takao meals, you my dear readers, come first, as I ordered completely differently for your vicarious enjoyment.

After my spectacular N/Naka Kaiseki meal and its really good sakes I decided to up my sake game. This is the cheapest of the “shaved rice” sakes on the menu at Takao. It was good, not as good as the two amazing ones at N/Naka (Takao has half a dozen “better” ones too), but good.

The chefs at work. Takao himself was cutting for me tonight.

Scallop sashimi. I do love my japanese scallops. There was sea salt to dip them in too.

Toro tartar with caviar. I just can’t resist.

Spanish Mackerel chopped with scallions. Very tasty!

Squid, two ways. On the left normal. And on the right I’m not sure, but it there was a sour (and I mean sour) plum sauce (above left) to dip it in. Same sauce as I had the other day at Kiriko.

Mysterious grilled bit of sea creature. Soft and chewy, not bad.

Grilled Alaskan king crab legs. A sprig of pickled ginger.

On the left Uni (sea urchin) and on the right Ikura (salmon roe).

Fresh water eel with the sweet BBQ sauce.

And then a winter mushroom miso to finish.

For more LA area sushi, see here.

By: agavin
Comments (4)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Alaskan king crab fishing, Atlantic Spanish mackerel, Brentwood, California, Caviar, Fish and Seafood, Japanese cuisine, Kaiseki, Los Angeles, Omakase, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Sea urchin, Sushi, Takao

Save the Cat – To Formula or Not To Formula

Aug15

I’m always reading books on writing and storytelling. In fact, I read three this week. One of them was Save the Cat by the late Blake Snyder. This post isn’t a review per se of that book, but more some mental ramblings on issues it raised.

First an observation about the nature of “advice” books and the possible career of sceenwriter. Mr. Snyder was (he unfortunately died suddenly recently) a noted screenwriter, having sold over a dozen major spec scripts, at least two for over a million dollars each. He worked on roughly 100 screenplays in some capacity. Yet, only two of these have even been made into movies.

Eeek gads! If this is success as a screenwriter it has to be creatively bankrupt. Unlike novels, screenplays aren’t a medium themselves. In fact, I find them boring as shit. They’re just a weird but essential initial sketch of a film. Now don’t think I consider them unimportant. A production can easily ruin a great script, but it’s exceedingly rare to take a bad one and make a good movie out of it. They’re certainly the single most important element of any film. Great screenwriters add immeasurably to a film. Look at the different between Empire Strikes Back and Phantom Menace. Personally I think it was Lawrence Kasdan or some other writer who was NOT George Lucas.

In any case, having almost none of your creative work see the light of day has to be depressing. I’m also guessing that in recent years Mr. Snyder made more money selling his books/lectures/advice ABOUT writing screenplays than in actually writing the things. Hehe.

Cover of Wedding Crashers

But that was what I intended to write about. Save the Cat is essentially a book about making your story (screenplay) correspond fairly rigidly to the classic Hollywood three act structure. It even goes so far as to break (every) film into roughly a dozen beats and assign exact page numbers in which they should occur. For example: “theme stated” (page 5) or “catalyst” (page 12). All of this can be found on his website.

Now there is some real merit to this structure and it’s certainly very useful and entertaining to be able to breakdown movies like this. In fact, if you want a giggle go to this page where you will find a breakdown of the guilty-pleasure comedy The Wedding Crashers. It’s highly amusing to see a film this silly (but admittedly funny) stripped down to include a Hegelian thesis/antithesis/synthesis dialectic. And I do admit if you are trying to write and sell high concept comedies in today’s marketing executive driven world, this whole formula has to be the way to go.

But I wonder how useful it is to try and fit EVERY story into this exact mould. You could say actually that Save the Cat represents a thesis: yes all movies should follow this fixed structure. The antithesis of course is that interesting ones, the example he uses is Memento, should not. Now Mr. Snyder’s conclusion is literally “Fuck Momento!” (actual quote from the book). But I think that Christopher Nolan is laughing to the bank — just not on that film! — he had to remake it using dreams inside of memory loss.

I myself am thinking that a synthesis is in order. A new universe blending both perspectives. The classic structure does encapsulate A LOT of solid lessons about audience expectations for story telling. Perhaps one should use it more as a toolbox or set of guidelines.

This is specifically relevant in my new novel, Untimed. It does to a large extent follow the classic structure (although certain not with such rigid page number demarkations). But there are questions. I have two ideas in the book that could be considered thesis and antithesis, but their advocates are far more muddled than formula would require. Do I restructure and state each in a more obvious way? Likewise, as is typical with me, my ending does not neatly wrap up all questions, villians, and the like. There is climax, but it’s messy. I like ambiguity, and I have gone to great length to construct a world order sufficiently complex that not all mystery is to be solved in one book. Doing so leads to the standard Hollywood sequel problem, where the followups are just more of the same but missing the best part: the discovery inherent in beginnings. If you haven’t answered all the questions, there is still more to learn.

But a squeaky voice in the back of my head wonders: do I need a more Hollywood ending?

Food for thought.

For other posts on writing, click here.

Or find out about my novels:

The Darkening Dream and Untimed.

By: agavin
Comments (4)

Posted in: Books, Movies, Writing

Tagged as: Arts, Blake Snyder, Christopher Nolan, Fiction, George Lucas, Hollywood, Lawrence Kasdan, Los Angeles, Memento, Screenplay, Screenwriter, Screenwriting, Spec script, Three-act structure, Wedding Crashers, Writers Resources, Writing

More Drago – Via Alloro

Aug14

Restaurant: Via Alloro

Location: 301 N. Canon Drive – Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Phone: 310.275.2900

Date: August 5, 2011

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: Very nice

The Drago brothers have an ever expanding little empire going in Beverly Hills. This includes Il Pastaio, Enoteco Drago, Piccolo Paradiso, and Il Buco. Plus several others on the westside, the valley, downtown etc. I’ve reviewed Celestino Drago’s flagship Drago and I’ve been to most, all are very good.

Via Alloro is new, managed by brothers Giacomino and Tanino, and only two blocks from Il Pastaio. We decided to grab a quick lunch there and check it out.

Lots of good choices on this menu. The PDF.

Excellent bread as at all Drago restaurants.

A slightly different take on fried zucchini flowers. Stuffed with ricotta and mozzarella. Then served over a light tomato sauce.

“Vitello Tonnao. Chillded veal in tuna sauce, with parmesan and capers.” This was damn good, with the very tasty zesty salty sauce really bringing out the flavor of the meat.

Lots of great pastas here — no surprise. “Homemade ravioli filled with sweet corn, served with truffle fondue.” Hard to beat that.

And “Saliccie al forno. baked sausage with mama Drago’s stew.” This is a very Southern Italian dish and I have to say it’s the best Italian sausage I’ve even had. Incredibly succulent, with fennel, and a very bright and zesty “gravy.”

Expresso to recover!

Off to a great start on the latest BH Drago Italian. I’ll have to come back for a more extensive dinner.

Click here to see Eating Italy posts.

Or for more LA Restaurants.

