Marco Restaurant - North End

It's pretty boring to write or talk about a place that it just - from beginning to end, from the front end to the kitchen - fantastic. There are only so many ways to say that this dish or that thing is "perfect", "fabulous", "great"...well, you get the point. That's my problem with this post and the only problem with Marco Restaurant, where we went with friends last Saturday night. It was absolutely amazing. Located in a small second floor space on Hanover Street in the North End, you feel like you're eating in someone's home and, I think, that is exactly what owner Marc Orfaly (owner/chef of Pigalle as well) and Chef de Cuisine Matt Abdoo are striving for. The menu is great, the wine list is limited, but good, the Chef is outstanding, as were the knowledgeable servers. The pastas, cured meats and cannoli are all made in-house, and all are delicious. Adding to the experience, are the cooking classes offered on the first Monday of every month. I went to one last Monday and had a great time learning how to make both sweet and savory ravioli from Chef Abdoo.

On Saturday, as we looked at the menu, we couldn't decide what to get because there were too many things we liked. The waitress suggested we just have the Chef cook for us and that's what we did (many good restaurants will do this, you just need to ask). Each course was delicious. We started with a caesar salad, fried calamari, pizza and stuffed clams (are you full just from reading this?). The Caesar salad had a great traditional dressing, large shavings of parmigiano reggiano cheese, and was served in a rustic wooden bowl that my wife wanted to take home. The calamari were perfectly fried in a light batter and served along with red and green hot Italian cherry peppers (in my opinion, the best way to have fried calamari). Shortly thereafter, the pizza arrived made with gorgonzola, figs, prosciutto and greens. In general, I'm not a fan of bleu cheeses; but this was done perfectly. They way the pizza was made fused all the flavors and the figs and prosciutto mellowed and complimented the gorgonzola beautifully. Finally were 4 Clams Origanato (baked with bread crumbs, lemon and parmigiano). These were also delicious.

The pasta course was next and by the end I thought I might explode. All 3 dishes (orecchietti with sausage and brocioli rabe, gnocchi in a cream/cheese sauce and mushroom risotto with truffle oil) arrived at the same time, all also delicious. The risotto was cooked al dente and there was just the right amount of truffle oil, which if not used correctly, would've overpowered the dish.

The main course was a baked sole and a mixed grill of sausage and flank steak. This may come as a surprise to those who know my carnivorous leanings, but, as good as the sausage and steak were, the fish, which was baked and topped with a wonderful gremolata, was just amazing.

Complimenting this grastronomic pigfest was a 2003 Cantina Terlano Lagrein Porphyr Riserva, which was suggested by one of our servers. The wine went very well with everything (even, more or less the sole). It had a really lush berry fruit smell and taste, was well balanced with low acidity, soft tannins and a great finish. This was a very tasty wine that went well with the bold flavors we were overeating.

We finished off the meal with cappuccino and mini canolis, which are made, shell and filing, at the restaurant (one of only a few North End restaurant that make their own canoli shells).

Needless to say, at the end of the night I rolled down the stairs, waddled to the car, which was, thankfully, parked about 1/2 mile away. Although clearly suffering from a food coma, the walk made me feel almost human as I dozed off on the ride home.

This restaurant is my new favorite. The food, setting, chef and staff are as unpretentious as they are outstanding. This place is just a pleasure to go to and you'll leave well fed, well taken care of and with a big smile on your face. Go! Please, just don't take my reservation.

Arson Fire at Wine Warehouse

VALLEJO Wine warehouse fire was arson, police say Court records show business was mired in partnership feud
- Jim Doyle, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Investigators looking into the Mare Island warehouse fire that destroyed up to $100 million of vintage wine said Tuesday that last week's blaze was deliberately set. Police and arson investigators said during a news conference in Vallejo that they have interviewed about two dozen people in their preliminary investigation of the fire, and they expect to question many others associated with the Wines Central storage facility. No suspects have been named, and police would not say how the fire was started, nor would they speculate on a motive.

"Right now there are several persons, or people, of interest," said Lt. Lori A. Lee of the Vallejo Police Department. "It could be dozens, anyone from employees to those who are tenants or have ownership interests, or vintners who are storing their wine there." Lee said police and fire officials have been deluged with tips, rumors, and innuendo about who had a motive to start the fire. "It's still premature to say that anyone has been cleared," Lee said. "It's an open investigation. We have investigators filtering out in a number of directions." Investigators said last week that they wanted to talk to anyone who was in the warehouse on Oct. 12, the day of the fire. The relatively short list included the warehouse's general manager, two unnamed forklift operators and any visitors to the site.

