2009 Cuvee Natalie (sauvignon blanc blend)
2009 Cuvee Nicolas (sauvignon blanc/semillon)
2007 Bouchet (bordeaux-style blend)
2008 Colson Canyon Syrah

Café Pierre’s Chef Remi Lauvand will also prepare some appetizers to go along with the wine. (Read about Lauvand’s food in a previous post.) All this for the price of $20. Reservations are recommended but not required.

And if you can’t make it to this event, the winemaker socials take place the first Thursday of each month, with La Fenetre Wines on July 1.

Café Pierre
317 Manhattan Beach Blvd.
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
June 3, 2010, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

We were served a bunch of potted meats to start. This is when I tried head cheese, trotters, rillete and beef tartare for the first time, and none were as scary as I thought they would be. I actually surprised myself by really liking the hand-cut beef tartare, which came with judion beans on the side. I also had escargot and bone marrow as starters, too, both for the first time as well. While neither were as that scary, I didn’t enjoy them as much as the beef tartare, which had a fresh taste to it, contrary to what I had imagined raw beef tasting like.

I think this is head cheese, but it could have been trotters or rillete

Beef tartare

The one appetizer that nearly the whole table went ga-ga for was the foie gras parfait with what seemed like whipped foie topped with quince confit. It was served with spiced bread, which I found to be too sweet a pairing with the quince; I opted to use some of the other more savory breads at our table to eat with this. The foie was very light and fluffy and just melted in your mouth. It seemed like the potted meats were a hit overall (read e*starLA‘s and LAist‘s takes).

Foie gras and quince parfait

My favorite main of the night turned out to be the sea bass served with orange-flavored vegetables. I normally don’t like sea bass, but this one was great. Other people loved the pork dish, which came with house-made sausage and what looked like pork belly but was really part of the short rib. Though I like pork, I don’t go crazy for it, though this was very good. I also tried a bite of veal sweetbreads, and while they weren’t my favorite, they weren’t bad, either!

Sea bass with orange flavored vegetables

Pork and sausage (at the far end)

Because I’m obsessed with brussels sprouts, I requested we have some to taste, so they showed up on the pork plate. They were cooked sous vide, as Chef Remi Lauvand informed us he did to make them tender. I’m not sure why he chose this method of cooking because the sous vide seemed to overcook the vegetables. Oh well, I guess I just prefer mine roasted.

My favorite desserts were the hazelnut cream puffs and the baba au rhum with slow poached pineapple. Once again, I’m not a big fan of desserts with cream, but both of these were wonderful, especially the baba with the pineapple. One of my fellow diners, Weezermonkey, also liked these two desserts best, and these two photos below are from her post.

Hazelnut cream puffs. From Weezermonkey.

Baba au rhum with pineapple

This meal was hosted.

Texas beef brisket at Zeke's Smokehouse

Let me just begin by saying that this isn’t a completely fair comparison. (How’s that for a lede?) Mr. Cecil’s California Ribs and Zeke’s Smokehouse offer totally different styles of barbecue. But I liked different menu items from each of these places, so I thought I would pit the two against each other — in a friendly BBQ cookoff in my mind, of course.

First up is Mr. Cecil’s. I ate at the mini chain’s newest location in Manhattan Beach (there are also West Los Angeles and Sherman Oaks locations). My favorites included the buffalo wings, which were tangy and spicy, and grilled shrimp. The beans with bacon and the cole slaw are good, too. The bacon gives the beans a nice flavor, and the cole slaw isn’t overly creamy.

Buffalo wings

Grilled shrimp

Baked beans and cole slaw

I also enjoyed Mr. Cecil’s ribs, which are marinated then grilled, not smoked. Grilling the ribs give it a nice crust, if you will.

Ribs

And one of the most important parts of barbecue — the hush puppies. Mr. Cecil’s is made with scallions, which was a pleasant surprise.

Hush Puppies

Now on to Zeke’s. I ate at the West Hollywood location (there’s also a Montrose one, too). We started off with some sweet potato fries, onion rings and hush puppies. All were good, but the hush puppies were my favorite out of the three. Zeke’s are made with onion and have the perfect fluffy texture. The deep fried okra is respectable, too.

Hush puppies (left), sweet potato fries (center), onion rings (right)

Hush puppies

Fried okra

We then moved on to Zeke’s Build Your Own BBQ $9.95 special, which gives you a choice of two meats and two sides. The plate is huge! Take a look at my meal with pulled pork, pulled chicken, collard greens and potato salad:

Pulled chicken (bottom left), potato salad (top left), pulled pork (bottom right), collard greens (top right)

Here’s the full list of options for the special, which is available Monday through Thursday from 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.:

Meats: pulled pork, pulled chicken, a quarter of dark meat chicken, smoked ham or hot link.

Sides: baked beans, collard greens, mashed potatoes, green beans, potato salad, cole slaw, applesauce, kettle chips or fries.

I liked the pulled pork and potato salad, but my favorite meat was the Texas beef brisket, which unfortunately isn’t offered as part of the $9.95 special.

Texas beef brisket

Zeke’s also carries Sprecher root beer, a Wisconsin specialty, and on tap, no less. It’s not too sweet, which is welcomed considering root beer tends to be overly sweet for me. Speaking of sweet, I liked all of the restaurant’s desserts that we tasted: bread pudding, brownies and pecan pie. The bread pudding was more bread than pudding, which I preferred; the brownies were very chocolatey; and the pecan pie was more pecan than filling, another welcome trait.

Bread pudding

Brownies

Pecan pie

So who wins my imaginary barbecue showdown? Well, neither. I would rather pick and choose specific items from each: Mr. Cecil’s for ribs, appetizers and sides; Zeke’s for brisket, hush puppies and dessert. Maybe I’ll have to get take out and create my own meal.

Note: Both of these meals were media dinners.