By: agavin
Comments (1)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Beverly Hills California, Cooking, Drago, Giacomino Drago, Home, Italian cuisine, Italian sausage, Italy, Los Angeles, Pastaio, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Tanino Drago, Via Alloro

Crash Bandicoot – Interviews “R” us

Aug13

These are answers (of mine) to a series of interview questions from Russian game site www .crash –bandicoot .ru. They’re a major Russian Crash fan site, hence the bad pun in my title. If you happen to speak Russian, they’ve it here.

The questions are in bold, and my answers in normal.

Image via Wikipedia

There was the soundtrack of Komodo Bros. boss on the CB1 CD. Does it mean you planned to bring this boss to the first game? What the fight was like and why have you dropped this idea?

Time. We ran out of time, plus we already had six bosses. They ended up in Crash 2. The Crash 1 battle plan was about 30% larger than the game we shipped – which was plenty big enough – as we planned too much. Everything extra ended up in Crash 2. But we didn’t actually make it during the Crash 1 development, we realized before then that there was too much in the plan and shelved it for later. It takes much less time to write on paper, “cool snow level where crash can slide around on the ice” than it does to design, model, and program said level.

Why the cut levels from CB1 beta like Cavern, Cliff and Waterfall haven’t reached its finish point in the final version of the game? According to the video they were well developed.

These were two early levels. The Cliff and Waterfall are the same level (jungle1). The cave was (cave2). These were the first two levels we built in Spring 1995, and they just didn’t work. The designs were too open, showing too many polygons and not channeling the player well enough for proper gameplay. If the space was so big that Crash could just walk around the enemies it wasn’t very fun.

There is the screenshot on crashmania where you can see the fruit similiar to pineapple instead of wumpa. Is it right and was it planned to add different fruits to the game?

Originally (for over a year in development) we had an elaborate fruit currency for pickups. Different fruit were worth different “points.” The only problem with this was that we only had so much texture memory and so each fruit got very little, and didn’t look that great. We eventually decided to spent all that memory on one fruit (the Wumpa fruit) and make it look really good. We rendered it out rotating and stored all the angles. Doing the fruit in actual 3D wasn’t feasible because fruit are round (hence lots of polygons) and we wanted to have many of them on screen.

What the bosses’ heads of Pinstripe, Koala Kong and Papu were for in the bonus rounds in the early version of the game?

We experimented with different “bonus head” currencies. I can’t remember which. In the end Tawna, Cortex, and Brio won out.

What the famous platform with plants from the level Air Crash (CB2) was for? Lots of players used to think it could take you to some secret place however there was the published video where Crash stayed on the platform and nothing happened.

That is just a video of some uncompleted area in some unfinished version of the game (say for a tradeshow). It was under construction and was never intended to be seen. Under construction levels can display any kind of whacky behavior.

The returning characters of Crash Tag Team Rac...

Image via Wikipedia

Why Nitros Oxide wasn’t brought to playable characters in CTR?

We only had room for so many, and the consensus (particularly of the Japanese) was that the cute characters were better choices (like the polar bear cub).

Is it true that there was a secret character called Hippo in the beta of CTR? Why weren’t all the characters from original trilogy included? It’d been nice to see Koala Kong and Nitrus Brio there.

Time and space. Each character was a lot of work and took up a lot of memory. I don’t remember the hippo though.

Why did you choose Mutato Muzika as the music composer to the all games of Crash Bandicoot?

We auditioned a number of composers to give us sample music for the game. Theirs was the coolest. And we were in a hurry J. But it worked out great!

Why CB1 takes all space on CD while CB takes only 1/3 of disk space? It’d be nice to see CB2 on mini-CD.

There is a huge fake file on the CB1 CD (the data.wad) which the game doesn’t care about. The file is full of random numbers and it was there to fill out the disk. The reason for this was twofold. First of all, the outside of the CD is faster, so by putting the useless file on the inside the game would be pushed to the outside. Second, we thought that pirates would be irritated by and less likely to download a 650meg game than a 150meg game. Less pirate copies is a good thing when you make games for a living.

Why have you deleted your official site of Crash Bandicoot on www.naughtydog.com? I’d like to read 20 questions and answers for Crash Bandicoot one more time.

I don’t control or influence www.naughtydog.com in any way, and haven’t since 2004.

What do you think about the bug which allows player to take the red gem in CB2 in an alternative way, not through the secret warproom?

I don’t 🙂 But it’s just a bug. In 1996 it would have pissed me off (mildly), now I shrug and smile.

Why do Brio and Cortex quarrel so that Brio looks for the way of destroying Cortex Spaceship in CB2?

Brio turned out to be surprisingly sympathetic (because Cortex picks on him) so we thought it would be amusing to develop that a bit. The Crash series, however, is not exactly The English Patient in terms of character depth.

It is very interesting what was planned to develop and what plans of that came true in CB2 and CB3?

For Crash 1 we had this huge three-part Island and all sorts of ideas for different areas and levels. Crash 2 was to a large extent those that didn’t make it in the first game plus lots of extra cool ideas we had. There was more time for new mechanics like the surf board, zero-G, sliding on the ice, etc. For Crash 3 we needed something a bit different and came up with the time travel idea (mine!). But truth is that we all loved that idea, and both Jason and I adore time travel. My second novel is about time travel! So the idea naturally led to putting in favorite times and places as levels for Crash 3.

Have you ever regretted of selling the rights of Crash Bandicoot franchise to another company? If there was a chance would you like to return on developing this franchise?

It made sense at the time, but I love Crash. Of all my creations it’s still my favorite and it’s sad to see him drop to his current lows. As Jason puts it, like discovering that your sweet High School girlfriend is now a street walker in Atlantic City.

Why did you call your company just “Naughty Dog”?

We liked dogs. Plus Jason was always drawing these cool cartoon characters (in the mid 80s) and one of them was “The Naughty Dog” a studly 80s shades wearing dog who always got the chicks. So he became the mascot and source of the name.

Why Crash Bandicoot and Jak franchises are so similiar? I mean it includes the way of games (1, 2, 3 and racing). The first game of Jak is very similiar to CB1, the attack of Jak is like Crash’s one, we are destroying the crates and so more. Dammit, you can also see the Plant from CB1 in the beginning of the game?

The same people made them. Sometimes you like your own ideas 🙂 Certainly there is plenty new stuff in Jak.

Why have you developed Action-Adventure but not the platformer on PS3 as it lacks of them? I have read your Making of Crash Bandicoot series where you have said Naughty Dog was always looking for the opportunity ways, don’t you think the nice platformer could worth it?

I myself didn’t really do much PS3 development. I left Naughty Dog when Uncharted 1 was in its infancy. But market wise there seemed to be less support for pure platforming. It was seen as old fashioned.

What are you interested in besides the video games?

Lots of stuff. Look at my blog http:all-things-andy-gavin.com. Food, history, travel, writing, fiction of all sorts, technology. I’m very much a fantasy geek in the broad sense of the word.

What is your favorite game?

World of Warcraft. Even though I “quit” (again) after six years. Told you I’m a fantasy geek.

According to Facebook you like classic music. What are your favorite compositions?

