February 15, 2014, Valentine’s Day Dinner in the Dark at Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery.

February 15, 2014, Valentine’s Day Dinner in the Dark at Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery.

I arrived at the Garden Gate Day Spa at 3:00 p.m. and changed into my bathing suit and soaked in the hot tub for about an hour until 4:00.  At 4:00 Rose gave me a facial treatment until almost 6:00.  I got dressed and walked across the parking lot to the Green house Bistro and Bakery for Dinner in the Dark.

The Bistro was lit only in candle light, which was very romantic.  The Menu included a Lobster fritter appetizer, an antipasto salad, an entrée of either cioppino or rack of lamb, and a slice of chocolate cheese cake garnished with fresh raspberries for dessert.

The lobster fritter was sitting in a puddle of lightly garlicked aioli and garnished with threads of thinly sliced yellow, orange and red bell peppers.  It had a warm deliciously doughy flavor like the ham and baccalau and potato ones I had in Spain several years ago, except this one was made with lobster meat, flour and flavorings. 

The salad came second and Suzette thought it was a little too vinegary, but I think it had a sharply vinegar flavor because it contained chopped bits of pepperoncini, and marinated artichoke hearts and she must have gotten a vinegary bite of that.  I liked it and did not think that vinegar overwhelmed the organic greens and hearts of romaine and grape tomatoes.

I asked the wait staff to wait a few minutes before bringing out our entrees, so we could digest the vinegary salad and sip some wine and relax.  After about five or ten minutes I said we were ready and in about five more minutes they brought the entrees.  I was glad we had waited because the entrees were beautiful and generous.  Suzette’s was really beautiful three or four lamb riblets sautéed with their ribs  stacked standing up like rifles in a military encampment and sitting on a puddle of demiglaze beside a square of sweet potato gratin.  Suzette let me try it and the meat was really tender, the demiglaze was light and fragrant and the potato gratin was sweet, yet substantial with layers of cheese, just as you would wish.  An exquisite dish of the first order. 

  

My cioppino was no less impressive in a more earthy way.  I measure the success of dishes by comparing them to the best rendition of that dish I have ever had.  In the case of cioppino, the best I have ever eaten was at the fish market in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico.  Ensenada is the capital and a major fishing port in Baja California.  Ensenada is a deep water port and has a uniquely designed fish market which is actually a concrete wharf sitting on the edge of the ocean where fishing boats can pull next to so that boats can unload their catch directly into the fish marketing area.  There is a malacón that stretches along the shore and between the malacón and the fish wharf are a series of wooden causeways lined with small plywood sided and sheltered fish restaurants.  Each fish market had one or two large stock pots filled with fish caldo and several small pots for cooking individual orders of fish soup and bottles of freshly shucked ingredients, such as clams, oysters, shrimp, fish, abalone, etc.  What you do is point to the ingredients you want in your stew and sit at one of tables in the restaurant tasting the chili sauces and creamed avocado sauce with tostados and beer, while the senora dips a small pot of caldo from one of the large pots placed handfuls of the ingredients you selected into the pot and cooks your fish stew.   For example in our case, we selected a restaurant where we saw several men seated who were dressed in uniforms that showed they worked at the Hilton hotel, so we figured they knew good fish stew.  After examining the offered ingredients Suzette decided she wanted a type of clam that she had seen in the market but was not available at the restaurant, which had only two kinds of clams.   We asked the senora if we could bring our own clams and she said yes and Suzette went to the market and bought a handful of a third clam and brought it back and the senora placed them into Suzette’s individual stew pot.   I forget what combination of ingredients I had but included the two kinds of clams and oysters and crab and fish.  What I do remember is the caldo.  It was the best freshest fish soup I have ever eaten.  It taste was delicate and yet very hearty and tasted of the sea.  I loved it.  To make a long story shorter, the cioppino that I was served at the Bistro was very similar in taste and appearance, a lightly reddened clear seafood broth with strips of onion and flecks of parsley, herbs, bay leaves, and celery and wedges of fresh tomato cooked in and poached fish, a large diver scallop, and several shrimp, clams and mussels.  That dish had that same amazing combination of a hearty soup with incredibly fresh seafood that I had tasted in Ensenada .  The good news is that you can approximate the same effect in Albuquerque, 1000 miles away from the Pacific Ocean.  I was amazed and delighted.  I drank a glass of Champalou Vouvray that went well with both the Lobster Fritter and the Cioppino.

