We’ve started getting interesting Asian produce from New Roots Community Garden, and the new Momofuku book has been floating around the Link, so this sort of thing was bound to happen…

House made ramen, spring onion, fried pastured duck egg, Berkshire pork broth – can add house cured Berkshire pork belly – also can be made vegetarian

On tonite’s menu.

A couple more links for good readin’:

1) At the Oil Drum, Brian Gordon explains why food and oil prices are inextricably linked, and what that augurs for us in the coming years (my takeaway: the earlier you shift to buying organic and local, the better off that you’ll be). He doesn’t really talk about the weirdest part of our society growing all its food using energy from petroleum: that we’re all eating petroleum.

2) Time Magazine looks at Third Wave Coffee, as led by Intelligentsia (our coffee roaster), Stumptown, and Counter Culture Coffee. I enjoy the process by which we reclaim from a commodity, like coffee — or, for that matter, meat — the humanity and individuality which makes every expression unique.

A couple new items on tonite’s menu:

Pork sliders: pulled Berkshire pork (Jim Neville’s farm in San Luis Obispo), citrus (Polito Family Farm) barbeque sauce, pickled jalapeños, house baked semolina bun, pinquito beans (Righetti Ranch)

Oro Blanco grapefruit (Polito Family Farm) crème brûlée

And the world-famous Barrel Aged Speedway is on draft.

Things are slowly returning to normal around here. And included in normal is delicious food.

Fried ravioli of grassfed beef cheek and Jersey Cheddar, horseradish sauce

The new flatbread reminds of a sandwich I had at the Steak Center in State Center, Iowa. Though that sandwich did not have avocado:

Pork tenderloin flat bread with local avocado

And tonite’s clams come with lardo butter, organic local fennel, and kumquat jam:

See tonite’s menu here — it’s posted every day around 5pm.

1) The paradox of choice: Farm Aid explains, clearly and with great detail, how our country’s “food” is the industrial products of a handful of corporations, even though it seems that we are choosing from a multitude of options.

Thanks to a series of farm policies, farmers have been encouraged to produce loads of corn and soy while the prices they receive have often dropped far below the cost of production. While this is bad for farmers, it’s turned out to be a pretty cool deal for the factory farms, and soft drink and snack makers who use all this cheap, excess product as inputs for mass-produced meat and processed food. As a result, the relative cheapness of these foods help manufacturers set retail prices below those of otherwise-competitive, healthier alternatives, further constraining our access to better options.

(via The Irresistible Fleet of Bicycles)

2) Given the forces that make fake food so much cheaper than real food, how a could a person afford to eat well? One option could be to reduce the number of cars in one’s household — according to this calculation, switching from car to bike probably saves between $2500 to $8000 per year.

I can say that in my case (I haven’t owned a car for almost a year now), I think my savings has been in the $5000/year range. And my mood is generally better, and my sense of scale is much more human. All of which I enjoy.

We were preoccupied with the legal events of the week and dropped the ball on keeping enough cask-conditioned beer on hand. All our casks blew last nite and this morning and we won’t be able to bring new ones on until tomorrow.

We apologize for the oversight and we expect to be back to normal operations — and betweeen 3 and 5 cask beers always available — shortly.

I don’t have much to add to Michael’s post other than that, after speaking with Ms. Pummill, I believe that your many calls, emails and letters to the City Attorney’s office in support of the Linkery and our business practices made it very clear to them that action against us was not in your interest.

I’m incredibly grateful to be a part of a community that is so supportive in word and deed, and we are all grateful to be able to serve people like you. Thank you very much.

Now I have a lot of thank-you emails to write :-).

Jay

A representative for the City Attorney just called to inform us the they have decided NOT to pursue legal action against The Linkery!

The representative, Tricia, was extremely gracious and appreciative of all the extra light that was shone on the issue by our supporters, so a HUGE thanks to all of you.

In fact, the CA would like to form an industry group to come up with ways for policies such as ours to be implemented fairly and openly.