I like a lot of music. In pure classical everything from Mozart to Stravinsky. But I listen to a wide variety of things, from weird folk music to industrial techno.

Have you ever been to Russia or the countries of post-Soviet Union. If yes did you like them? If no then are you going to visit them some time?

The closest I’ve been is Budapest and Prague. I’d love to visit many places in the former USSR. St. Petersburg is high on my list because I have a palace and museum fetish and I must see the baroque palaces there. Jason’s been to Moscow too – and I’d love to go there myself.

How do you think if Crash Bandicoot is relevant nowadays?

Current (or recent) Crash games are not relevant, but the character is. The response I get from my blog proves this. People still love the character, his world, and the games. I’m sure if they got an opportunity to play good Crash games in an updated format — millions would.

Any wishes to the users of Bandicoot Internet Zone?

I’d like to thank all the fans. It’s always been so gratifying how much people enjoyed visiting and playing our whacky cartoon universe. We brought it to life because it was just this super silly place that we thought would be a fun to inhabit (even if virtually), and it’s so great that millions and millions of players agreed and had a blast there!

The index of all Crash posts is here.

The Making Crash series: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]

If you liked this post, follow me at:

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By: agavin
Comments (52)

Posted in: Games

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Crash Bandicoot, Fan Sites, Games, Mutato Muzika, Playstation, Time travel, Video game

Conan the Barbarian – Lamentation of their women

Aug12

Title: Conan the Barbarian

Director/Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Actor), James Earl Jones (Actor)

Genre: Drama

Watched: August 3, 2011 (and before)

Summary: Still one of the great fantasy films

In honor of the upcoming remake of this classic, the release of the blu-ray, and the political demise of its star, I decided to rewatch this for like the 10th time — I think the last time was in 1997.

During the long long dark ages of fantasy filmmaking, before the wonder that is Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, or the epic new HBO Game of Thrones, we fantasy fans had to be content with a sorry set of films indeed. Above the pathetic likes of Willow and Krull, the 1982 Dino De Laurentiis epic starring the pre-Terminator Mr. Universe was high art indeed. In fact, it’s pretty much hands down the best High Fantasy film prior to LOTR.

It’s fascinating to see how it’s aged. Pretty well.

Technically, the blu-ray isn’t radically better than the DVD in the picture quality department, although it looks good. There is some film grain from the era, and the movie has a lot of contrast which strains my plasma (I need to get an LCD or good new projector). The sound needed a major new restoration it didn’t get, it was pretty terrible. Which is a shame given the spectacular score. Nevertheless, none of this takes much away from the film.

This movie has blood, guts, and tits, snakes, swords, cannibals, wizards and all that long before HBO. Gotta love it. The period head-banger stylings of everyone, particularly the bad guys are great fun.

I love this trio of baddies. Check out heavy metal guitarist Nigel Tufnel on the right. Love him. And James Earl Jones is fantastic as cruel neo-hippy-killer Thulsa Doom. “Steel is week, flesh is strong!”

This movie feels big. It uses wide open location shots in Andalusia Spain to good effect, big sets, and crazy costumes. It’s just plain unabashed. Sure the dialog is laughably cheesy and the script ham-handed. Transitions are abrupt and there is little to no character development. But there are great lines like “time enough for the earth in the grave” and Atilla the Hun’s stolen quote, “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.” All good stuff.

What’s also very interesting is the forgotten style of epic storytelling, which has more in common with Lawrence of Arabia than it does with modern action crap like Transformers. This film has long Easy Rider style travel scenes with just the thunderous score and more interestingly, several almost ballet like giant action numbers with an operatic orchestral quality. These scenes, notably the raid on the Conan’s village, the assault on Set’s tower (awesome!), and the war-painted invasion of the cannibal Mountain of Power (more awesome!), have virtually no dialog. They have muted sound effects, but predominantly the mood is set with the booming orchestra and the intricately choreographed action, swaying as it does to the hypnotic score.

Really good stuff.

Peter Jackson knows his fantasy films, because he borrowed heavily from this in his own epic. Think the Black Riders at the Bree ferry, or the long descent to the bridge of Khazad-dûm. All favorite scenes of mine.

Michael Bey, eat your heart out!

Click for a review of the new 2011 Conan.

Or for more Film reviews, click here.

By: agavin
Comments (7)

Posted in: Movies

Tagged as: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan The Barbarian, Dino De Laurentiis, Fantasy film, HBO, James Earl Jones, Jason Momoa, Movie, Robert E. Howard

Shamshiri Grill

Aug11

Restaurant: Shamshiri Grill

Location: 1712 Westwood Blvd. Los Angeles, Ca 90024 (310) 474-1410

Date: July 31, 2011

Cuisine: Persian

Rating: One of my favorite Iranian restaurants

Shamshiri is one of my favorite Iranian restaurants on the westside — and we certainly have an embarrassment of riches in this flavorful cuisine.

It’s located on Westwood Blvd right in the heart of Westwood.

I forgot to photo the bread, but in traditional person manner it’s accompanied by butter, radish, mint, and onions.

This is an appetizer combo platter: “A Family Size platter of Dolmeh, Baba Ganoush, Mast o’khiar, Humus and Falafel.” ALl good.

The regular “greek style” salad that is often an option with many dishes.

Parker gives this interesting Italian 92 points. “The 2008 Ramitello, a blend of 80% Montepulciano and 20% Aglianico, boasts fabulous clarity and freshness, with layers of vibrant dark cherries and plums that meld together with notable grace. Smoke, tar, menthol and licorice develop in the glass, giving the wine even more dimensions of expression. This is a terrific effort from Di Majo Norante. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2013.”

I ordered a side of yogurt with cucumber (and nuts and raisons). I’m obsessed with these yogurt sauces, I just love them, especially with grilled meats.

This is a vegan falafel wrap with humus.

“FRESH FILLET OF SALMON KABOB. Mesquite grilled Salmon Fillet (Atlantic Premium).” With french fries. I doubt this is very traditional, but it is pretty good.

Same goes with this Persian Pizza my son enjoyed.

Most dishes come with an obscene amount of good fluffy Persian rice.

This is one of my favorite Iranian dishes. “FESENJAN. Sweet-n-tart Walnut puree in Pomegranate Sauce
and your choice to Add Chicken, Lamb Shank or Veal.” In this case chicken. It’s superb here. The sauce is rich and simutaneously nutty, spiced (but not spicy), sweet, and tangy.

“GHORMEH SABZI. Fresh green Herbs, sautéed and stewed with Kidney Beans, dried lime and your choice to Add Chicken, Lamb Shank, or Veal.” Another great stew, eaten over rice.

“BAMIEH. Stew of Okra with Onions, Potatoes and Mushrooms in a Saffron tomato sauce. Served with your choice to Add Chicken, Lamb Shank, or Veal.” And another

And Shamshiri has a selection of fantastic kabobs. I particularly love the ground beef and lamb. They have these special chickens too that must be the size of Labradors because there are chicken breasts that are like 15″ long!

All and all, good stuff.

