Taste of Newport is no easy meal

Young Chang

Forget things by the dash or the teaspoon.

Chefs preparing for the Taste of Newport today through Sunday are

thinking in pounds and gallons.

Anthony Lia, chef for Gina’s Pizza and Pastaria, is working with

1,000 pounds of dough to make a total of 700 pizza pies by the end of

Sunday.

Chef Dennis Brask from Five Crowns Restaurant is dealing with 100

pounds of horseradish and half a ton -- that’s right, ton -- of prime

ribs.

Ramon Sanchez, chef from Gulliver’s Restaurant, is all but

swimming in his 200 gallons of cream -- 100 for the creamed spinach

and 100 for the cream of corn.

“Being a restaurant at the Taste is a tough job,” said Jim de

Boom, logistics coordinator for the event who also is a Daily Pilot

columnist. “It’s a lot of work. We have a good mixture of restaurants

this year.”

The 14th annual food and wine festival, sponsored by the Newport

Beach Chamber of Commerce, will feature more than 30 restaurants and

15 wineries. Almost 80% of the restaurants are from Newport Beach and

the minority out-of-towners are still chamber members.

Participants include area favorites including the Blue Water

Grill, Clayton Shurley’s Real BBQ and the Ho Sum Bistro. Businesses

from neighboring cities include Buca di Beppo and Gulliver’s

Restaurant, both from Irvine.

Visitors to the Taste of Newport can get in for $15, buy what

organizers call scrip tickets worth $1 each and then pay for food and

drinks with these scrip stubs. The average food item will cost $3.

You might have to fork over six scrips for a more gourmet sample.

“We try to look for fine dining restaurants that have menus, table

service,” de Boom said. “And a bunch of restaurants don’t qualify

‘cause they’re not what we call fine dining.”

But being Taste-worthy comes with a price.

Lia has gotten 20 hours of sleep in the past four days. After the

clock has struck 10 and the dinner patrons have gone home, he’s

retreated into the kitchen with his 24 pounds of beef that need

trimming and cutting and braising to become Italian Bistecca

Sandwiches, which Gina’s is also featuring at the event.

He goes from braising and marinating the beef to cooking 120

pounds of pasta for the baked spinach ziti to accompany both the

pizza and bistecca. He’s been alone in the restaurant kitchen every

night for the past few nights until about 7 a.m.

But his preparatory steps are just that. The ziti, for example,

requires multiple steps before being ready for its final bake. The

sandwiches will get assembled on each day of the Taste of Newport

after the meat’s been pre-seasoned and braised. The only element

pre-completed for the pizza is the dough.

“We’re actually gonna be portioning the dough and spreading the

sauce and cooking the pizza from scratch right in the booth,” Lia

said. “We’ll have a pizza oven at the booth and a convection oven,

for the Spinach Ziti... and the dough is really the best if you make

it 24 hours before you use it.”

Brask started preparing his food, which includes roast prime rib

sandwiches with whipped cream horseradish and raspberry creme brulee,

on Thursday. The marinating and other preliminary steps are finished

early.

“But we do everything fresh everyday,” he said.

Clayton Shurley, owner of Clayton Shurley’s Real BBQ, will be

doing a whole lot of hickory smoking for the next few days. The

restaurant will feature Watermelon Honey Glazed Pork Ribs, Smoked

Beef Brisket Sandwiches and Handmade Potato Chips.

The ribs, once seasoned, get smoked for five hours over hickory

logs. The 1,500 pounds of beef for the smoked brisket sandwiches get

hickory smoked for 24 hours.

“It’s pretty extensive,” Shurley said.

* YOUNG CHANG is the features and arts and entertainment writer.

She may be reached at (949) 574-4268 or by e-mail at

young.chang@latimes.com.