All About Food: Naming the top 10 tastes of 2009

It’s time for another one of those top 10 lists. This is a list, in no particular order, of the favorite dishes that we’ve eaten this year. What it’s not is a list of the 10 best restaurants in Laguna. That list would probably be pretty much the same from one year to the next, with an occasional newcomer or a shift in the order. We try to eat and report on all kinds of restaurants in town and we have found that if you order well, there is something enjoyable in each one of them. So, here are our 10 favorite dishes for ’09.

1 The opening of Watermarc, with its small plate menu brought us a number of tasty new dishes but our favorite was the warm, blue cheese pear tart. Three bite-sized crunchy pastry cups all in a row, were filled with mild, melted blue cheese and topped with tiny cubes of red wine-poached pears. They were absolutely marvelous. The buttery crust, the perfect marriage of blue cheese and pear, and the slight sweetness from the red wine syrup added up to a compelling combination.

2 At Brussels Bistro, mussels is the dish to order. The mussels themselves are delicious: small, sweet and tender with six different preparations offered. We thought the Provençal was fabulous. The slightly licorice flavor from the Pastis and the thin shreds of basil were the perfect marriage for the light tomato broth, accented with big chunks of lightly cooked fresh tomatoes. The juices at the bottom of the casserole pot were simply irresistible, and we soaked them up with their very good, very crusty French bread. Monday through Wednesday they offer a special “all you can eat” dinner of mussels with Belgian fries and a free beer or glass of wine for $24 and if you ask for more, you can choose them prepared a different way.

3 From the small plate menu at Café Zinc, we loved the spanakopita. The filo dough had just a few layers, so that it was flaky and crispy all the way through. It was wrapped around a superb filling of spinach and feta cheese flavored with dill “” one of the best we’ve ever had. It comes with a cup of Tuscan white bean soup and some spears of braised asparagus on a bit of salad. The fresh tasting soup was a very light, delicate tomato broth accented by a few large white beans and diced potatoes, then finished with a touch of rosemary and spiciness.

4 Our favorite small plate at K’ya was the spicy seafood chowder, a big bowl of zesty soup with lots of shrimp, scallops and fresh fish. We would describe it as New Orleans style “” with its holy trinity of carrots, celery and onions, then just a bit of potato and a blend of herbs.

5 These days every high-end restaurant is serving mini cornets stuffed with tuna but Chef Strong of Studio at the Montage has done them all one better “” and then some. His brilliantly inventive amuse bouche was a mini-cone made from oven-dried pineapple! The result was a sweet fruity crunchiness with overtones of caramel. Inside, for contrast was a dollop of very clean-tasting crab salad. The combination was unique and scrumptious.

6 Sage-on”“the-Coast had a refreshing summer offering of scallops with a duet of cold melon soups. The yin-yang shape of the presentation had a lovely orange cantaloupe puree on one side and pale green honeydew on the other. The buttery browned scallops on top were impeccably cooked and thin slices of Persian cucumber provided a hint of crunch while a sprinkling of fresh mint added the final touch. The dish contrasted hot with cold, savory with sweet, smooth with chewy. The two soups were perfectly calibrated for an evening of open air dining.

7 The Shebeen at Mozambique prepares a creative combination of ingredients that make magic together in the Portobello stack, an architectural construct with layers of grilled mushrooms, hummus and tomato on a bed of avocado coulis, accented with drops of spicy peri-peri oil and a tiny gastrique of sweet and sour pomegranate molasses. The flavors married nicely, with none dominating.

8 Sapphire’s spice plate menu this season includes a steamed cheeseburger with spicy mayonnaise on a Hawaiian sweet bread bun. In all our gustatory ramblings we have never encountered a steamed burger! It turned out to be quite delicious, due in part to the excellent quality of the beef and in part to the well-seasoned patty topped with chili mayonnaise; but unexpectedly, the steaming, although it cooked the burger through, rendered the meat very moist and juicy. The final fillip was the melted Havarti cheese.

9 Zoolu’s famous chunk-o-swordfish is a top 10 dish year after year. It’s called a “baseball cut” and that certainly is not a misnomer. Mike butchers the whole fish himself, cutting it into fat, 3-inch thick hunks, which he then mesquite broils.

Our favorite preparation is the lemon-caper-butter because it complements the fish and accents its distinctive taste.

10 At Tabu Grill the pièce de résistance was the very inventive seared ahi. Chef Jerrold has paired originality with delightful flavors to create an exquisitely nuanced preparation.

A nice thick piece of fish is stuffed with a bit of crabmeat and avocado, then lightly seared. It is served with a dish of three frozen dipping “sauces”: yuzu (a Japanese citrus), soy and wasabi yogurt. Each provides a completely different experience when combined with the ahi, and all three mixed together make yet a fourth sensation. The yuzu is acidic, the soy is salty, the wasabi is hot, and the yogurt is cool.

ELLE HARROW and TERRY MARKOWITZ owned a la Carte for 20 years and can be reached at themarkos755@yahoo.com.