One of those visitors was Mark Anderson, the owner of Sausalito Cellars, a wine-storage firm. Anderson faces embezzlement charges in Marin County for allegedly stealing wine from private collections. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges. Police on Tuesday refused to say whether Anderson is a suspect in the arson. Anderson could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Senior special agent Nina Delgadillo of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said a team of forensic chemists and cause-and-origin specialists have found "sufficient (physical) evidence to tell us that this was an intentionally set fire. ... We are vigorously pursuing the person or persons who caused this." Investigators would not discuss the arsonist's skill, or whether the fire was started with the aid of an electronic timer, an accelerant or match. Public comments about the evidence, they said, could taint interviews with suspects.

Bill Tweedy, an investigator and spokesman for the Vallejo Fire Department, said the fire caused an estimated $10 million in structural damage to the warehouse, causing the building's concrete roof to sag. He said the building, which had 3-foot-thick concrete walls, was equipped with a fire-detection system, but was not required by law to have sprinklers.
He said firefighters were on the scene three minutes after being alerted to the blaze by two 911 phone calls and a private alarm firm. However, the firefighters needed to cut through the warehouse's steel rollup doors before beginning to fight the blaze. Inside, timbers were falling to the floor in the 35-foot tall building. Eighty-two vintners stored wine at the warehouse, along with large volumes of pasta and sugar.

As investigators announced their preliminary findings, new information surfaced about the economic turmoil of Wines Central, which rented the warehouse. Court records indicate that the wine storage firm was embroiled in an internal partnership dispute. Its partners had invested and loaned more than $2.5 million to the business, which continued to sustain large operating losses. Wines Central's four original partners have been vying for 3 1/2 years over control of the potentially lucrative business. Two partners claim they were swindled by the other two partners, who in turn say that they were misled and defrauded of their financial stake. The wine storage business was formed in 2000 by partners Jacobo "Jack" Krystal of San Rafael; Sonoma County developer Russell Lugli; and Paul Hutchinson and Jack Lair, both of Napa County. The four had a falling out in 2001. The firm was dissolved in October 2001, then started up again a month later with only Krystal and Lugli as partners.

In an April 2004 affidavit, Krystal wrote that Wines Central had negotiated an agreement with liquor distributor Pacific American Services, which would invest in Wines Central and manage its warehouse -- in return for a 49 percent share of profits. But he complained that the deal was stalled by the partnership dispute. "No investor wants to invest cash into a business with pending litigation," he wrote. He also wrote that, unless Wines Central is able to soon go ahead with the management deal, the company "will be in grave danger of having to shut down its business and close its doors."

In August, Marin County Judge Lynn Dupree denied Krystal's request that the firm be authorized to enter into a new management and investment deal, saying that it would be premature to allow the deal to go forward while the court is engaged in an accounting of all four partners' financial interests. Asked this week about the ownership dispute, Krystal said: "We don't discuss our internal business."

Answer to a very important question...

A friend recently sent me this question.

"Important topic for discussion:

What is one supposed to do with the bottles of crappy wine that "well intentioned" guests bring when visiting, holiday gifts etc.

I hate to watch it pile up. Hate to drink it; hate to re-gift it lest folks think I like crappy wine ....Can't donate it, right? "

I think the answer to this very important question is the following: When someone brings crappy wine for dinner, serve the wine along with whatever you would like to drink (this gets rid of the crap as soon as possible). More importantly, give your guests and your spouse the crap and sneak the good stuff when no one is looking.

If you got it as a gift, re-gift it when apporpriate, along with a good bottle of wine so that two things are accomplished, 1) you've gotten rid of the crap and 2) you have plausible deniability over "your poor choice" of wine (you can even blame the salesperson at the wine store and say that you were looking for a pairing with X (whatever was being served) and he/she began raving about how good this wine was and that it was a "must try", so you gave it a shot).*

Finally, and unfortunately, I don't think you can donate it. Sorry. Remember, it's always very important to deal with DCB (deadly crap build-up).

*By the way, you should also try to, again, sneak the good stuff when no one is looking and the host has opened it.

FINALLY, THE PERFECT SYNERGY BETWEEN WINE & CRIME

Atherton Journal
In an Enclave of Serious Wine Lovers, a Mesmerizing Theft
February 1, 2007
ATHERTON, Calif. — It was perhaps the most Californian of crimes. Behind the electronic gates and freshly clipped hedges of an exclusive cul-de-sac, the thieves worked in the dead of night, ignoring watches, laptops and other ho-hum booty to cart away the ultimate prize: 450 bottles of wine, including a rare $11,000 1959 magnum from the Château Pétrus in Bordeaux, France.



