Clock’s ticking fellas. Three short days til Valentine’s. Unless you’re the sort of thoughtful, organized and creative man that had your plans sorted out months ago, you need a gift that sends the right message, and FAST!

“Roses… yeah, that’s the ticket.” No, it’s not. Women operate on a higher plane than men where the actual gift doesn’t matter as much as the effort put into it, and the signals it puts forth.

A single long stem rose with leafy garnish says, “I took the easy way out and bought this from the Mexican guy roaming the offramp.” A dozen long stem roses signals, “I felt guilty that I put no effort into this, and spent more than I needed to get the same, ho-hum reponse from you, honey.” Women compare notes on February 15 and the winner, I assure you, did a lot better than just roses.

So what’s a fail safe, last minute gift you can easily pick up this weekend? Chocolate. Not just any chocolate, though. Exquisite, extraordinary, sensual truffles that send the pulse racing for this holiday of the heart. Here’s your executive summary of a few, select truffle sources in the Orange County / Los Angeles area.

See’s Candies Red Satin Heart $21.35 for 1 pound What it says: “Good luck on the hip replacement, Grandma.” Pro: Grandma will love sharing these with her caregivers at the nursing home. Con: Buy See’s long shelf-life candies by the case for your business associates for Christmas. Hopefully, your lady deserves more special than that for Valentine’s Day. Photo © www.sees.com

Godiva Medium Romantic Heart $65 for 30 pieces What it says: “I care enough to send the fourth or fifth best.” Pro: You can buy these at any major shopping mall up until the very last minute. Hit the 7-Eleven for a card and you’re set. Con: Chocolate shells are thick to withstand shipping from Belgium, and lack finesse. Fillings tend to be heavily sugared for longer shelf life. Godiva rebuts high end artisans with the new Platinum Collection. Photo © www.godiva.com

L’Artisan du Chocolat $30 for 16 pieces What it says: “Rounding third & sliding home, finally.” Pro: Bonbons strike strong, singular flavor of the mostly classic Euro fillings inside. Left-brain mad scientists roast their own cacao beans. Con: Woeful website and no brochure make it difficult to ID which flavor to ask for on repeat visits. 3364 West 1st Street Los Angeles, CA 90004 310-880-9396

Chuao Chocolatier $25 for 16 pieces What it says: “Good girls don’t, (but I do)” Pro: Simply unsurpassed in Orange County. Chuao’s brilliant at layering complex flavors and textures in one bite: ex. Strawberry Caramel Balsamic Vinegar explodes in stages like fireworks. Right-brain creative geniuses. Con: The less adventurous may not enjoy the chili and spice based examples. Irvine Spectrum store: 95 Fortune Drive Suite 603 Irvine, CA 92618 949-453-8813 Four other stores in San Diego County

Jin Patisserie $25 for 12 pieces What it says: “Love the Asian persuasion” Pro: Buy local, taste global. Euro classics like lavender and Asian flavors like black sesame. Immaculate & obsessively crafted chocolates please the sophisticated eye and palate. Con: Hard to spot storefront and iffy street parking may keep you from getting there at all. Men, repeat after me: “effort put forth…” 1202 Abbot Kinney Blvd Venice, CA 90291 310-399-8801

Last minute buying means location, location, location. I’ve added map links to each of the three independent shops above. Remember who’s got your back.

Don’t forget to pick up a card.

Hello and welcome to those of you linking in from today’s story, Stately Soup, in the OC Weekly.

I’m posting fewer local restaurant reviews to my blog for a number of reasons. You can dig  up past reviews from the archives by clicking the Orange County category in the sidebar, at right.
Thanks for stopping by. Check for more of my local interest stories in upcoming issues of the OC Weekly’s food section!

I’ve tried not to bore you with too many updates about my bagel project. Be glad for self restraint because I’ve been intensely tweaking the formula every day for the past two weeks and have learned much with those experiments. I’m glad to say I found a way to hit all the targets for my personal definition of a good bagel. Most of it lies in dough technique, and the rest happens with oven technique.

I started out by using formulas from Peter Reinhart’s Crust & Crumb, Rose Levy Berenbaum’s The Bread Bible, and Beth Hensperger’s nearly identically titled book, The Bread Bible: 300 Favorite Recipes. Each yielded very different styles of bagel, which I’ll talk about when I review the books. Reinhart came closest to my target, and I modified his formula to get exactly what I wanted. What does that mean?