Click here to see more LA Food posts.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Baba ghanoush, Chicken, Cooking, Dolma, Falafel, FESENJAN, Iranian, Iranian cuisine, Los Angeles, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Shamshiri Grill, Stew, Westwood

New Look

Aug10

My original theme, Quentin, was getting a little long in the tooth and didn’t support custom menus, post formats, and the like, although it was attractive. So I switched to the brand new Quintus which is an updated version. This has necessitated a somewhat inadvertent new look. I played with the CSS a bit to customize it, but my patience for this is limited. The new theme is wider, which is cool, but some elements don’t look as good to me like the comments.

Be sure to check out the new top menu (below the old-school paper). You can click on the top levels and get inline filtering of the post categories, or find in the drop downs various indices and popular posts.

Let me know what you think. Here’s what the old one looked like:

By: agavin
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Posted in: Uncategorized

Tagged as: Cascading Style Sheets, CSS, Style Sheets, Themes, WordPress

Villetta – More Italian in Brentwood?

Aug10

Restaurant: Villetta

Location: 246 26th Street. Santa Monica, CA 90402. 310-394-8455

Date: July 30 & Nov 18, 2011

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: Very good, but prices are steep

One of the great mysteries of the culinary universe is how Brentwood in general, and San Vicente in particular, is able to support so many Italian restaurants. Every time someplace closes and resets it comes back Italian! The only other option in the entire town are 3 Japanese and a couple chains (CPK and Cheesecake — but you all know I don’t eat chains).

This gorgeous 1920s space used to be Chez Mimi, an old school French place that my wife and I used to eat at quite a bit.

It’s still very cute with a little bar inside.

A quaint dining room.

And most importantly a lovely patio. I had been trying for about three weeks to get into this new place but it was always booked on opentable.com, so we just showed up at 6:15 and had no trouble getting a “bar seat” in the patio.

They give you to start faggioli (Tuscan white beans) mashed with garlic and salt, and drizzled in olive oil. For such a simple thing, it’s surprisingly delicious. You can see the old school version here in florence about half way down the post.

The bread, two types.

The wine list was a bit odd. Three quarters New World. Which for an Italian restaurant is strange. They also had no half bottles (boo hiss) so I had to get glasses, which is expensive. The pours were generous though. This is a decent Amarone (but $25 a glass!).

And a Pinot Grigio from the Venato. I’d never drink Ca wine with Italian when there are so many great wines from the boot.

The menu.

“Villetta ‘Caprese’ with heirloom tomatoes, bufala mozzarella, basil pesto and grilled bread.” Villetta claims to be farmer’s market driven, and you can see that here in this lovely caprese. Very high quality ingredients.

Same goes with the “burrata, prosciutto, cherry tomatoes and bruschetta.” These were good enough tomatoes that I was able to put aside my nightshade aversion and eat half of them. Nice prosciutto too, probably from parma.

“ravioli with zucchini and chive blossoms and sweet corn.” Also very nice homemade pasta. Very straight up but delicious butter-sage sauce. Note though that this is the large ($25) portion.

On a different night, a very similar pasta filled with slightly different vegetables as was more appropriate to the season (late autumn).

“Mezze maniche with hot and sweet sausage, peas, tomato, and cream.” This is basically a sausage ragu. The pasta was very al dente (good) and the sauce was pretty wonderful.

“Santa Barbara spot prawns with salad of borlotti beans, mizuna and orange citronette.” These were pretty darn delicious. Even the beans underneath were incredibly good with garlic and olive oil. Again this is the large ($50!) portion. You can see the Ligurian version of this same dish here.

“Grilled Sonoma lamb leg with fresh flageolet beans and eggplant caponata.” The meat itself was pretty spectacular and cooked perfectly.

I had to order this red from Campagnia to go with it too.

A little free watermelon sorbet to cleanse the palette.

And on a different night it was orange sorbet, much like a granite or Italian ice.

The dessert menu.

“Chocolate chip cookie sundae with vanilla and chocolate gelato, whipped cream and chocolate sauce.” This was delicious. I don’t think the ice cream was actually gelato though — but it was good. I’d put good money on it coming from Sweet Rose Creamery across the street as it had the same kind of consistency.

Overall, the food at Villetta was first rate. Really good actually, and the service was very friendly too (not super fast, but warm). The prices however are high. They also have what looks to be some really good pizza, as they have a full wood fired pizza oven and a chef from Napoli, but we didn’t try it. So I’d put this in the same category with Capo, Georgio Baldi, and Vincente of excellent but overpriced westside Italian.

Click here to see more Italian than you can shake a stick at.

Or more LA restaurants.

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Amarone, Brentwood, Buffalo mozzarella, California, Dessert, Insalata Caprese, Italian cuisine, Los Angeles, New World, Olive oil, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Restaurants and Bars, San Vicente, Santa Monica California, Villetta

Ozumo – Japan invades the Mall

Aug09

Restaurant: Ozumo

Location: 395 Santa Monica Place Santa Monica, CA 90401 T: 424.214.5130

Date: July 15, 2011

Cuisine: Modern Japanese / Sushi

Rating: Good

ANY CHARACTER HERE

I’ve been slowly working my way through the new Santa Monica Place Mall dining scene. Which surprisingly, isn’t bad. Not brilliant either, but not bad. They’ve populated the mall with six or so small chain corporate places (restaurant groups of 2-4 restaurants each). These are never quite as good as sole (and chef owned) establishments, but they are better than big chains — barf! So far I’ve reviewed Xino, Zengo, and La Sandia. Now it’s time for the Japanese, Ozumo.

The interior space is large.

With multiple parts and a real sushi bar.

The dinner menu can be found here.

We ordered this decent (but not exactly on the level of this) cold sake. They did have a lot of expensive sakes on the menu, so some of them might be amazing.

“Kinoko Miso Soup. Nameko, shiitake and enoki mushrooms in a rustic Koji miso soup with negi.” A nice miso variant. I liked all the mushroom action.

“Hanabi. Slices of hamachi and avocado drizzled with a warm ginger and jalapeño ponzu sauce.” This is their interpretation of the classic Nobu dish. Everyone has it now. This version was a tad overdone, throwing in a few more elements and disguising the fish. But at the same time it was tasty and nothing clashed.

“Special heirloom tomato salad.”

Toro sashimi. I’m trying to low carb it so I’ve been doing more sashimi. This was good toro, but it reinforced my conclusion that this Rolls Royce of fish does better as sushi than as sashimi. Somehow it’s fat content needs the rice as a foil.

“Yiya Yakko. Chilled silken tofu, fresh ginger, negi and tamari shoyu.”

Here are the traditional sauces. The tofu itself was perfect. And truth is this is exactly how I’ve gotten it in Japan. The problem is that the straight up soy sauce is a little bland for the tofu. This is a flaw in the classic dish, not the restaurant. The deadly hot Korean version I had recently at Moko was tastier — and vastly more nose shattering.

Some various sashimi. Salmon, scallop, albacore. This was all good, although not ‘amazing,’ I’d say 8/10 on the fish meter.