A 1959 Château Pétrus similar to those above, was stolen from an Atherton, Calif., house this month.


Thus began what the police in this Silicon Valley town, one of the country’s most affluent ZIP codes, refer to as “the big wine caper” — a $100,000 theft, still under investigation, whose audacity has inspired Agatha Christie-like fascination among sophisticated oenophiles in the Bay Area.

“It’s a worrying thing,” said Ken Chalmers, the assistant manager at Beltramo’s, a local wine purveyor who sells hard-to-come-by vintages to customers with pebbled driveways and lavender-lined walks. “If you drink a bottle of a ’61 Bordeaux every five years and somebody swipes it, you’re not going to be happy. You can’t replace it. Wine is a very personal thing.”
Like a sauvignon blanc with an ash-covered chèvre, theft and wine make a heady pairing, especially in Atherton, the sought-after nesting place of venture capitalists and magnates like Charles Schwab, of the wealth management company, and Tom Proulx, the founder of the software company Intuit. Wine cellars are a fixture of daily life here, a common amenity along with home theaters, fitness centers and his-and-her offices.

At some point between Dec. 28 and Jan. 4, while the homeowner was on vacation, the police said, the thief or thieves made their way to the basement, where the collection, much of it distinguished Bordeaux, was stored at an optimal 55 degrees. The police have not identified the victim. There was no sign of forced entry, indicating the possibility of an inside job, said Detective Sgt. Joseph C. Wade, who is in charge of the investigation. The house is gated, and a code and a key would have been needed to enter it, he said.
The perpetrator had a discerning palate, leaving behind lesser vintages. The collection included a magnum of 1959 Château Beychevelle and a magnum of 2002 Jones Family cabernet, a Napa Valley cult wine.

The mystery of the theft on Fair Oaks Lane has captivated a region obsessed with the vine, a place where The San Francisco Chronicle’s weekly Wine section is required reading.
“The properties in Atherton are so large that it’s possible to imagine no one would notice,” said Stephen J. Bachmann, the chief executive of Vinfolio Inc., an online store and consultant service for private wine collectors, who also writes a blog. “It’s an interesting question of whether they had advanced knowledge of what was in the cellar. A lot of people don’t think of wine as an asset that needs to be protected. But they should.”

In many ways, Bordeaux has assumed the status of liquid gold. “Like chocolate was to the Aztecs, wine has become the ultimate currency,” said Daphne Derven, an independent scholar on food and wine based in Eugene, Ore. “It appears that the thieves, whoever they were, had more faith in the stability and accruing value of the ultimate bottle of wine than the American dollar.”

The crime is perhaps understandable given record increases in wine prices at auction, said Thomas Matthews, the editor of Wine Spectator, which recently reported on counterfeiting, in which labels are falsified. In 2005, major auction houses in the United States and abroad sold $166 million worth of wine, Mr. Matthews said. Last year, sales rose to $240 million, with numerous world records, like the 50 cases of 1982 Mouton-Rothschild that sold for $1.05 million at Sotheby’s.
Although theft of private wine collections is uncommon, Mr. Matthews said theft at wine warehouses in the United States and Europe was on the rise. With yet-to-be released vintages, like a 2005 Château Latour, fetching $800 a bottle, “that puts a lot of upward pressure on older wines,” he said. “In wine, the supply is finite. Rising prices are the result.”
The crime’s swirling reach has extended even to New York, with the list of stolen wines making the rounds of retailers and distributors.

“It’s going to be difficult to track,” said John Kapon, the auction director at Acker Merrall & Condit in New York. “The sad truth is, it should be relatively easy for whoever stole it to sell this wine without anyone being able to figure it out.” Unlike missing art and antiquities, hot wine has no official registry. “Something like an Amber alert would be very useful,” said George Derbalian, the president of Atherton Wine Imports, an importer of Burgundy and Bordeaux. Theresa Lawless, a manager for the Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, in Novato, Calif., one of several major American insurers of private wine collections, said loss of wine was typically a result of fire or power failures, not theft. “But this will definitely make people think twice,” Ms. Lawless said.

Wine cellar designers are increasingly installing fingerprint and voice recognition systems and crisscrossing laser beams that trigger alarms (à la the movie “Entrapment” with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones), said Tod Ban, a wine cellar designer in Atlanta who recently completed such a cellar for a private collector with 27,000 bottles. Evan L. Goldenberg, an architect and owner of Design Build Consultants in Greenwich, Conn., said radio-frequency labels that allow the tracking of individual bottles were on the horizon. In Atherton, where cameras are embedded in oaks, the theft has caused deep unease.“You’ve got to be careful,” said a resident, speaking through her intercom. “There’s been a lot of trouble around here