Here is a recipe for ciopinno:

Cioppino - San Francisco's Famous Seafood Stew

User Rating 4.5 Star Rating (9 Reviews)

By John Mitzewich

There is not one standard Ciopinno recipe. This one shows clams and scallops, which are also common ingredients.

Photo © Flickr user Neeta Lind

Italian fishermen developed this Ciopinno recipe in the mid 1800's. There are two versions of where the name "Ciopinno came from. Most believe it's based on an Italian soup called "ciuppin."

A more colorful version is that the fisherman used to gather after the day's work was done and all throw different pieces of fish and seafood into a communal pot for supper. They would call out to each other in broken English "chip in," "hey you, chip in," and this was the actual root for the word Ciopinno.

While not as likely a story, it is certainly more interesting, so I'm going with the second version.

Makes 6 large portions

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 35 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 rib celery, chopped
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 can crushed tomatoes (28-oz) (I would suggest using fresh peeled tomato wedges)
• 2 cups clam juice or fish stock
• 2 cups white wine
• 4 cloves crushed garlic
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoons dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 Dungeness crab (about 2-lbs), cracked and cleaned, or 1-lb frozen crabmeat thawed
• 2 pounds halibut fillet, cut into 1-in slices
• 24 large prawns, peeled and de-veined
• 12 mussels
• 1/2 bunch Italian parsley, chopped

Preparation:

1.    In a large pot, on medium-low heat, melt the butter with the olive oil and saute the celery and onions until soft, about 10 minutes. Add all the rest of the ingredients except the seafood and fresh parsley. Simmer on low, uncovered, for one hour. Add a splash of water if the sauce gets to thick. Taste for salt and adjust if needed.

2.    Add the crab, shrimp, and halibut, and simmer covered another five minutes. Add the mussels, cover the pot and simmer for 3 minutes more, or until the mussels open. Turn off the heat, and stir in the Italian parsley.

Ladle the Ciopinno into large bowls and serve with lots of sourdough bread and red wine.

Suzette drank a glass Champalou with her fritter and Beaujolais with her lamb.  She selects the wines for the Greenhouse Bistro, so there is always a selection of good quality wines that go well with the food.

It took forever to eat the large pasta bowl of Cioppino but finally I finished it.

Kevin the new chef, who grew up in Australia, came out and I asked him about the preparation of the caldo and the demiglaze.  He said he added wine and tomato paste to soften the demiglaze and that Anne, the food service director made the caldo with shells and “things”.

Cioppino

I cannot wait to see if I can replicate the recipe for cioppino., especially since Suzette did the shopping for both dishes at Costco.  

After dinner we sat back and talked to the diners at the next table about their impression of the restaurant and spa and the dinner.  They liked it as much as we did, which was a great sign for the Bistro, because I believe liking good food is an addiction that must be fed regularly.

In a few minutes we were served a glass of Gruet Rosé champagne and a slice of chocolate cheese cake with a graham cracker crust drizzled with a lovely thin caramel sauce on top and garnished with fresh raspberries.  We were offered coffee, but chose to sip champagne with our dessert.  The cheese cake was incredibly smooth, as if it had had rich cream mixed the cream cheese and baked and the chocolate sauce was also inside the baked body of cream cheese, as if it had been injected and baked with the cheese cake.  Suzette told me this was an ordered item because the Bistro does not have a pastry chef and the quality and price of fine desserts is impossible to match by a small restaurant, such as the Greenhouse Bistro.  I thought the cheese cake was one of the best I have ever tasted.

So I loved my afternoon at the spa and dinner at the Bistro.  It was one of the best I have had at the Bistro and I hope that the Bistro does others.  Suzette said she thought they would do one a month in the months of December, January and February every year, because those are the months that the sky darkens early enough to have a candlelight dinner at 6:00 p.m.   I can hardly wait.

Bon appétit