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IN THIS ISSUE

TAKING IT SLOW IN THE LOW COUNTRY:
MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA

By John Mariani

NEW YORK CORNER
Two NY Steakhouses, Two Different Styles
By John Mariani


NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
Spanish Wines Continue to Surprise
By Mort Hochstein



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TAKING IT SLOW IN THE LOW COUNTRY: MYRTLE BEACH, SC

By John Mariani

 

         The first thing that needs to be said about Myrtle Beach is that it is a family destination.   True, a lot of people retire there, own second homes, and join one of the dozens of golf clubs, for there are about 115 courses, private and public, in the area, including the historic Pine Lake (left),  You could go off by yourself and spend idle days fishing, which down there means saltwater fishing on the Intracoastal Waterway, which runs parallel to the coast from Little River to Waccamaw River.
         But anyone who drives down Route 17 through Myrtle Beach--whose length takes in Surfside Beach, Loris, Aynor, Pawleys Island, Murrells Inlet and a great deal more--will be in no doubt that in season the place is overrun with families packed into SUVs and mobile homes; on every block of every boulevard you’ll find waffle and pancake shops, fast food chains, seafood houses, and amazing number of places with “Cap’n” in the name. The streets are lined with hundreds of t-shirt and bathing suit shops, always having a sale; one vast chain, Eagles, has nearly 30 stores in the area, some within blocks of one another.
         When I visited a month or so ago, the weather had not yet cooperated with the plans of many families ready for sun and surf, but by now the temperatures are in the eighties and the humidity has set in, so the beaches and hotel pools are filling up with people packing high SPF sunscreen lotions.
         A great deal of the activity in the area is along the new (since 2010) $6.5 million, 1.2-mile Oceanfront Boardwalk that extends between the  14th Avenue and 2nd Avenue piers in Myrtle Beach.   While I’ve always loved the idea of boardwalks, I’m almost always disappointed to see so much trashy activity on them.  There is a high-altitude Sky Wheel (below) in Myrtle Beach, and it’s pleasant to stroll along the beach in the morning or at twilight.  But all along the main drag are little more than raucous bars, ice cream stores, pizza stands, and endless burger joints next to the inevitable t-shirt shops and places where you can have your photo taken dressed as a Confederate soldier.  Sadly, it’s pretty tacky, but it’s easy enough to escape.
         But not before dropping into a deliberately tawdry bar named The Bowery, whose no-frills, beer-and-shots fame, since 1944, as a honky-tonk is evident in every corner of the place and which rests on the considerable laurels of having once had the country group Alabama as its house band in the 1970s. You could spend hours here just going through the old photos that line the wall, which includes a legion of show biz folk and a photo of a waiter named Scuba Osborne who holds one of the odder distinctions in the Guinness Book of World Records for carrying 35 mugs of beer in his two hands.
    One attraction I found awesome--a word I try hard not to use too frequently--is the NASCAR Racing Experience (below), not for the faint of heart, which I found out I was.  But, for anyone wanting a once-in-a-lifetime thrill ride, inside a true NASCAR machine (with a driver) that will get up above 100 mph (the cars will do 180 without breaking a sweat) and tear around three laps of the track for 5 minutes, this is bliss, at $129.  Even more heavenly for those so inclined is the opportunity to drive the monster yourself, after three hours of training at the track under cool, strict supervision.  Prices for that range from about $400 up to $3,034 for a day and a half of racing.  Five minutes was more than enough, holding on tight while the driver came within inches of the outer wall.  All I could imagine was doing this on a track with 50 other guys trying to wedge their way through the pack.  Yes, awesome.
    I won’t say much about accommodations--they run the full gamut of all the chain hotels and smaller local motels.  I stayed at the Embassy Suites, a chain that offers no surprises for anyone who’s ever stayed in any one of them.  But this one had a very good restaurant indeed, named Vintage Twelve, where Chef Caitlin Brady is balancing family dining requests with original Low Country ideas that result in fine dishes like her Charleston crab soup with Sherry ($7), Carolina Mountain trout with smoked bacon, sweet potato salad and arugula ($26), and superb Creole shrimp with a grilled baguette ($22) to dip into the spicy sauce they swam in that morning. In fact, the first bite of those local shrimp made me swoon.
         The fact is, 99.9 percent of all the shrimp you will ever eat in this country are frozen and a good deal of that is coming from the murky waters of shrimp farms in Southeast Asia.  Which is a damn shame because the fresh shrimp that comes from America’s Southern coastal waterways is the sweetest, most delicious shrimp in the world.   
        So, while in Myrtle Beach, where most restaurants specialize in seafood, I gorged for three days on fresh shrimp, specifically the species known by the names brown, pink and white, although in the South they always call it sweet shrimp.  At the (oddly named) Aspen Grille I demolished a platter of shrimp and grits ($17 or $23)--a staple of Southern cookery usually made with boxed, tasteless instant Quaker Oats grits, but now, as here, increasingly made with the nonpareil stone-ground grits from companies like Old School, Bob’s Red Mill, and Anson Mills, whose grits’ texture and taste are as unforgettable as the sweet shrimp themselves.  Aspen Grille is one of the few sophisticated, but by no means haughty, restaurants in the region, and I was delighted by Chef Curry Martin’s jumbo lump crab remoulade ($11), pan-seared flounder with shrimp ($27), and German chocolate brownie sundae ($8).
        The unqualified supremacy of Southern coastal shrimp can easily be experienced by driving down the road known as 'U.S. Route 17 Business' along the marshy shore of Murrells Inlet, which is lined with huge seafood eateries with names like Wicked Tuna and Drunken Jack’s, Hot Fish Club, K-Raye’s, and Dead Dog Saloon. A finer dining restaurant here is Bliss, where Chef Ernest Bledsoe makes another Southern specialty, fried green tomatoes with truffled goat’s cheese and shrimp ($12); he stuffs crab with shrimp and a whole grain mustard emulsion ($22); his shrimp and grits ($21) are enhanced with smoked cheddar, bell peppers, onions, and andouille sausage gravy; and he tosses them with angel’s hair pasta, leeks, grape tomatoes, spinach and lemon-garlic. I asked the waitress, who is also the pastry chef,  “Does anybody around here serve frozen shrimp?”  She looked stunned, paused a second, shook her head and said, “Hmm, nobody around here would dare.”   
    As I sat in a booth at the unexpectedly glitzy Wicked Tuna (right), opened just last year on Murrells Inlet, plucking up one after another of hot popcorn shrimp with a mayo dipping sauce ($12), I pitied all those New Yorkers--of which I’m one--who gobble up 1.5 million pounds of shrimp every week, almost all of it frozen, eaten with cocktail sauce or deep-fried, chewy and tasteless, prized more for their jumbo size than their flavor.  They really haven't a clue what they’re missing.

