 Snapper Up
Chef Rich will for a limited time reprise at Sage Eastbluff the dish he conceived for last month’s Santa Monica Farmers’ Market 25th Anniversary Dinner. Clearly finding liberty within artistic constraints, and—perhaps uniquely among the brusque big leaguers—inspired by and foregrounding the flavors of the Weiser Family Farms produce provided by his collaborator Alex Weiser, Rich created a new dish around the fresh Hawaiian Snapper from Honolulu Fish Co. Adept without being fussy, the new preparation places the fish—mild, white, tender, made even more tender with a coconut milk marinade, and wrapped crisply with golden panko breadcrumbs—over a Bloomsdale spinach sauté (an invitingly mild and untannic heirloom variety you can eat mounds of), with sprightly roasted spring onion, a bass note of green garlic, and creamy Pee Wee potatoes, poached in seasoned olive oil to pillowy softness. The zing comes from the pickled baby broccoli on top, and the sauce, made from the juice of Alex’s beet-colored Cosmic Red carrots, spiced with cayenne, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, kaffir lime leaf, and a rare curry powder imported by Tio at Le Sanctuaire. One cannot say more. Come in and try it. It is a slow-food manifesto of convincing wordlessness. |
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Spring Line
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 Spring Salad
Sage on the Coast
Baby market lettuces, strawberries, persian cucumbers, goat cheese, pistachios, balsamic vinaigrette.
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 Citrus and Avocado Salad
Both Locations
Pixie tangerines, blood oranges, oro blanco and sweet red grapefruit, red butter lettuce, sesame vinaigrette.
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 Grilled Asparagus Salad
Both Locations
Goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes, arugula, watercress, walnuts, balsamic vinaigrette, roast pepper coulis.
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 Spring Fling
It may be the havoc among the flowers, but the pastry department has been stirred to atypical voluptuousness. Mark’s new Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake at Eastbluff, drizzled with chocolate and caramel sauces and strewn with caramelized bananas, disappears in seconds, leaving guests abashed and disavowing. While at the Coast, a Coconut Mousse Bombe has dropped from the blue, with diced honey-roasted pineapple under a dark chocolate dome, served with pineapple-sage coulis and (wait for it) caramel-dipped macadamia nuts! Even strawberries, whose magical hour between forbidding firmness and baroque deliquescence is preserved in Mark’s wholesomely guilt-deflecting Strawberry Rhubarb Tart, are lavished with an unprepossessing white scoop of what turns out to be a devastating mascarpone sherbet. Robert cooks the same duo to liquid at the Coast for chilled Strawberry Rhubarb Soup, topped with a quenelle of sweet cream and served diptych-ly alongside a fresh strawberry-buttermilk biscuit shortcake. |
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Coasting
One heard there was a bar menu at Sage on the Coast. Then one heard there was a happy hour. Then that the bar menu was half price during happy hour, a commodious 4-7pm, Monday through Thursday. One was so there. And it was all true. Beers were half price. A select glass of red or white wine—half price. Plus any appetizer from the dinner menu, and any martini from a long list with coquettish names and beguiling hues. The “Sunset” seemed apropos: pineapple, cranberry and orange juice, a little Grey Goose L’orange, a teensy splash of Malibu Rum, so sweet and amiable it made a jewelled slice of blood orange garnish seem troublingly recondite. And to eat? So many of the Sage favorites were half price—the Tortilla Soup, the Spicy Ahi Spring Rolls, the Blue Crab Cakes, the Grilled Asian Barbeque Beef Short Ribs. What about the Tuna Tartare with Taro Chips? The Chicken Panini? The staff pick was a giddily spicy Ahi Burger clad in ginger, balsamic grilled red onions, and basil aioli on a soft brown egg batter bun.
Next came the Duck Tacos with guajillo sauce, black beans, corn relish, and fennel-apple slaw—not, strictly speaking, on the half price menu (by then one was feeling unbounded), but a great match with the Spanish Tempranillo they were pouring. Beyond the patio, past the girls in their print dresses and tables piled with gift bags, one could see the citrus trees like rollicking green flames in the last bright rays of afternoon. Through the iridescent curtains, the room took on the aqueous light of the Blue Agave Martini (Patron Silver, Blue Curaçao, plus something else one can’t remember) – all green flashes and turquoise orbs. One saw then, truly saw that one was in the realm of the undines. There were more items one could order, one possibly should order—Antipasto Plate? Parmesan Herb French Fries?—but the color of one’s companions’ eyes had become urgently engrossing. And just then someone very nice conjured something alluringly pink, a Lavender Passion it was called: very tasty, but not on the menu. You have to ask the nice chappie. It seemed to be a martini of X-Rated Fusion Vodka and Lavender Dry Soda, and it tasted happy in a heartbreaking way, and fruity, like the fruit of headlong friendships and misspent youth. What, one is leaving? Already? Yes, next week, absolutely. You have my number, right?
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 Amarone
David the wine pasha has bagged a new Italian for the Sage on the Coast wine list: the Serego Alighieri Vaio Amaron Amarone 2000. Yes, that Alighieri. Dante’s son bought the vigna in the small valley of the Amaron in 1353, and Masi has vinified the grapes from it for decades. Those grapes, Corvina, Molinara, and Rondinella, native to the hills of the Veneto, are usually blended to make the regional light red called Valpolicella. But through a process of drying called appassimento, supposedly invented by frustrated Romans trying to wrest something great from a climate that was neither hot nor dry enough, the same grapes yield Amarone, a unique, dry, full-bodied red wine appealing to fans of California Cabernets. At harvest, the grapes are hung over racks or flopped on straw mats in airy lofts for months, withering slowly. A small percentage of the Corvina will attract the ‘noble rot’—botrytis cinerea—that will concentrate the glycerol and give an illusion of sweetness to the finished wine. The be-raisined fruit is finally pressed and fermentation begun. It’s a bit much; Masi has no doubt climate-controlled the process. Ageing begins in cherry wood casks, then in the bottle, and can last for decades. The name Amarone comes from the word amaro, for bitter. There is a tartness that balances all that concentrated sugar. Velvety and smooth, with the big mouthfeel Napa fans expect (alcohol can be over 14%), the Amarone gains more depth and complexity with each year of ageing. Pair it with the Red Wine Braised Short Ribs, the Hangar Steak, or a plate of strong cheeses. Salute! |
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Let's all meet back at the house!
Bring your grad, family and friends over to a Sage party at your house.
Sage ideas for any sized gathering.
Call 949-683-3184
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Save the Date!
June 19th at Sage on the Coast for The Rombauer Vineyard Wine Dinner.
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