Augieland

Say Please

My friends have told me that if I have a special ability with food and wine, it is not a gifted palate nor an especially deft hand in the kitchen; rather it is the treatment I receive in restaurants despite the fact I am basically destitute financially and not particularly good looking or well connected. Essentially, I receive the treatment restaurants give their regular customers, and that is achievable from your first visit to any good restaurant (a good place being one with a vision and a mission beyond making money.)  This is a series about the behaviors I see as natural that some do not.

Say Please. I have done some time behind a bar; I believe everyone should. The one thing that makes me crazy, even today on the patrons' side of the bar, is the absence of the word please. I like to believe this is only a Northeast of America, greater metropolitan New York area, trait but no matter what, it is stupid and offensive. Orders preceded solely with a "let me get a..." and "yea give me a..." have become the norm, even in the nicest of establishments. 

Setting aside the fact that the proper way to order a drink in English is "may I please have a...," any sentence that starts "let me..." or "give me..." must at very least be followed by a "please." No matter what you tip, if you don't say it, even if you say thanks, you are a dick and that is what the bartenders think. And dicks never become regulars.

If you can't be bothered to go the "may I please" route, it is actually better to just declare a drink i.e. "Vodka Soda," or "Sapphire Gibson." In a crowded bar this is efficient and, if done deliberately, with eye contact and an appropriate tip ($1 dollar per one drink made and/or $2 for every three drinks beyond, the exception being wine which should be tipped as food, 20% rounded up) will be very much appreciated. The bartender will seek your eyes out in the crowd next time you are looking. I have no idea how we devolved into a culture where one person will turn his back to a bartender and pass orders over his shoulder, one at a time, from his friends with nothing more then a "yea, I'lllll ahhhhhh have a....... annnnd aaaahhh...annnnd aaaaaaa..." but it is rude, it is inefficient for the rest of us, and it makes you look like a jerk. So cut it out... please.

MINIBAR: 593 chucknorrisillion stars

Fractals are soulless. Fractals are cool to look at, but they are soulless. It is not often you hear people discuss science as a component of art to an inspiring end. Sure, Leonardo da Vinci drew up plans for helicopters things like that made him a scientist as well as an artist, rather than making him a better artist. In the common consciousness, scientists are not artists and artists are seldom scientists.

At some point, someone (I am suspicious it was one of the chefs themselves) branded the practitioners of what I call the "New Food" food scientists.  People love to have things named, categorized, and sensationalized, but the truth is not many things without merit command respect and attention for very long. Good food has a soul and branding this food science does it an injustice in my opinion. The tops of the class in this new school are entering their sophomore years and, with Ferran Adrià as their laboratory-ensconced, studious headmaster, some of these ingénues are in our midsts now, offering some of the world's most exciting cuisine.

My most recent stop on my tour of edge-cutters was the Mini Bar project at the Café Atlantico in Washington DC.  Mini Bar is six seats on the third floor of Café Atlantico (a big place that makes a great mojito and has the lava bowls for table-side guacamole, but didn't impress much beyond that). Once you are seated at Mini Bar, your attention is so commanded you may as well be sitting at a sporting match. You are aware that you are in a crowd in the middle of a bustling restaurant, but all your attention is focused on the action of the chefs and seldom strays past the six seats. Mini Bar ends up feeling like a creative little oasis in a sea of the expected. The people you pass to get to your seat are happily scooping up guacamole, seemingly unaware of the adventure tucked away in the corner of the third floor.

This cuisine is entirely chef-driven: you are either a maestro, or a failure and, like any other art, being able to discuss the process and inspiration with the person making the choices helps lends credibility to the artist and his art. Understanding this, Mini Bar has trapped the guys making your food in a small box right in front of you. They make the food, they serve the food, and they explain the food. If you are wondering how the quinoa got so crunchy, all you really need do is wonder aloud and they will tell you.

The whole daunting process of dehydrating, re-hydrating, cooking for 3 days in olive oil held precisely at 121 degrees Fahrenheit, then putting in a coffee bean blender, adding to distilled water, fortifying with agar-agar protein, putting in a whipped cream can, and spraying onto a plate as a process to find the essence of the flavor of an ingredient, can easily be explained as a couple of simple choices to achieve an end.

Jose Andrés (the uncle of this movement to Ferran Adria's papa) is the executive chef of Mini Bar and had been in the restaurant, dining, prior to our arrival. The guys actually organizing and presenting our dishes were Edgar and Michael, with Ruben playing the role of choosing and serving wine, keeping us set with utensils for eating, and clearing. All was orchestrated by the chef de cuisine Katsuya who would regularly pop up from Café Atlantico's main kitchen to present, discuss process, and make sure we were as enthralled as could be. So, around nine o' clock on Friday night Mudslide, Bear, Thursday, and I sat down to watch this unfold:

.

SNACKS:

1. Olive Oil Bonbon: The components of a vinaigrette, consisting primarily a Greek olive oil, are trapped and served in a teardrop of hard sugar. You pop it in your mouth, crack the shell with your teeth, and a wash of greenness covers your palate.

