Bigoli

Los Angeles, California, July 21, 2015—

YES, I HAVE BEEN on vacation for a week. You'd have been wrong to have thought I was on extended fast, though that was certainly an option. Since my last post — was it really eleven days ago? — we have eaten very well, mostly at home, either my brother's home in Australia or our own home in California. We had truly delicious soups, salads, steaks, salmon, and several other things not beginning with "S", and we even ate out once, at a restaurant we very much like in Berkeley. I've thought about catching you up on those events, but I've decided against it.

We're on the road again: a quick drive down to Los Angeles for a consultation. We stopped tonight per caso, as the Italians say, more or less randomly picking the nearest restaurant to come up on Open Table, and we ate well. No better than on several other occasions in the last eleven days, but well. Two things were, in fact, I think, remarkable. One was the pasta you see here, if you squint — no one will say I've become a better photographer in the last week or so!

They're house-made bigoli, a pasta I like very much for its density and substance. They're like strozzapreti in that respect, and while they don't hold sauce quite as well as the priest-stranglers they make up for that with their length, satisfyingly spaghetti-like.

No point pretending, though, that it wasn't the description of the sauce that made me order them: in the reestaurant's quaint typographical idiosyncrasy,

Bigoli al sugo di vitello, foie gras e quanciale
Veal sauce, foie gras and “guanciale”

The dish was unctuous, nicely weighted and balanced, slow-cooked, perfectly scaled.

And what a nice wine with it!

"Cinque Edizioni", Farnese (Abruzzo): Montepulciano, Sangiovese, Primitivo, Negroamaro, Malvasia blend, 2011
Rich, deep, complex, fine aromas (leather, tobacco); good balance, quick, rather intense flavor, nice finish

•Il Moro, 11400 West Olympic Boulevard, Los Angeles; 310-575-3530
☛Restaurants visited in 2015 are listed at Eatingday's Restaurants