“Yamabuki. Fresh uni, shimeji and shiitake mushrooms in a healthy Genmai brown rice risotto.” This made me suspend my “low carbing” for a dish. I would have liked more uni (sea urchin) as there are only two tiny pieces. The risotto itself was very good. It tasted more “healthy” and brown rice than a classic Italian version, which would have been slightly yummier. But it did have great texture, particularly with the mushrooms. Overall a very pleasant dish.

Here is the other bar, which is ‘first come first serve.’ These mall places are huge though, and as of yet there is no problem getting into any of them even at prime time.

They even have some cool outside seating, although not as nice as Xino or Zengo’s patios which are fantastic.

Overall, Ozumo is good. I’d probably rate it 7/10. The food was quite good. The service, like all the mall places, needs some work. I think they hire too many young inexperienced servers. The food’s not as good as many of LA’s other top sushi joints, but it’s solid (remember I’m a serious sushi snob), and considerably better (and cheaper) than over trendified mediocre fish joints like Katsuya Brentwood or Sushi Roku. As far as the mall goes, it’s in the league with Xino and Zengo, and certainly better than La Sandia.

Click here to see more LA sushi posts.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Asian, California, Cook, Hanabi, Japanese cuisine, Los Angeles, Mall, Miso soup, Ozumo, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Santa Monica California, Santa Monica Place, Sashimi, Sushi

Storm Front

Aug08

Title: Storm Front

Author: Jim Butcher

Genre: Paranormal Noir

Length: 384 pages, 87,100 words

Read: July 5-7, 2011

Summary: Fun read, decent noir redux.

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This novel has the amusing premise of taking the straight up traditional noir detective novel, like The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep, and giving it a modern paranormal spin. Now it isn’t the first book to do this, Laurell K. Hamilton‘s Anita Blake series is more or less on this model, but Butcher clearly read his source material.

It begins with the detective (ahem… wizard) in his office, and the case initiated by the lip chewing lady. Lets first address the success of this book as a piece of entertainment, then we’ll get into it’s loyalty to it’s sources. The book works. It’s a very fun read, catches you early on with the voice, and moves along at a good clip. I’d have sworn it was 250 pages and not 384. It has it’s flaws, but it’s fundamentally a good piece of entertainment. Compare to the somewhat similar Dead Witch Walking which I started recently but stopped halfway.

The voice is fun. Hardboiled, but not nearly as much as Dashiell Hammett‘s masterpiece upon which it seems loosely modeled. Harry Dresden (the wizard/detective protagonist) is observant and engaging, but he lets you know through interior monologue what he thinks about the situation. True hard boiled only implies or tells just a little. They remain much more oblique in terms of the character’s inner life, despite being first person. Now given that there’s a lot of magic and supernature creatures in Storm Front, being upfront probably helped the clarity. Even if it did occasionally leave me with a tiny feeling of too much TELL. The prose is pretty witty too — again not Hammett witty — but good, and very clear.

The characters varied from excellent (Harry, Bob, the mob boss) to just fine. The villain was kind of weak. Actually more than kind of weak. Fairly cardboard. Morgan (the memory of the White Wizard’s council who watches our hero) was a paper thin twerp too. The plot had plenty of good elements, and moved like lightning, although at times it felt contrived to keep Harry in maximum jeopardy. There seemed no reason he shouldn’t have trusted his police partner a bit more, as the only thing doing so would have cost him is a lot of worry and a whole lot of bruises.

The magic system and supernatural creatures were good too. Handled with a deft brevity as this book has plenty of creatures: vampires, fairies, wizards, etc. but they didn’t bother me — and I’m picky here. Although only the amusing little fairy stood out. A lot (like the vampire) were used jump because. The feel of many elements, like the potions and the fairies, was a bit tongue and cheek, but fit.

True to it’s noir roots, the book is pretty dark, with grisly murders and (off screen) sex. But by being supernatural, and more importantly campy, it looses that black edged moral ambiguity that the best classic noir had, making it just a fun read, free of any real comment on the human condition.

For more book reviews, click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Books

Tagged as: Anita Blake, Big Sleep, Book Review, Book Reviews, Dashiell Hammett, Dead Witch Walking, Fiction, Hardboiled, Harry Dresden, Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, Maltese Falcon, Novel, Raymond Chandler, Storm Front, Storm Front (novel)

Trés – Brunché Fantastique

Aug07

Restaurant: Trés [1, 2]

Location: 465 S La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048. 310.246.5555

Date: July 31, 2011

Cuisine: Modern Brunch

Rating: Fantastique

ANY CHARACTER HERE

I follow José Andrés on twitter, and I was reading (and crying) about the final meal at elBulli, so when the restaurant selection for brunch with friends came up, the SLS came to mind.

Enter the whacky world of Trés at the SLS.

Inside is the same kind of bizarre Philippe Starck space as at Bazaar. High tables on one side.

Comfortable lounging on the other.

The brunch menu is here. There are buffet, ala carte, and “experience” options. We went for the experience which is the buffet + an entree + a mimosa for only $10 more (the mimosa alone is $16).

The buffet is endless, but i’ll begin with breads and pastries.

And more.

And condiments for such.

And the table des fruits.

Melons.

Various fruit juice “waters.” These are lighter than regular juice. There were about six exotic types.

If you are so inclined, you can add them to these glasses of fruit for a blend of fruit and juice.

And these spectacular yogurts with fruit.

Cereal if you are boring.

The the vege station. Prep glasses for gazpacho.

A zoom of one. You add the gazpacho yourself, and there are other condiments.

The gazpacho.

Salad plates and condiments.

Pull back for the big picture.

Then the meat and cheese station.

Pig, pig, and more pig. Hams and salamis.

Jamon del Iberico!

Some more fruits.

Spanish cheeses.

And more.

And rolls and condiments. To the rights are jams and butters.

Inside are mini steam buns (more on that later).

Amazing smoked salmon and caviars and accompaniments.

Creme fraiche, chives, onions, quail eggs, two types of caviar (including the real stuff).

The salmon was amazing.

And roast beef.

Then some desserts.

And more.

And an extensive assortment of petite fours from the pasticerie. Passion fruit pate des fruits on top, bon bons, cookies.

Our meals came with mimosas. This is the classic. The alcohol is cava (Spanish champagne).

Or the even yummier grapefruit mimosa.

A close up of a bit of caesar salad. Very tasty.

The gazpacho was amazing. Just totally amazing. I had three helpings as did several others.

A plate of goodies. You can see the caviars (and meats).

I made a couple of these custom steam buns. Wow!

Fried potatoes.

An omelet with mushrooms and zucchini blossoms.

360 degree eggs, toasted brioche, hollandaise air, and Jamon Serrano. This was one of the better eggs benedict I’ve had — and I’ve had a lot.

The salmon version.

Grilled cheese.

Fries — always yummy.

This Greek yogurt with fruit (this one had apricots) were so incredibly delicious! Sweet though.

Then some desserts, which are more or less highlights of the Bazaar’s desserts. These are mango and cream.

“Hot chocolate mouse, three layers,” mini version.

Classic Spanish flan.

Some of the whacky decorations.

more

and more.

Even the bar nuts are cool.

And this crazy zesty lemonade, which served nicely as an aperitif.