2. Pork Rinds with Maple Syrup:  Served in a closed paper bag, to be split between two diners, these snacks are salty, sweet, and rounded out by a little cayenne pepper. It makes perfect sense to absentmindedly pluck these from their torn, open sack and chew them down while watching the chefs work their magic.

3. Salmon Roe Cone: Bagels and lox is the inspiration for this one -- a simple white bread cone filled with salmon roe and crème fraiche.

4. Popcorn Envelope: It was a strangely warm day for January, with so much fog that the local schools had a delayed opening. As a result, the humidity compromised the integrity of this envelope that had been made of powdered popcorn so much that they decided not to serve this course. Of course, seeing the envelopes being thrown out made me insist on trying one, so I ate it out of my hand when Katsuya gave one to me. It was filled with dried butter, with a touch of sweetness. Its integrity was definitely compromised by the fact that bits of it stuck to both our hands, but it tasted great and I am glad he decided to let me try it anyway.

5. Passion Fruit Whiskey Sour: In a shot glass, two layers. First, whiskey sour, topped with a passion fruit crème. We sipped it, then we shot it.

6. Beet Tumbleweed: A thread of beet flesh made crunchy and formed into a woven ball. The primary ingredient being air rather than the beet, the couple of micro greens that had been added gave it the appearance of having rolled through a desert and gathered a couple of small things to it along the way.

7. Mojito Spritz: A small, silver spray bottle I imagine was designed to carry Designer Imposters perfume, filled with mojito. We held on to it through the entire meal and, at lulls, we would spray our mouths, refreshing and stimulating them with the limey, rummy goodness. It reeked havoc with the wine, but was great with the food.

FLAVORS & TEXTURES

8. Minibar Olives: Using science, somehow they have taken all the matter out of an olive and left only its flavor. Thin membranes contain a green fluid and a black fluid. The green one tastes like a green olive, only more so, and the black like a black one.

9. Pineapple Salmon Ravioli with Avocado & Quinoa:  The ravioli wrap is the thinnest sheet of pineapple wrapped around the salmon. Texture is an essential element of great food and the puffed quinoa in this dish gives it the lightest crunch, better then I can imagine any other ingredient would.

10. Deconstructed Glass of White Wine: A long, rectangular dish contains a thin jelly of a viogner-based wine.  On top of it are about a dozen things people taste in white wine, from lemon zest and mint, to butter and vanilla.  With your spoon, you scoop up the jelly and flavor-aspect-topping, taste them, and figure out what they might be. When you are finished, the chefs tell you.

11. Corn on the Cob:  A smoked, mini-corn seared in a pan, garnished with a cornflower and corn nuts. It ends up tasting like summer corn grilled at a barbeque.

12. Mellon Tenderloin with Almond Espuma & Micro Salad: The soft bit of the melon that the seeds are tangled in has been picked clean of seeds, (which were replaced by passion fruit seeds,) cut away from the harder, less flavored meat of the fruit, and seared. It is topped with the salad and the almond espuma. It was this course that made me ask what salt they were using. Good salt, well handled, is an amazing thing and, having the chefs right there, you would be a fool not to ask. The answer was Maldon.

13. Organized Caesar Salad: A thin sheet of jicama is rolled around brioche croutons and anchovy fillets, and the leaves of the heart of romaine are wrapped like maki, sliced and placed next to a dollop of Caesar dressing. One roll is topped with a quail egg, the other with finally grated Parmigiano.

14. Cotton Candy Foie Gras:  A simple, little cube of foie rolled in crushed corn-nuts, ensconced in a white wrap of cotton candy. Sweet and rich with the added dynamic of air and salt.

15. Conch Fritters: On the outside, the oddly-shaped deep brown caramel of a typical conch fritter, on the inside, a thick liquid I can only describe as rich conch bisque.

16. Oysters and "Champagne": An oyster in a bowl with all kinds of tiny little spikes of flavor, immersed in Cava foam.

17. Zucchini in Textures: Bear declared this the dish that disproves intelligent design, because if there were truly a wise being guiding along the development of things on the planet earth, this would be what zucchini tasted like. Had you told me a dish that had, as its major component, a layer of jellied zucchini seeds would be the one that knocked me out, I would have been doubtful before this meal.

18. Hot and Cold Foie Gras Soup: Served in a cappuccino cup, this looks as unassuming as can be. In reality, it is all the richness of paté and all the unctuousness of seared foie gras, devoid of the oil inherent to their traditional preparations.

19. "Guacamole": A spicy tomato sorbet is wrapped in the thinnest slices of avocado I have ever seen, with crumbled Fritos dusted on top. This is a solution to the dilemma of how to eat things that depend on tomato as an ingredient, when all the tomatoes are crappy Floridian pink baseballs.

20. Feta Linguine: the water from making feta is tightened and formed into noodles with the addition of a protein. These noodles are tossed with feta and end up as the flavors you dream of when eating pasta in a creamy cheese sauce.

21. Frozen Beet Soup with Bay Scallop: The components of borsht, deconstructed and made better by the addition of a scallop.

22. