King Estate Executive Chef Michael Landsberg Returns to the Winery Inspired by his Travels
In April, at the invitation of the Four Seasons Hotel at Marunouchi, in Tokyo, Japan King Estate Executive Chef Michael Landsberg spent a week in Tokyo preparing several special meals at the prestigious hotel. The guest appearance included the presentation of a number of lunches and dinners, several cooking classes, and culminated with a delectable 5 course gala dinner. The following are Chef Landsberg’s reflections on the successful trip, and at the bottom a gallery of photographs.
Traveling to Japan was such a lively and exhilarating experience. The restaurant options one has to choose from are mind-blowing and seemingly endless. There is everything from ramen (Japanese noodles), to world-class sushi, to the traditional ‘one-pot’ spots. The food presentation is inviting and highly polished, whether you are ordering from a world-class establishment, a department store food court, or from a vendor in Tokyo train station. Packaging is pivotal and rote, the Japanese truly believe that food should satisfy all of the senses.
The People Have Spoken: King Estate is Eugene’s Best Winery & Best Wedding Venue
King Estate stood out in the 4th Annual Register Guard Reader’s Choice Awards. We are honored to have won the reader voted contest in two categories as Eugene’s Best Local Winery and Best Wedding Venue. Make sure to check out the rest of the winners. We also pulled in second place for Eugene’s Best Outdoor Dining option, not bad considering we are 20 miles out of town!
Earlier this year we also took home “Best Winery” in the Eugene Weekly’s annual ‘Best of Eugene’. They summed it up pretty well:
King Estate, with its pristine setting in the heart of the Willamette Valley’s wine country provides the perfect spot to sample its array of masterful wine. One can sit and enjoy a glass and a gourmet meal overlooking the certified organic vineyard in a most picturesque setting. This year the vineyard celebrates its twentieth anniversary and continues to produce some of the most exceptional wines with grapes grown in its own vineyard as well as from various other Northwest regions. King Estate’s creations illustrate time and again why the Northwest is known for its wine.
King Estate Wins Best Savory Bite at FFLC’s Chefs’ Night Out 2012
The 2012 Chef’s Night Out brought together Lane County’s finest restaurants, wineries, and microbreweries to benefit Food for Lane County at the Hult Center in Eugene, OR. Chefs’ Night Out has become one of, if not the premiere Lane County food and wine event, and King Estate is proud to have once again been the title sponsor for the event for the fourth year in a row.
King Estate Rib Feast 2012
This year’s King Estate Rib Feast took place over two weekends with a total of six seatings. Guests enjoyed locally sourced ribs, chicken, and veggies amid bouquets of organic estate grown daffodils and King Estate NxNW wines.
Recipe: Quinoa Cakes with Blood Orange and Feta
By Sous Chef Benjamin Nadolny
Suggested Pairings: Signature Pinot Gris
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 1 large egg
- 2 T all-purpose flour
- 1½ T Tahini
- 1½ tsp red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp preserved lemon peel
- 1½ C quinoa, cooked
- ½ C lentils, cooked
- 5 oz spinach, cooked and squeezed dry
- ¼ C pine nuts, toasted and chopped
- 3 oz feta cheese, crumbled
- 2 T green onions, chopped
- 1 T fresh parsely, chopped
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 C bread crumbs, panko is preferred
- 3 T olive oil
Salad Bed
- 2 blood orange supremes
- 4 oz fresh spinach
- ¼ lb feta cheese, cubed
- ¼ C aioli or your favorite yogurt sauce, optional
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put together all of the quinoa cake ingredients except for the bread crumbs. Form the mixture into patties. Coat each patty with bread crumbs.
Heat a saute pan with the 3 Tb of olive oil. Pan fry both sides of the quinoa cakes. Transfer the cakes to the oven for 6-10 minutes.
Toss together the blood orange supremes, fresh spinach and feta cheese with a touch of olive oil. Plate the spinach blend and top with the quinoa cakes. The quinoa cakes are nicely finished with an aioli or yogurt sauce.
King Estate Executive Chef Michael Landsberg Goes to Tokyo
This April, at the invitation of the Four Seasons Hotel at Marunouchi, in Tokyo, Japan King Estate Executive Chef Michael Landsberg will spend a week in Tokyo preparing several special meals at this prestigious hotel. Chef Landsberg is honored to accept this invitation, and we can’t wait to see what inspiration he finds on the road to bring back to our own estate restaurant! The guest appearance will include the presentation of a number of lunches and dinners, several cooking classes, and will culminate with a delectable 5 course gala dinner.
Photos from the 2012 King Estate Crab Fest
King Estate’s 3rd Annual Crab Fest consisted of 11 seatings over 4 weekends and featured unlimited Dungeness Crab and Pinot Gris. Dungeness Crab is a seafood delicacy that thrives in the ocean off the Pacific Northwest Coast. The best crab is available in the middle of winter at the peak of harvest, and is a perfect pairing with our Pinot Gris. The menu consisted of steamed Dungeness Crab, assorted flavored butters and aioli, chunky wild mushroom and yukon potato chowder, German potato salad, Russian black kale with roasted garlic, cabbage slaw, Tobi’s Famous Corn Bread, and assorted desserts from The Bakery at King Estate. Over the course of the event over 3000 pounds of Dungeness Crab was served.
Did you miss out this year? Don’t worry, we host this event every weekend of January, so keep an eye out for next year. Crab Fest sells out quickly, so join our mailing list for a reminder and other King Estate updates and event information.
King Estate Caters the 8th Annual FOOD for Lane County Empty Bowls Dinner & Auction
This year, King Estate had the pleasure of catering the 8th Annual FOOD for Lane County Empty Bowls Dinner & Auction which took place Saturday evening, October 1, in the FOOD for Lane County warehouse. Storage docks that normally hold boxes of food were transformed into a harvest fair complete with shops replete with colorful awnings and stocked with auction items for all to see and bid on. A live auction was conducted in between dinner courses in the dining area, where guests had the chance to win trips to Hawaii and Mexico, Oregon sunstone jewelry, season passes to the Bach Festival, and lots of other exciting packages. Watch the video below that played before the meal to get a closer look at the 5 course menu King Estate prepared and meet some of the farmers that supplied ingredients.
2011 King Estate Tower Club BBQ
This year’s sold-out Tower Club BBQ aimed to please with sumptuous Northwest cuisine, great wine and a special performance by band Five Guys Named Moe of Portland, Oregon. The menu featured strawberry glazed northwest salmon, tangy BBQ smoked chicken, northwest potato salad, wild rice with local mushrooms, Tobi’s famous sweet corn bread, grilled zucchini, and assorted estate baked goods and fresh fruit.
Thanks to Your Support, The King Estate Restaurant Is Here to Stay!
This year King Estate faced a surprising challenge to our restaurant’s operation. Many of you know first-hand that our restaurant program is built on a firm dedication to support local sustainable agriculture, and it is just one of a great many rising businesses in Oregon’s food and wine industry that promote values like organic farming, fair wages, and fostering a vibrant local economy. In many ways the misguided appeal of our restaurant permit was aimed at senselessly undercutting the rising food and wine industry in Oregon.
With your very, very important support, which came in many forms: petition signatures, letters to legislators, blog comments and more, we undertook a major initiative at the Oregon legislature to protect ourselves and like businesses across this great state. As a result, we were not only able to protect our restaurant but we changed the law for the benefit of all wineries, and even paved the way for a few others in the state to establish their own full service restaurants. It was a profound success that began with a collective effort to speak up for common sense, for the future, and for responsible job creation.