For lunch yesterday, my friend and I checked out Long Provincial, the new restaurant from the people behind Tamarind Tree. I had the okra lemongrass satay and the grilled shrimp mousse on sugarcane over rice noodles. They were both very good, but what really caught my attention was Long Provincial’s salted lime soda. Known as soda chanh muối in Vietnam, this drink is nothing like the green, syrupy sweet lime sodas you may be used to. Instead, this soda is crystal clear and has big chunks of yellow-orange salted limes floating around in it. Although it has some sweet and tart notes, the dominant flavor is salty. If you don’t like salty drinks, you’d be better off trying something else. There was also some other really funky flavor in there that I couldn’t place. Rotten fruit? Soap, perhaps? Whatever it was, it was strange and really addictive. I couldn’t stop muddling the limes with my straw long after the soda was gone, hoping for one last drop of salted lime goodness. Of course, my friend and I immediately started discussing which kinds of booze would work best in this drink. Gin would be good, but we thought it would go most wonderfully with tequila (mmm…salty lime and tequila.) Turns out, with a bit of foresight and planning, soda chanh muối can be made pretty easily at home using some very basic ingredients. Once the weather warms up, I will certainly be giving this recipe a try (perhaps mixing it with some of that Lunazul tequila I just bought!)

Yesterday we celebrated my nephew’s first birthday! Once the cake and presents were out of the way, our gracious host Jim invited us down to his basement bar for a tequila tasting. Jim is a true tequila aficionado, and he has clearly built his bar with that in mind. We sampled a very fine Partida reposado tequila. It was delicious unadorned - smooth and a bit spicy. The Partida was great, but I was more excited about the other tequila we tried - Lunazul - if for no other reason than it falls more in line with my budget. Priced at under $20 for 750 ml, Lunazul is a steal! Lunazul tequila is grown, distilled and bottled at the Tierra de Agaves Distillery in Tequila, Mexico. To pursue his goal of producing the best small batch tequilas in the world, former co-owner of Jose Cuervo, Francisco Beckmann, founded Tierra de Agaves in 2002. Lunazul comes in two varieties: blanco and reposado. Jim told us about how he chose Lunazul as his house tequila after conducting a blind taste test among friends. He served us the blanco in margaritas which he makes using agave nectar for sweetener, a natural pairing considering that tequila is also made from the agave plant. After returning home from the party, I headed to the corner liquor store and picked up my own bottle of Lunazul. Since we had already tried the blanco at Jim’s, I decided to buy the reposado. We sipped it straight up and in margaritas. It proved to be buttery, smoky and a bit sweet. Who knew a budget tequila could be this good? I can see why it scored so highly in Jim’s taste test.

Those of you who follow my blog regularly or who have looked through my recipes know that I am a fan of seafood. So, when I heard that Ethan Stowell (of How to Cook a Wolf, Union and Tavolata fame) was planning to open an Italian seafood restaurant just up the street from me, my interest was piqued. When I found out that all dishes would be priced at under $20, I went from interested to enthusiastic.

Anchovies & Olives, which has been open for just under two weeks now, is located in the new Pearl condominium complex at 15th and Pine. Like the building it’s housed in, Anchovies & Olives has a very modern look to it: low lighting, high ceilings, big windows and lots of clean lines and blank spaces. In larger restaurants, this type of decor always feels a little cold and impersonal. In the small space at Anchovies & Olives it seems to work – a small room always makes things feel more intimate. The busy open kitchen right smack in the middle of the restaurant also does its part to promote a warm and inviting atmosphere.

As promised, the menu is heavy on the seafood. In fact, other than foccacia bread and fried marcona almonds, I didn’t see a single dish that wasn’t based on some form of seafood. The menu is divided between “crudo,” appetizers, pastas, and entrees. The crudo menu offers a wide variety of ultra-fresh fish and shellfish dishes, all of which are served raw and with simple seasonings. The appetizers range from basic bread with olive oil to baccala (salt cod!) salad and clams with beans. The pastas, in true Italian fashion, are made by hand and served very simply. Spaghetti with sea urchin and conchiglie with octopus, tomatoes and capers are some of pasta dishes that caught my eye. A small number of entrees round out the menu and include dishes such as sea bass with house made sauerkraut and branzino with oxtails. The wine list features Italian wines only and is 70% white. You might consider this a bold choice, but I think it’s the right one. White wine is almost always a better choice with seafood. It’s about time white wine started getting some attention.

We started off with the focaccia bread and the fluke crudo. People will likely gripe at the fact that the bread isn’t free but, for only $2, you get a healthy serving of bread, olive oil for dipping and a smattering of Arbequina olives. The fluke crudo consisted of six slices of fresh raw fluke dressed in a citrus-infused oil with hearts of palm and some kind of fancy sprouts. It was simple and utterly delicious. For his main course, Robert had the linguine aglio olio with crab. It was a bit oily, but the texture of the pasta was great and the dish had a nice kick to it. Although I was highly tempted by the sea urchin spaghetti, I ultimately chose the grilled mackerel as my entree. The mackerel was served with sautéed hedgehog mushrooms and a sunchoke puree. It was a pretty small portion, but mackerel is so rich that it ended up being the right size for me. The mushrooms were really tasty and provided competition for the mackerel and fluke as best bite of the evening. To drink, we had a delightful white wine: 2007 Quattro Mani Toh-kai. This wine was light and crisp yet had enough body to make it a good match for nearly everything on the menu.

Overall, I’m very happy to have Anchovies & Olives in the neighborhood even if it is a bit pricey (our individual meals may have been $16 each, but crudo and wine sure do add up.) We spent a little bit more than usual, but we had great customer service and the seafood dishes were all well-prepared and were different from what you typically see in other restaurants. I’m looking forward to returning. The sea urchin pasta is next on my list. Come summertime, I could easily see us stopping by for some crudo and a couple of glasses of chilled wine!