Jay’s on his Friday morning bike ride (not actually a fixie), so I’m sure he’ll post a follow-up this afternoon when he gets in, but we were so excited by the news that we wanted to share our extreme gratitude to all of you that supported us over the past few days. Muchas gracias!

This time of year a lot of folks are eating more fish, particularly on Fridays. I try to remember to remind everyone about how cool our fish dishes are. We’re more than just a piece of meat!

Grilled local yellowtail amberjack, fried organic brown rice (Massa Organics), local organic snow peas (Suzie’s Farm), Satsuma (Polito Family Farms)

We buy our fish from Catalina Offshore, a renowned local fish receiver that sells to world-class restaurants all over the country. These fish are either local to San Diego or from the fishery that extends down to Ensenada.

We don’t have a certain fish that we always serve. Instead, we get whatever fish their fisherman have brought in. In this way we get a sense of the seasonality of the ocean, which has been really enjoyable for me, and something I wouldn’t have thought of before we started working with Catalina.

OK, I had the poutine flatbread. It’s everything I thought it would be. The French Canadians are geniuses — gravy and cheese-curd French fries, hell yes — but I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of poutine being pizzafied before. It works.

Kettle-fried Kennebec potatoes, chicken gizzard gravy (from Curtis Womach’s pastured chickens), Spring Hill jersey cheddar, on a grilled house-made whole wheat flatbread.

And here’s that pork chop (from Jim Neville’s farm) with pigs feet and house made mac and cheese*

We expect to have both of these dishes through the weekend, although we never know for sure.

* Legal disclaimer: this mac and cheese does not have actual macaroni, it instead includes hand made noodles that do not have a hole running down the center. And while I usually agree with the hard-line stance the Cod takes regarding food semiotics — don’t even get me started on tortilla chips that have never been a tortilla — in this specific case I propose that, for our generation “mac and cheese” is a concept which can be created with alternative types of pasta. When people assemble this at home, they still call it mac and cheese.

One last bit today about the City Attorney’s sad attack on us (see here and here), before I refocus all my energy on the positive things that go on at the Linkery.

This is not about “consumer protection” at all — this is about social progress and the people who fear it. Nobody has ever been tricked at the Linkery, and everybody at the City Attorney’s office knows this. (No consumer in America goes into a serious restaurant and expects to not pay for table service, whether by tip or service charge.)

The only issue in question is whether restaurant workers have the social standing in our class system to charge for their work providing table service. In the world that the City Attorney lives in, restaurant workers are not entitled to charge for that part of what they do, and should be grateful for the opportunity to live exclusively off the largess of the wealthy clients who patronize their restaurants.

In the world I live in — and in the world I want to live in — people who work providing service, cooking, and washing dishes in restaurants are accorded the same dignity and respect as CEO’s, software engineers, doctors, auto mechanics, and city employees.

This possibility of our world changing so drastically scares people like the City Attorney and some other business owners. It creates in them intense fear, and they will do whatever they can to stop social change like that — they will even go so far as to fabricate absurd interpretations of the law and use the force of the government to make sure that the servants stay in their place.

The legal process is a unpredictable beast, and sometimes the reactionaries win in spite of being morally wrong. But in the end, I am confident that this social change will happen.

Most people are ready for this change, we want it, we want to make it happen. There’s a reason this restaurant is so busy and has grown so much in the last few years — people want to be a part of community that respects the farmer and the cook, the brewer and the bartender, the server and the diner.

A few holdouts will try to stop the growth of a community like this. They will use everything in their power, from rumor-mongering to creative jackbooted legal tactics, and eventually they will resort even to the threat of violence. But, in the end, they will be puny voices shouting against a joyful chorus.

I forgot to mention, we’ve got a lengua tacos dish tonite (grass-fed beef, of course) with a green salsa. I know that lengua tacos doesn’t sound all that high-end in San Diego, but I ate these for lunch today and they blew my mind. The grass-fed beef tongue meat is phenomenal.

