Slow Food

In search of a good stew

Comments (0) By Nancy Rommelmann Wednesday, Feb 7 2001

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Primed for absolute flavor, I find it and then some at Guelaguetza, the Oaxacan restaurant on Eighth Street famed for its moles (from the Nahuatl word molli, meaning “concoction”), those complex sauces that take days if not weeks to cook. A bright-ocher room with posters of Oaxaca, from where many of the moles’ ingredients come, Guelaguetza has the peaceful feel of a family-run place. The first mole, coloradito, comes drizzled atop a dish of tortilla chips. This red mole tastes of everything: the tang of raisins, the fire of chiles, the oily richness of nuts, the spike of coffee, the pucker of cocoa. I would be happy to eat nothing but this, by the spoonful, though I am thrilled with an entrée of amarillo de pollo o res, a deep dish holding many cups of mellow though sneakily hot yellow amarillo mole, sending up wafts of cumin- and clove-scented steam and submerging stewed chicken, a whole potato and chunks of chayote squash. The mole is very rich; I can barely make it through the entire bowl, and yet find room to share my boyfriend’s chicken with mole negro, which is perhaps the most intense food I’ve ever eaten. Black as an oil slick, rich as bittersweet chocolate, with a heavy kick of chile, the flavor is bottomless, and so forceful that my sweetheart experiences the palpitations and sweating associated with sugar shock midway through our meal. This does not deter me from buying more of the intoxicating mole, which is sold in takeout bags by the door.

A less dramatic chicken experience is had at The Kitchen, Silver Lake’s premier place to eat when you want home cooking but don’t want to cook. I’ve hauled the family to this friendly, low-key restaurant many times for the exquisite meat loaf, with its hillock of garlic mashed potatoes and best-bar-none brown gravy, and the risotto and carrots, The Kitchen’s riff on macaroni and cheese, cooked-just-right risotto and chunks of sautéed carrot, swirled with buttery goat cheese. The Kitchen’s most soothing dish may be one of its simplest, the chicken and dumplings. A huge bowl bobbing with wedges of white meat, chunks of still-crisp carrot and celery, and fluffy dumplings, it is more stew than soup — but it’s the depth of the pearlescent broth, tasting of a simmer for umpteen hours, that warms the heart and tummy. This is the dish to eat when you feel a cold coming on.

Location Info

Map

Ciudad

445 S. Figueroa St.
Los Angeles, CA 90071

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Downtown

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Guelaguetza Restaurant

3337 W. 8th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90005-2434

Category: Restaurant > Mexican

Region: Mid-Wilshire/ Hancock Park

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Then again, there are those flus that simply need to be blasted from the depths, which is what I find at Palm Thai, a big, almost always busy room with a sound stage at one end, where, on various nights, you can hear a set by Hollywood’s most famous Thai Elvis, Kavee Tongpreecha, a Thai rock band, or the sort of balladeers that sing “American Pie” so faithfully, you’d swear Don McLean was making a comeback. Although you can get tame favorites such as pad Thai, pad see eiw and panang curries — and they will be superior to those served at almost any of the several dozen Thai restaurants on this stretch of Hollywood Boulevard called Thai Town — do not be intimidated by the menu’s “Wild Things” offerings, such as frogs with crispy mint leaves (topped with little licks of frog-skin cracklings) or spicy barbecued beef, thick slices, lean on the inside, charred on the outside, to be swiped through a silken chile purée that will have you scrambling for your Singha. My favorite is the wild boar with red curry, a deep dish of thick, burnt-amber, coconut-milk-based broth, made screeching hot with green chiles, galangal, and branches of green peppercorns that appear positively primordial. Lime leaves and Thai basil impart a citrus touch, and the boar itself is fantastic: Cut into domino-size pieces, with a rim of wavy fat along one side, it’s chewy and tender at once, extremely rich and absolutely addictive. Though my eye sockets are sweating, I do not stop eating until I have swabbed up every bit of sauce. Unusual, and highly recommended, as it is not likely a stew many of us will attempt at home.

Home is usually the first place one thinks of when one thinks of stew, and perhaps no restaurant feels as much like actually being in someone’s home as Polka, on Verdugo Road, whose window tells in big letters what we’ll be eating: NUTRITIOUS DELICIOUS POLISH DISHES. I have come to Polka on the recommendation of a 10-year-old boy, who told me it is his favorite restaurant, and I can see why. The crazy quilt of a room is decorated with the sort of pink-elephant and puffy-fish mobiles made to dangle over a baby’s crib, and there are a thousand knickknacks, and a Polish waiter wearing suspenders who, even before we’ve plunked into a booth, delivers big mugs of mild cabbage soup, lightly creamy, yellow as a dandelion. I order the beef gulasz, with potato dumplings called kopytka. What arrives is enough to feed a family of four: big, chunky pieces of stew beef in a bland but good gravy, surrounded by mountains of carrots, peas, corn and a slaw of pickled beets. This is the sort of massive one-plate meal you find in diners from Portland to Portland, except for the delightfully chewy kopytka, a sort of finger-length gnocchi sluiced in butter. They are delicious, as are the large, floppy sauerkraut and stewed-mushroom pierogi, their interiors tangy and peppery, the noodle wrappers so delicate they fall apart on the way to my mouth.