The dark color of the crust comes from high oven heat, which yields a toasty, caramelized flavor, and a chewy, bulletproof crust as thick as a credit card.

See those blisters? The glassine skin on thousands of those tiny bubbles shatter under the tooth, adding a crisp component to the chewy crust. Those blisters develop from two kinds of preferment (a loose poolish and pate fermentee, for you bread bakers out there), and a slow overnight rise in the fridge.

Tearing one of these things in half takes some effort, like ripping a small phone book in half with your bare hands. I kid you, but only a little. This is a desired feature for old school bagels (in my opinion). Bagels were brought to this country by hardboiled Eastern European immigrants who escaped a harsher life than we can imagine. Think they made bagels like poofy rolls with holes in the old country?

The interior is dense, thanks to high gluten flour kneaded by hand to yield a dough so stiff that anything short of a commercial spiral mixer would probably choke on it and burn out. Though the dough starts out dry, the short bake time at high heat keeps the interior moist.

Now that I’ve found one path to acheive my goal, it’s time to expand my understanding of this technically demanding bread. I’m a journeyman baker, and have just begun learning this craft. I wonder how many master bakers would be willing to share their knowledge with us through interviews on this blog? Stay tuned readers, it’s part of the year long bagel project!

In the sloping-forehead, knuckle-dragging days of this blog’s early history, I wrote about Ramentown, USA. Within a quarter mile of the intersection of Bristol and Baker Streets lay no less than five shops serving various styles of authentic Japanese ramen. The best of those, Dadami, brewed a rich, white broth made from pork bones, and with it, made the best Japanese curry that ever was. Sadly, they closed up under mysterious circumstances. I went through the seven stages of grief, although I didn’t recognize it at the time.

During the Guilt and Anger stages, Harvest Yakitori took over that location, but I couldn’t bear to walk into the same space occupied by other people who didn’t serve that special ramen, nor that curry. Not that I wished it upon them, but they closed less than a year later.

Acceptance has now settled in, and I wish the owners of Ramen House Mentatsu better luck in that cursed location. It’s an obscure location in the shadow of a Wahoo’s Fish Taco store.

I left my visit yesterday with a mixed first impression of the food. The broth, though made from pork bones, is not the unctious, fat-and-marrow rich tonkotsu style I prefer, but a clear, light style called “assari” in Japanese. To this broth, shoyu, salt, or miso is added to make the final soup in which the ramen noodles are served. I tried the Shio Butter ramen because the pat of butter melts atop the soup and makes an adequate substitute for the lard slick of my favored tonkotsu soup.

Several pallid slices of chashu (roast pork) lay on top. At first glance, the meaty slices look attractive, but a bite of the tough meat instantly reveals these are cut from lean pork loin. Pork shoulder is better suited for the job. Pork loin’s tender if it’s cooked quickly, but seizes up tougher than a wild boar in rigor mortis if it’s overcooked.

I give credit to a shop that makes their own shumai in addition to gyoza. Most ramen specialists don’t do shumai, so props for them expanding the menu to include them. But the steamed dumplings are a bit large to eat gracefullly, rather like an unsalted plug of ground pork in a wonton wrapper.

Similar sentiments for the gyoza. While cooked skillfully, the fillings tasted vaguely of nira (Japanese garlic chives) and garlic, but lacked depth. An A for effort on both of these items, but a C+ on execution.

Ramen shops stake their reputation on the quality of three things: the soup, the chashu, and their gyoza. The soup here is good representation of the assari style, and fans of that style will probably like it. The chashu is inexcusably tough, and the gyoza is passable at best.

Soup: A
Ramen considered as a whole dish: B+
Chashu: D
Gyoza: C+
Shumai: C+

Maybe I’m still bitter over the loss of Dadami, and have high expectations of anyone that takes over that space. I’m willing to go back and give Mentatsu more chances mainly because they have a broad menu and they’re open for dinner until 1 am. Call me an optimist, but surely on that large menu there’s a pearl in the oyster?

Ramen House Mentatsu
688 Baker St #7
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
714-979-2755
Open for lunch and dinner