In other news, Max is doing a poutine flatbread tonite.

Kettle-fried Kennebec potatoes, chicken gizzard gravy (from Curtis Womach’s pastured chickens), Spring Hill jersey cheddar, on a grilled house-made whole wheat flatbread.

Also on tonite:

Grilled pork chop (from Jim Neville’s Berkshire pork) with hand made mac & cheese and house pickled Berkshire pigs feet (from Becker Lane).

Good stuff. You can see the whole menu for the nite after 5pm here. Look today while you still don’t have to sign a waiver.

So, a journalist told me that the legal action against us by the City Attorney is a conscious effort to try to stop restaurants from using our table-service-charge business model. Apparently other restaurants are starting to pick it up as well — understandably, since it is a better, fairer system — and the City Attorney wants that to stop.

We are going to fight the City Attorney’s attempt to make it illegal to charge for table service.

This 18% charge is the price of table service. That’s the cost of the livelihoods of servers and dishwashers and other workers who bust their asses so that you can enjoy eating your meal at the restaurant’s table. At most places, you cover that cost with a tip, here, we charge for their time and effort.

Some people, apparently including the City Attorney, are desperate to live in a world where table service has no cost, its just free, and a “tip” is some little bit extra that your server is just delighted to receive. This is a ridiculous fantasy, and I think it stems from not wanting to think about what it means to have so many restaurants, so many servers, cooks and dishwashers, working at low wages, with no health insurance, so that we can have a culture with easy access the good life of restaurants and food and beer and wine.

People are often uncomfortable having low-paid servants, that’s just not how they see themselves. When something happens to make it clear that they do, these people get upset.

I want to change this into a more honest culture, where we acknowledge that table service costs money, we pay the servers as professionals, and we can look each other in the eye as equals. The City Attorney does not want that, instead he wants to perpetuate an underclass that is supposed to be overjoyed at the few shillings you leave at the end of the meal.

Perhaps the City Attorney and his friends eat out a lot and enjoy the culture of restaurants, and never want to think about the lives and livelihoods of the people who provide the work required for them to enjoy the restaurant experience. It is probably very painful for them to know that there’s a place in San Diego that says that people who provide restaurant service should be paid a set amount for their time and effort.

I find the flavor of contempt that the City Attorney has for the people who work to provide restaurant service, very depressing.

I remember a dozen years or so ago, an email circulated with supposed names of rejected children’s stories. My favorite was “You’re Different And That’s Bad.” Because that’s so often the lesson that our schools, corporations and institutions teach. In fact, they teach it so well that some people spend their whole life with a fear and loathing of anything that’s different.

At the Linkery, we’re different. Five years ago, we made it our mission to get real, non corporate food — ingredients from local farmers, the kind of food that’s widely available in the Bay Area — easily available in a North Park community restaurant. Most people didn’t think it could be done, or at least not by us, but we were willing to do things totally “out of the box” and, one way or another, things work out.

Of course, some people just hate those who do things differently than the way “everybody” does it. Even now, I get nasty emails from people who are offended that we list all the farms on our menu (”why don’t you just write a novel?”) or that we tell the details of our changing menu (”people who know food know it’s nothing special”). And certainly our decision to charge for table service instead of taking tips upsets a lot of people who, for whatever reason, are really emotionally invested in the tipping system.

Where you or I might think, hey, I don’t like the way this business operates, I’ll go somewhere else, these people think, I don’t like the way this business works, I hate them and am going to try to make them suffer.

Which brings me to a letter I received today from Jan Goldsmith, City Attorney. The City Attorney has decided that our charging for table service is a violation of the State law against advertising one price for an item, and then charging another. In other words, it’s not enough for you to decide whether or not you want to come to a place that charges a table service charge — they are saying the mere act of doing so is illegal.

The accusation is patently false, for a litany of reasons:

* The table service charge is clearly labeled as a charge for table service only, and does not apply to takeout orders. In other words, the food costs something, and table service costs something. The prices listed for the food are exactly what we charge for the food.