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By John Mariani

      More than once I’ve noted that steakhouse menus around the USA don't differ by as much as the cut of fried potatoes.  All, obviously, serve hefty steaks and chops and the quality of the meat everywhere has gotten better, although the more links a steakhouse chain adds diminishes that quality significantly.
         Which is why I favor singular, individual steakhouses whose personality is evident in the way they treat people and whose quality is more easily controlled when there’s only one larder to stock and one kitchen to cook it.  Crowds of regulars don’t hurt either.
         For those reasons I am willing to pronounce that, overall--quality of food, hospitality, wine and cocktail service, and ambiance--Porter House, four flights up in the vast Time-Warner Center in New York (which also houses Per Se, A Voce, Masa, Bouchon, and Landmarc) is celebrating its eighth year in business with a dining room packed for lunch and dinner daily.  There are reasons for that.
         Most obvious is its location, with a grand panorama on Central Park, Columbus Circle and the long lighted stretch of Central Park South all the way to Fifth Avenue (below).  Few restaurants in the world can match that view, and the interior of Porter House is as broad, deep and handsome, with tables well separated, thick tablecloths, and a perfect lighting provided by the sun-, twi- and night-light of New York.
     Chef-and-managing partner Michael Lomonaco, manager Tim Brown and a fast-moving staff keep Porter House hopping without the slightest lag in service, and sommelier Brad Nugent is always on hand to make the choice of wine perfect for your taste, your dinner choices, and your budget.
    Porter House’s menu doesn’t differ much from those of the city’s highly competitive steakhouses--the cuts of meat are carefully selected, the seafood plateau lavish, appetizers like marrow bones impressive for their size and succulence, and the side dishes well honed.  Mistakes are rare at Porter House after nearly a decade in business, and I have gotten very few reports of poor food or service over the years.
    Some of my favorite dishes consistently include the clams Casino, the pan-seared sea scallops with capers and brown butter, and a truly jumbo lump crabcake, just lightly bound and served with a tangy horseradish cream. I've often wondered why Porter House doesn't serve those huge lobsters pretty much standard at other steakhouses. Aside from the signature porterhouse steak (for two or more), the juicy veal chop and gargantuan Colorado lamb t-bone chops are as fine as any anywhere.  Someday maybe I’ll try the burger.
    Desserts are no afterthoughts here, going beyond the usual cheesecake and including a childlike fantasy of a chocolate sundae.
    Even if Porter House didn’t serve steaks at all, its rich beauty and fabulous location make it worth a visit.  Add in those steaks, and it would be hard to find better. 