Overall this was a fantastic brunch. Different than your typical one, but fantastique for sure. It holds up in every way to the quality level of the various José Andrés offerings at the SLS!

Click here to see more LA dining, or reviews of The Bazaar and Saam (also at the SLS).

The entrance again, behind us is the parking zoo. And it’s a serious zoo.

Also check out a lunch meal here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Bazaar, Breakfast, Brunch, California, Dessert, El Bulli, Ferran Adrià, Fruit, José Andrés, Juice, La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, Philippe Starck, Restaurant, Spain, Trés, vegetarian

Room with a Vu

Aug06

Restaurant: Vu [1, 2]

Location: 14160 Palaway Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292 310.439.3033

Date: July 28 & 30, 2011

Cuisine: Modern

Rating: Interesting, but a little all over the place

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My brother and I were out for our weekly lunch adventure and after Gjelina had a 45 minute wait we made our way to Vu, which I had tried a couple months ago for dinner.

Vu does live up to its name, sporting a nice patio with an excellent view of the marina.

I was a little surprised to find the lunch menu, PDF here, a bit “more conventional” than the modern tapas centric dinner menu.

Bread.

“Grilled Polenta: Asparagus, tomato, pickled red onion, aged balsamic.”

“Green Curry Soup: Mussels, coconut boba, micro cilantro.” This was quite good. Fairly spicy, coconuty, definably rich. The mussels, boba, and pork lumps inside were like little prizes to hunt for.

“Seared King Cole Duck Breast Salad: mixed greens, goat cheese, dried cherries, chocolate-spiced cashews, red wine vinaigrette.” This was pretty tasty, the duck was good, and the various elements. But the mix was overall a little weird. I’m pretty sure there was sisho in the greens, as they had that distinct flavor. Now I like sisho, but the overall flavor profile of the dish was a little helter-skelter.

“Blue Crab Cakes: charred tomato, orange, brioche bread crumbs, pickled red onion, mache, mustard ice cream.” These crab-cakes were way over fried, and inside they were stuffed with tarragon. So much so that they tasted like tarragon cakes. This wasn’t ideal, masking the crab flavor (as did the heavy fry). No where near in the league of the crab-cakes from Houstons or Capo.

I also popped down to Vu two days after this with my toddler from some brunch as we were already in the Marina.

The brunch menu can be found here.

Pancakes. Pretty conventional. I think the syrup was vanilla syrup, which was tasty.

My son likes a mix in with strawberries.

“Lobster Omelette: asparagus, shaved fennel, niman ranch pork belly, pommery hollandaise, home fries.” This wasn’t bad at all, but the overall flavor profile was again a little weird. The sour mustard clashed a bit with the sweetness of the pork and lobster.

Some VERY good fries, with a cumin based seasoning on them.

And some fantastic Neiman ranch bacon. Really really good bacon.

Overall Vu is trying interesting stuff, but the chef is too wild with his palette. I’m all for crazy and interesting combinations and new modern techniques — really all over them — but they need to be employed with care. Dishes still have to work together harmoniously, which isn’t really going on here.

Click here to see the previous review of Vu.

or other LA restaurants.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Beach, Breakfast, Brunch, Cooking, crab, Crab cake, crab cakes, Fish and Seafood, Green Curry, Marina del Rey California, Modern Cuisine, Pancakes, Red onion, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Sandwiches, Vu

More Game of Thrones CGI

Aug05

My post showing Game of Throne’s transparent CGI was wildly successful (over 25,000 views on my site alone). Apparently its been popular across the web at large because the SFX company released another video of even more.

Particularly interesting is how many of the weapon strike shots (getting stabbed, speared, shot etc) are all added in with CGI. Traditionally this was just done with quick cuts, trick weapons, and fake blood. Now, evidently, it’s cheaper (and better looking) to just have the actors pantomime the response and fill in the weapon and gore. All those latex horror effects guys must be out of jobs!

This is a very effective means of conveying what they’ve done, and also shows you how weird the rough cut of the show must look without the visual effects. And, also tells you why they need six months after wrapping filming to get the show out!

You can check out the first video here, or

my reviews of each episode of Season 1 of Game of Thrones (the HBO series):

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,9, 10]

Read my review of A Dance With Dragons.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed
or the video game post depot
or win Crash & Jak giveaways!

Latest hot post: War Stories: Crash Bandicoot

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Dance with Dragons, A Song of Ice and Fire, CGI, Computer Graphics, Computer-generated imagery, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, SFX, Song of Ice and Fire, Special effect, Television, Television program, Visual effects

Kiriko Sushi

Aug05

Restaurant: Kiriko Sushi [1, 2]

Location: 11301 Olympic Blvd #102, West Los Angeles, CA 90064. TELL (310) 478-7769

Date: July 8 & 21, Sept 21, 2011

Cuisine: Japanese / Sushi

Rating: Very nice!

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At our giant Go Sushi love-fest one of my Foodie Club members suggested I check out this Sawtelle sushi joint. He said it was great. Twist my arm! So I finagled a business lunch there (didn’t have to twist the other arms very hard either).

The unassuming storefront on the corner of Olympic and Sawtelle, right next to the Yakatori place.

This first time we ordered a light Omakase, almost all sashimi with a little sushi.

Omakase 1

The classic Japanese salad with the yummy textured dressing. I forgot either of my real cameras and had to make due with the iPhone 4 (sorry). It really doesn’t do too bad a job if you have adequate light and turn off the flash. That little LED has a range of about 12 inches and isn’t good for much.

Miso soup, the usual sort. They had about four kinds on the menu though.

Amberjack on the left, and halibut on the right with a gelatinous but yummy “sauce.”

From left to right: albacore with garlic chips, baby red snapper, and mackerel with onion and similar. All very good and excellent preparation.

On the left, kanpachi (young yellowtail), taco (octopus), and on the right Japanese scallops with pesto. I hate eating octopus because it’s such a smart animal, but these were some of the most tender and succulent bits of cephalopod I’ve yet had. THe scallop was also fantastic, with the light pesto adding a unique flavor without marring the subtle sea taste.

Left to right: Sock-eye salmon (light sauce), seared albacore, and golden eye snapper. The snapper almost tasted like lobster or something.

On the left: Big eye tuna and yellowtail, in the middle sea bream with salt and on the right homemade smoked salmon. All were great, but the bream and the salmon really stood out.

Sushi, left to right: Tuna, yellowtail, sea bream (with salt), and homemade salmon. This plate was served at the same time as the similar sashimi plate above.

Blue crab handroll. Overstuffed and on par with the Sasabune ones.

I went back two weeks later and ordered a more elaborate sashimi omakase, which is mixed in here with a simpler sushi/sashimi one. This time I had the medium camera so the pictures are better.

Omakase 2

Some couple million year-old sea salt rocks on the counter.

The chef at work.

The salad.

Regular miso.

Red miso, which is saltier and richer.

Octopus, salmon wrapped mango with caviar, and on the right boiled eel with plum sauce. The eel was interesting. It didn’t have much flavor (being boiled) but the sauce was very tart, tasting intensely of sour Japanese plum (which it was).