* We make it clear that if the guest doesn’t feel the service was worth what we charge for it, we will waive the charge. In fact, if we know that we’ve made a major service mistake, we waive the charge without being asked.

* We provide notice on both the menu (shown above) and on a 3 foot wide sign at the host stand as you enter.

* Almost every catering company charges for food and service separately, with service being at a fixed percentage rate. This has never been found illegal.

* The State of California acknowledges the legitimacy of restaurants charging service charges in its own tax code:

(B) When the menu, brochures, advertisements or other printed materials contain statements that notify customers that tips, gratuities, or service charges will or may be added, an amount automatically added by the retailer to the bill or invoice presented to and paid by the customer is a mandatory charge and subject to tax. These amounts are considered negotiated in advance as specified in subdivision (g)(2)(A). Examples of printed statements include:
“An 18% gratuity [or service charge] will be added to parties of 8 or more.”
“Suggested gratuity 15%,” itemized on the invoice or bill by the restaurant, hotel, caterer, boarding house, soda fountain, drive-in or similar establishment.
“A 15% voluntary gratuity will be added for parties of 8 or more.”
An amount will be considered “automatically added” when the retailer adds the tip to the bill without first conferring with the customer after service of the meal and receiving approval to add the tip or without providing the customer with the option to write in the tip. Nonetheless, any amount added by the retailer is presumed to be mandatory. This presumption may be overcome as discussed in subdivision (g)(2)(C) below.

* Many restaurants charge a fixed service charge for parties of a certain size, for table service. This has never been found illegal.

* Chez Panisse has been charging 17% for table service in California for decades, and the State of California has not had a problem with it. (And, a point courtesy Ben in the comments: Most/all San Francisco restaurants charge a 4% surcharge on each bill for health insurance, with the support of the city government. Clearly this is not in violation of state law.)

So clearly our table service charge is not a violation of the State code. However, the truth is, the City Attorney is spending our money, and we will have to hire expensive attorneys in order to defend ourselves. And that’s the point here — to punish us for being different. And to make it as difficult as possible for us to operate this business to serve the neighborhood.

I get that some people don’t like that we do things this way, and I think it’s great if those people don’t come in. But now they are trying to take away your option to patronize a business that charges a flat rate for table service, instead of taking tips. Clearly, that’s not about consumer protection, but about making sure that new ways of doing business don’t take root.

This is just like the laws that keep coming up to make it difficult to buy food from farmers — instead of buying food the usual way: industrial food from Sysco, Monsanto, Cargill, et al. Change threatens some people.

The bummer is, it really motivates us to stop trying to create the best business possible for North Park, and instead just try to make money like most other businesses do. Because as we are working to make things better here, this sort of thing is continue to happen: there’s always someone out there who see a business that is supported by its community, that is trying to make a difference, who just hates it.

If you’d like to contact the City Attorney’s office, and tell them to try harder to throw me in jail (or perhaps respectfully ask them to not pursue unjust action against honest local businesses) you can do so at Jan Goldsmith, 1200 3rd Ave, Suite 1620, San Diego CA 92101.

click to embiggen

All the feature ingredients for this house made ravioli come from Lynne and Bruce at Wingshadows Hacienda. It’s stuffed with quail and goat cheese, and topped with roasted baby carrots and spring onions. The red sauce is actually from hibiscus flowers and it gives it just the right tang.

On the menu right now.

We’ve got new Sunday hours — 11am to 11:30pm. We generally aren’t ready any earlier than that anyway.

Details here.

Please reserve in person or by phone 619 255 8778. We are no longer able to book parties by email.

So, let’s say you’ve been coming to the Linkery for a while and really appreciate the joy and deliciousness of ingredients grown the right way, by people who care. How can you eat them all the time, without coming to our place every nite (not that we would mind!), and particularly within a manageable budget?

This is a question I’m asked, in one variation or another, quite often. Here are some of my answers.