Porter House New York is open daily for lunch and dinner, with dinner appetizers $14-$22, and entrees $29-$5.

 

    The new Angus Club Steakhouse on the East Side of Manhattan just opened in January, so it cannot be expected to have the panache of Porter House, nor does it have the view, with half of it underground.  But owners Margent Maslinka (also wine director), Chef Edward Avduli, Aldin Gacevic and Zef Makaj, all veterans of well-established Benjamin's Steakhouse on Park Avenue, are trying to prove they may be one of the friendliest, most accommodating steakhouses around.  Their welcome is warm, their private dining rooms many and individually designed for various size parties and atmospheres, and the service staff aims to please.
         A lot of thought and money has gone into this warren of rooms, the most pleasant the upstairs bar, which overlooks the street. There are fine touches everywhere--soft brown leather chairs, antique mirrors, cork-wrapped columns, a grand staircase, snakeskin walls, and golden lighting.  The main 76-seat dining room (below), plus private spaces, however, is down that staircase, and, frankly, I didn’t find the reclaimed barn wood walls particularly cheery.  It’s fairly dark down there, and, since business has not yet caught on very strongly for the amount of space Angus Club occupies, it can be pretty lonely  on a slow night, although I hear business has been growing steadily over the last month.
    You won’t find any surprises on the menu, but the beef is dry-aged on site for up to 35 days and the lobsters weigh in at three pounds. Otherwise, potions are generous for the appetizers and the prices are a click below Angus Club’s competitors’, with a bone-in, 22-ounce sirloin at $46 and a porterhouse for two at $98.  The lobster goes for $95.    
    Start off here with the yellowfin tuna tartare or the thick slab of Canadian bacon, then a great slab of impeccably cooked meat and a side of steak fries and creamed spinach.  You’ll go home full, you’ll go home happy.
    If Angus Club succeeds in a very busy steakhouse neighborhood--Palm, Spark’s, Smith & Wollensky, the new Davio’s, among others, are within a t-bone’s toss--it will be on the good will that the owners are trying so hard and so honestly to build.  That counts. 

Angus Club Steakhouse is at 135 East 55th Street; 212-588-1585; ; Open for lunch Mon.-Fri., dinner Mon.-Sat. ; Dinner entrees  $33- $49.

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NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR 

 

Spanish Wines Continue to Surprise

 

By Mort Hochstein

 

       Spain continues to surprise us.  Where once we knew few of its wines other  than Rioja, Sherry and Cava, the Spanish version of Champagne, we now enjoy robust red Priorat, lively white Albariño and a flood of offerings from booming regions such as Ribera Del Duero, Navarra, Toro, and Rueda.   Wines from those  once unfamiliar vineyards became major players in the U.S. market only in the past two or  three decades.
   Cariñena (left) is one of those regions whose wines are just beginning to show on store shelves and wine lists in metropolitan regions. It has been so quiescent, despite its six centuries of viticulture, that it barely rates a line or two in wine books.  Yet, a recent exploration of the the vinos de Cariñena in New York City turned up a treasure trove of discoveries,  surprisingly good wines at modest prices.   Most of the wines at a tasting I attended were listed in the low or mid-teens, with only a few topping out at about $20.
     Though relatively a newcomer to American distribution, the region has been producing wines since Roman times. It is rough country where vineyards amble down from high mountains to vast and foreboding rocky plains. The area resembles its neighboring region, Catalonia, but because it is further inland, it feels little Mediterranean influence. Temperatures fluctuate widely through the seasons and between night and day.  A cold northeast wind, the Cierzo, buffets the area, moderating summer heat and humidity. Those daily variations between daylight and dark help produce intense, concentrated wines.
    Garnacha, known more commonly as  Grenache,  predominant in the region,   but figures only slightly in the varietal mix.   Carignan, known locally as Mazuelo, is a grape that takes is name from the region, figures only slightly in the varietal mix. Garnacha, known more commonly as  Grenache, is predominant, and is often blended with Tempranillo and Mazuelo in red and rose wine.  The basic white grape is Viura.  As in many wine regions today, growers have introduced  better known European varietals, such as Chardonnay, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon.  While the newer reds seldom stand alone, they are frequently blended with the indigenous  grapes.

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