The same thing but with an oyster instead of the octopus.

A sashimi plate, left to right. Wild kanpachi (young yellowtail) with pesto, gel, and jalepeno. Albacore with garlic chips, abalone sea salt. Halibut with ponzu gel. These gels (slightly sweet, interesting texture) are something unique to Kirko (in my experience).

A sushi plate. Crab handroll, BBQ eel, salmon, yellowtail and halibut.

A sashimi plate that I forgot to photo until after I had eaten several items. We have starting in the lower left and heading clockwise. Tai (Red snapper) with sea salt. Chu-toro. Santa Barbara spot prawn, live head and raw body (eaten). Japanese scallop with pesto.

The head was so alive it was still moving. Click this image for a video.

Then he came back fried. Most certainly dead this time.

A sashimi plate of four kinds of salmon. Left to right: Sock eye smoked. Sock eye fresh. King salmon smoked. King salmon fresh. All good.

Japanese scallop sushi, with a bit of salt and yuzu.

More sashimi. Squid with spicy cod roe. Seared Japanese Mackerel. Seam bream with yuzu.

Omakase 3

This is another “sushi and sashimi” lunch omakase.

Soup and salad.

Seared snapper, monk fish liver with jelly, and halibut.

Albacore, seared and raw. Amberjack, wild yellowtail with jelly in front and sea bream in back right.

Salmon sashimi.

Bluefin tuna, wild yellowtail, sea bream, and salmon sushis.

Scallop and Uni (sea urchin) sushi.

A top grade blue crab hand-roll.

Overall, I was very impressed with Kiriko. Not only was the fish fantastic but they had very nice modern presentation and were doing some interesting stuff with the fish without going all weird and California. I’d put it in that grade of 9/10 LA sushi, which is saying a lot as our sushi is so fantastic.

Click here to see more LA Sushi posts.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Amberjack, Asian, Cooking, Fish and Seafood, Japanese, Japanese cuisine, Kiriko Sushi, Los Angeles, Omakase, raw fish, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Sashimi, Sushi

Moko

Aug04

Restaurant: Moko

Location: 9540 Culver Blvd. Culver City, Ca. (310) 838-3131

Date: July 9, 2011

Cuisine: Modernized Korean

Rating: Very tasty — Spicy!

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Moko is a newly opened Korean bar/restaurant serving very modernized variants using a Korean palette of flavors. This is to Korean as Red Medicine is to Vietnamese.

The pleasant but industrial space in the heart of Culver City’s bustling downtown.

The have the BBQ in the table, and there is an extensive section of the menu for ordering meats and vegetables to cook here — we didn’t do that on this visit.

An amuse of three “salads.” Left to right: “Watermelon Namul with tasted almonds chile, shiso and ginger,” followed by “Kong Maul, mixed sporuts with spring onions sesame and soy,” and on the right “Market Radish Namul, sweet ginger and pineapple mint.”

“Spicy Smash, Tequila Silver, lime juice, agave & cucumber, Thai basil, serrano.” This is one of those spicy specialty cocktails that has popped up all over the place lately. It was good, with a long serrano burn.

“Tai Snapper, asian pear jus and pickled ginger.” Sweet and lovely.

“Big Eye Tuna, yuzu, soy, and blood orange.” Also a really good presentation of the fish with complex flavor profiles.

“Sesame Duck Confit, sweet lettuces and mango with ginger aioli and chipotle jang wrapped in jjin bahng.” This was amazingly tasty. The smokey duck, the sweet fruit, and the tang of some pickles paired perfectly — and there was all sorts of texture going on.

“Green Chili Pork Sausage, pineapple and butter lettuces with ssam jang wrapped in jjin bahang.” Also great. The sausage thing tasted amazing.

“Asian Pear and Kholrabi Salad, pea shoots and perilla with mustard vinaigrette.” Pretty spicy!

“Heirloom tomatos, green beans, soy ginger vinaigrette.”

“Silken Tofu, ginger dashi broth.” Wasabi in the sauce was incredibly hot. Hotter even than atomic horseradish. My nose hurt for an hour. Each bite made me sneeze. I finished it all.

“Kimchi eggplat dumplings, mushrooms and silken tofu with pine-nut mustard dipping sauce.” Very tasty too, and not too spicy.

“Wagyu Beef Roseu Pyeonchae, truffle scented seared beef carpaccio with asian pear and arugula salad.” This was one of the blander dishes. The meat was succulent, but I felt the dish could use a little more zing.

“Pan Friend Duck and Foie Gras dumplings with sour cherry dipping sauce.” Incredible potstickers. Some of the best I’ve even had — foie gras! The sauce was really good too.

“Soju Cured Salmon, crisp potato pancakes with pickled onions and ginger cream.” Sort of a giant potato latke with salmon and creme fraiche. Pretty tasty.

Moko certainly had strong flavors, and I for the most part loved them. A lot of dishes were quite spicy, more than I would have expected (and I have a pretty high tolerance). So several hours later I’m still feeling the burn.

Check out some other modernized Asians like Red Medicine or Xino.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Cooking, Culver City, Culver City California, Duck Confit, Food, Fruits and Vegetables, Ginger, Korean cuisine, Los Angeles, Moko, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Tofu, Wasabi

Eating the Skys – Continental

Aug03

Restaurant: Continental Airlines

Location: Somewhere above the Atlantic

Date: June 30, 2011

Cuisine: Inedible

Rating: Barftastic

ANY CHARACTER HERE

So after an epic four weeks of eating in Italy — where the worst meal was merely mediocre — we boarded the first of our planes for home, specifically the Milan to Newark flight on Continental. And so, our final meal of the trip:

A lovely 2011 Ginger Ale, Seagrams.

Bread with softener and additives, served with pastic wrap.

A fine salad of wilted iceberg lettuces.

Soaked in packaged milk and emmulsifiers, it becomes… slightly more edible — and sadly the best item on the menu.

Chicken Parmesan with scalloped potatoes, mushy peas, and nitrate sausage. This was actually a kid’s meal (served to my son). As it was considerably more edible than mine (below) I picked at it.

Dry frozen rock hard chicken “breast” with teeth breaking noodles, soggy asparagus and canned tomato sauce.

Seriously Continental (and sadly they aren’t alone, really all the American airlines are just as bad) you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. This stuff is completely pathetic and was actually literaly inedible. You would have had to pay me more than $100 to try a second bite of that rock hard chicken. It’s not just a matter of cost, it’s a matter of giving a shit about all aspects of the product you offer. I think airline executives ought to be required to eat coach airline meals 100% of the time while on the job! That’d shake things up fast.

Click here to see more Eating Italy posts.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Airline, bad food, Chicken, Continental Airlines, Dinner, eating-italy, Ginger Ale, Italy, Milan, Newark New Jersey, Parmigiana, pasta, Seagram

Untimed – Two Novels, Two Drafts!

Aug02

My second novel, Untimed, is a YA time-travel adventure.

And I just finished the rough version of my second draft. Whew! Happy to be done with that. The book grew to 84,000 words (it’ll probably get trimmed down a bit for draft three). It still needs polish, but the second draft is often the worst, and this one took 5 or so weeks of concentrated work. While I learned from my first novel and put the beginning at the right place, the previous draft still had a number of classic first draft problems.