* I’ve found that local farmers markets can provide almost all our personal groceries. Near me, Little Italy and Hillcrest have a lot of great farmers whose food I love, and City Heights is a place I want to check out as well. At Little Italy, we’re regulars for Schaner Farms’ eggs, and Hillcrest is the only place to buy Curtis Womach’s amazing chickens. Suzie’s Farm and Smit Orchards are at both Hillcrest and Little Italy. Spring Hill Farm is also at many local farmers markets, and I love their cheese.

* Because the farmers markets are so good, most of the folks I know who eat like we do don’t really go to grocery stores very often. But if a grocery store is required, check out OB People’s Co-op, which offers produce from a lot of local farms.

* Joining a CSA (”Community Supported Agriculture”) is a great way to always have fresh produce handy even if you didn’t make it to a farmers market that week. I can personally recommend the goods from La Milpa Organica and from Suzie’s Farm, but I know people who have Be Wise Ranch and are really happy as well. There are many more CSAs than those three, as well.

* Great local seafood is available at Catalina Offshore Products, who are mainly a receiver that sells to seafood distributors and high-end restaurants across the country, but also will sell to walk-in customers. It’s worth checking out.

* Wonderfully, there are now multiple San Diego restaurants that use local and independently grown food (and there are even more that advertise that they do).
Personally, my favorite restaurant in San Diego isn’t a restaurant at all, it’s a stand at the Farmers Market. This is Roots Kind Food and you can find them at Little Italy and at Hillcrest. To me, it’s the pinnacle of what a restaurant should be — they buy all their ingredients from local farmers, and prepare emotional, delicious food that reflects its place and people. I’m kind of an addict for them, really.

* Assenti’s hand makes fresh pasta of numerous kinds. Once you make a habit of eating hand made fresh pasta, you’ll wonder how anyone eats noodles out of a box. We usually keep a couple pounds of their pasta on hand at home.

* Edible San Diego is probably the best written resource for what’s around, and as an added bones is an excellent magazine.

* And, as always, Laja.

True, it would be great if there was a bigger culture in San Diego for this sort of food. But the good news is, what we do have is world-class and accessible. Also, it doesn’t cost all that much more than eating commodity food, as long as you don’t eat much meat and don’t spend money on processed food (both of which are pretty agreeable lifestyles anyway).

We’ve got six casks on handle tonight as our anniversary week rolls on.

* Stone Pale Ale brewed with coriander

* Stone Levitation Ale brewed especially for us with 5 hop varieties

* Firestone Walker’s Unfiltered Double Barrel Ale 100% fermented in oak

* Green Flash’s brand new Hop Porter released here last night as part of our anniversary celebration

* Green Flash’s Imperial IPA

* Magnolia Pub and Brewery’s Oysterhead Stout straight outta San Francisco, “dry shelled” with oyster shells

The last one is being tapped as I type this and, as mentioned in Jay’s previous post, is paired with a couple of excellent oyster dishes.

We had a great time last nite with you, Chuck Silva and Green Flash’s Hop Porter debut (which, by the way, is something else on cask).

l-r: Hop Porter, Hop Porter, Chuck Silva

Anyway, we really enjoy doing what we do. Thank you for doing it with us. Tonite we roll on with grass-fed beef short ribs, oysters, and Magnolia oyster stout (made with oyster shells!) on cask.

Let’s take a look at how much things have changed since January 12, 2005, the day this keg of Old Guardian Barleywine was filled.

Lee Chase, of BLAH fame, was still dialing in his brewing expertise at Stone Brewing. That same Stone Brewing was still making aggressively hopped beers at their old San Marcos location, which now is home to Port Brewing/Lost Abbey.

Here at The Linkery we were just putting the finishing touches on our original location down the street (now home to Sea Rocket Bistro), a little over a month away from our grand opening.

And on a personal note, I was traveling across these United States with my brother and all my worldly belongings packed into my car, four days away from arriving at my new home city, with no job and no place to live. Fortunately for me, I found a guy looking to open what was then “a fresh sausage kitchen and grill” and I also found a great neighborhood in which to live — North Park.

So come on by tonight for a glass of 2005 Old Guardian, some grass-fed beef tri-tip (Santa Maria-style), and help us celebrate 5 years of doing what we do.

30th on 30th is growing, as expected. This month I think there’s about twice as many participants as last month.

I don’t know all the specials yet, but I posted what I do know over on the 30th Street Blog.

It’s on Sunday, the 28th, this month. We asked to add two days to February but the monks said no. Maybe next year we’ll have that kind of juice.

Thursday is our actual 5th birthday, and we’re celebrating our “wood” anniversary with Santa Maria BBQ: grass-fed tri-tip and house made linquica cooked over local red oak, pinquito beans from Righetti Ranch, grilled bread and pico de gallo, and ranch salad of local greens.

And special beer and wine:

* The debut (on cask and draft) of Green Flash’s new porter, which will be initially dubbed “Hop Porter”, after my dad who turns 70 years old on Thursday! Green Flash brewmaster Chuck Silva will be on hand for initial pourings and drinkings of the beer.

* Stone 2005 Old Guardian barleywine. I hear this is showing amazing right now.

* Our new “The Fifth” white wine

* Cask-conditioned Levitation with 5 hops (see picture)

* Alesmith Decadence 2009 (a Dunkel Weizenbock)

* Craftsman Honesty Ale, made with cherries

Special Anniversary Levitation hops documentation

Festivities start at 5:30 or so. Thanks for making this project successful for 5 years, it means a lot to us all.

I want to introduce “The Fifth”.

I had the horrible job of sitting down, tasting barrel samples and blending a wine to celebrate our 5th anniversary.

Yes, I do it for you people. Working with The Wine Garage, I thought that 5 grapes for our 5th would be fun, and after many hours and hand cramps from tasting notes, this is what I decided on.

The Fifth: 50% 2008 Sauvignon Blanc, 20% 2008 Albarino, 15% 2009 Verdehlo, 10% 2009 Viogner, 5% 2009 Muscat.

A medium bodied white, with hints of honeysuckle and melon on the nose, Nice upfront fruit with hints of mineral on the pallet. A fruity, but dry white that is great on its own and even better with our food. This wine is unfined and unfiltered, Which I love, leaves all the body and soul of the grapes in the glass.

Bobby

We’re kicking off our 5th Anniversary “Wood Week” weekend on Wednesday (naturally), with a Barrel Aged Beer nite. Steph has put together quite a lineup:

On draft:
* Green Flash Superfreak Belgian-style hoppy ale with wild fermentation
* Alesmith Barrel Aged Speedway Stout 2008
* Lost Abbey Red Poppy 2009 Flemish Red style with cherries aged on French oak
* Lost Abbey Serpent Stout fermented in oak
* Craftsman Honesty Ale made with cherries
* Rodenbach Grand Cru

On cask:
* Firestone Walked Unfiltered Double Barrel Ale
* A few unwooded beers

By the glass:
* Russian River Temptation
* Firestone Walker 12
* Firestone Walker 13

By the teeny little bottle:
* Russian River Supplication

These are among my personal favorite barrel aged beers, specifically because the flavors of the barrel enhance the beers rather than overwhelm them. And because they’re great beers.

Of course, great beer is meant to be enjoyed as part of a great meal, and we’ll have our full dinner menu as well. And wine, and so on.

UPDATE: It was gone by 6pm. Crazy phenomenon, this beer.

2010’s edition of Plinymania is off and running.

We’ll be tapping a keg of Pliny the Younger, this coveted triple IPA from Russian River, at 5:30pm on Monday. From a mess to the masses, for sure.

To the amazement of many far and wide, our little cookshack turns five freaking years old this month. I can’t believe it either.

But it’s true. We first served food for money on 4 February 2005, and our Grand Opening was 25 February 2005. (We always officially celebrate our anniversary as the 25th, because that was the official opening, and also because it’s also my Dad’s birthday. Which is fun.)