Namely, character and motivation needed work. Plot can formally be considered the friction between the protagonist’s desire and the obstacles to said desire. The book is/was jam packed with conflict and action, but the desire line was a bit weak. I won’t say it’s perfect now, but it’s a hell of a lot better. As are the characters. For me it’s difficult in the first draft to flesh both of these out because as a pantser I don’t know exactly where I’m going with the story until I get there. Not that I write blind, but I like the story and the characters to take me where they want.

When writing the second draft, you have an end (even if you plan on changing it), so you know all the elements that you intend to put in the book. Therefore it’s easier to go back and foreshadow those and reinforce the important ones. You also know what the character is going to need to feel at different points in the story, so it’s easier to try and set up and reinforce those feelings.

Additionally, as a pantser, I actually get to know my characters in the first draft. The writing of them brings them to life in my head. Then in the second draft, I need to brainstorm extra elements in their past and present that reinforce the traits I know they’re supposed to have, then hint at the them in the book. Again, hard to do the first time around.

Now to see what some reader that aren’t me think — and trial and nail the third draft.

I’d also like to thank my story-consultants Sharon & Bryan for listening to every blow by blow change and my independent editors Renni & Shannon for pointing me in the second draft direction. Here’s to hoping I went far enough :-).

The second draft involved a few weeks of incubation (June), a full read and polish (also June), and then hardcore writing from June 30 until August 2.

And in case you’re wondering what the book is about, I still haven’t written a log line, but its a lean-mean-fast-paced first person present story about a boy whose name no one remembers — not even his mother. And it features Ben Franklin, Napoleon, a male gang leader that wears red high heels, and the Tick-Tocks, creepy clockwork time traveling machines from the future.

For more posts on writing, click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Untimed

Tagged as: Andrew Gavin, Andy Gavin, books, Creative Writing, Fiction, Novel, Protagonist, Revising, Science Fiction, Time travel, Untimed, Writing

Eating Santa Margherita – Pizzeria Santa Lucia

Aug02

Restaurant: Pizzeria Santa Lucia

Location: Santa Margherita, Italy

Date: June 29, 2011

Cuisine: Ligurian / Pizza

Rating: Good pizza

ANY CHARACTER HERE

On our last night in Italy (/cry) we wanted an early and quick meal prior to getting up at 4am the next morning. So I asked the hotel staff where they went for pizza and they all voted Santa Lucia as their favorite.

It’s located in the heart of the eastern marina, inside a cluster of many restaurants.

The menu.

The have a pleasant little patio. It was also just across the street from the Carousel, so I took my 2 year-old son while we waited.

On my last night I was a bad boy and ordered pasta and pizza at the same time! Again the waitress looked at me funny. This is lasagna pesto. Very simple, fresh noodles with fresh pesto and cheese. Simple but good.

The last shredded carrot salad you’ll see for awhile.

Santa Lucia takes its pizza seriously enough to have dedicated knives. Italians almost never serve pizza precut.

Pizza funghi (with mushrooms).

Pizza Margherita, apro pos in this town.

Pizza Prosciutto.

And mine, Pizza di mare. The seafood pizza is always a bit of a gamble, but as we were sitting right on the marina I figured I’d give it a go and I wasn’t disapointed. The briny factor was there (as it should be) but light.

Santa Lucia was a nice little pizza place, not quite as good as Pretorio in Tuscany, but in the three or so best we had on the trip (the third being Pizzeria Notte E Di).

Click here to see more Eating Italy posts.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Carousel, Cooking, eating-italy, Italian cuisine, Italy, Liguria, Pesto, Pizza, Pizzeria Santa Lucia, Prosciutto, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Santa Margherita Ligure

Eating Santa Margherita – dei Pescatori

Aug01

Restaurant: Trattoria dei Pescatori

Location: Santa Margherita, Italy

Date: June 29, 2011

Cuisine: Ligurian

Rating: Solid lunch

ANY CHARACTER HERE

On this particular morning we had actually visited the nearby town of Camogli and wanted to eat lunch there but we fell afoul of that particular Italian (and French and Spanish) pitfall: the extremely narrow lunch hour. Basically you can only sit down to lunch between 12:30 (sometimes even 1) and 2. They just aren’t open any other time. Conversely, nearly all other services shutdown 12-3. In any case, our toddler nap schedule didn’t allow waiting around in Camogli so we went back to Santa Marghertia.

We picked this likely looking place right across from the western marina.

The usual multi-page menu.

And bread.

Their house Vermentino even has their name on it — sort of.

Caprese di buffalo.

Acciughe al limone. Marinated anchovies. I became very fond of this dish last year in Spain. Fresh white anchovies marinated in vinegar. Yum.

Penne pomodoro.

Trenette al pesto. Fettuccine-like pasta with pesto.

Spaghetti pomodoro.

Ravioli di pesce con salsa bianca di San pietro. Ricotta ravioli with white fish sauce.

Ravioli di noce. Ricotta ravioli with walnut pesto. This was the second best implementation of this, good, but not as good as at Antonios.

Overall this was a perfectly pleasant lunch. The pastas were very good.

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: anchovies, Caprese, eating-italy, lunch, pasta, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Santa Margherita, Santa Margherita Ligure, Trattoria dei Pescatori

Eating Santa Marghertia – Da Michele

Jul31

Restaurant: Da Michele

Location: Santa Margherita, Italy

Date: June 28, 2011

Cuisine: Ligurian

Rating: Solid

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Another evening pick in central Santa Margherita, just a block away from the previous night’s Antonios.

Right in the main drag.

The outside seating was right on the square/street in front of the restaurant. I wish they did this more in America.

The menu.

Vermentino is one of the better quality local whites.

Seafood anti-pasta. This wasn’t as good as the raw plate the pervious night. But it was certainly tasty enough. This is more traditional, being marinated shellfish for the most part.

Another example of ravioli di noce (in walnut cream sauce). Also good, but not as good as Antonios’s version.

Trofie Genovese. Local pasta twists with pesto, potato and beans.

Tagliatelle ai gamberi, curry e piselli. Noodles with shrimps, curry, and peas. Something a little different, but very good. In it’s own way a little like a dish from Singapore. Maybe it’s the British influence in Santa Margherita.

Sea-bass Genovese. With potatoes, olives, pine nuts. This is the more traditional form.

Scampi all’agro. Shrimp in sweet and sour sauce.

This was basically a butter Vinaigrette, and it was absolutely delicious with the crawfish-like creatures. Finger licking good in fact.

Chocolate mousse.

Tiramisu.

This was a very solid and enjoyable meal. The food was a tiny bit better than La Paranza, but not as elegant or refined as that of neighboring Antonios.

Click here to see more Eating Italy posts.

By: agavin
Comments (5)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Cooking, Da Michele, Dessert, eating-italy, Italian cuisine, Italy, pasta, Pesto, Pine nut, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Santa Marghertia, Santa Marghertia ligure, Sauce, Singapore, Vermentino, Vinaigrette

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