Five year is the “wood” anniversary, and that seemed right up our alley, no? Here’s what we have in store for our anniversary week:

Wednesday 24 February: Barrel Aged Beer Nite.
Special on draft
* Green Flash Superfreak
* Alesmith Boubon Barrel Aged Speedway Stout

Special on cask
* Green Flash barrel aged stout
* Firestone Walker Double Barrel Ale 100% oaked
* Rock Bottom barrel aged barleywine

And more beers by the glass including Russian River Temptation, Firestone Walker 12, Firestone Walker 13, and (we think) Russian River Supplication

Thursday 25 February: Anniversary Beers and Santa Maria Barbecue.

Cask Beer specialties made just for the Linkery 5th birthday (and Hop Porter’s 70th birthday):
* Green Flash “Hop Porter” world debut
* Stone Levitation special edition with 5 Hops

Special on Draft
* Stone 2005 Old Guardian

Smokehouse Birthday
Santa Maria BBQ over local red oak, featuring grassfed beef

And cask beer pairings, German Chocolate cake, and more.

Friday & Saturday 26-27 February:
* Smoked oysters paired with Magnolia oyster stout on cask
* Steakhouse weekend with local grassfed steak
* More details being arranged

Sunday 28 February: Smokehouse Sunday and 30th on 30th, short-month edition
* small plate of smoked meats for $2
* half-pour cask beers $2
* half pour Linkery cask wine $2
* spit-roasted whole pig!

Awesomely, or perhaps overwhelmingly, our big wine dinner event with the Paso Wine Alliance, which I think is a pretty big deal, is the day before this all starts — the wine dinner is on Tuesday the 23rd of February. You might just want to get an apartment nearby for the month.

Here’s the pairings for the Paso Wine Alliance night on Tuesday. With a little more detail than you might have been able to glean from the composition book.

These pairings feature pastured lamb, acorn-finished Duroc pork and artisan cheese from Christine Maguire, and grassfed beef from Spanish Oak Ranches, all from Central Coast farms surrounding the Paso Robles AVA. Additionally (”But wait, there’s more!”) all the winemakers (or owners/GMs) will be in house, pouring their wines and available to talk about the wines, their wineries, and Paso. Our full menu will be available, as well.

Each pairing will be $9 for the plate of food and a 2 oz. pour of the wine. You can get whichever ones you want, or enjoy them all in order. I’ve been tasting these wines as the samples arrive all week, and they are superb.

Here are the wines and dishes:

D’Anbino Vineyards & Cellars, Carmine Rubino, Owner
2007 Sauvignon Blanc
paired with
Wild Mexican scallops, house cured spicy capicola, carmelized fennel, lardo butter

J. Dusi Wines, Janell Dusi, Winemaker / Owner
2008 J.Dusi Zinfandel
paired with
Nettle and cardoon ravioli, beurre rouge, La Ponza Gold

Tablas Creek Vineyards, Jason Haas, General Manager
2008 Cotes de Tablas (Grenache, Syrah, Counoise, Mourvedre)
paired with
Lamb Merguez, whole grain red wine mustard, mashed potatoes, lamb prosciutto

Zenaida Cellars, Eric Ogorsolka, Winemaker / Owner
2007 Zephyr (Syrah, Zinfandel, Viognier)
paired with
Braised lamb, blood orange mustardo

Silver Horse Winery, Stephen Kroener, Winemaker / Owner
2007 Sage (Malbec, Petit Verdot , Cabernet Sauvignon)
paired with
Aged tri-tip, red beet, Pozo Tomme gratin

It’s first-come first-served seating, no reservations required, come on in. The winemakers will start arriving around 6 and we’ll be serving late.

A few of us just visited Mexico City to celebrate and brainstorm with our friends and collaborators there. And to eat at Merotoro a few times, of course.

And to develop an attachment to a pulqueria with a NSFW logo.

We’re grateful to be living within a short, inexpensive flight of a true world city. And even more grateful to have such wonderful and talented friends there.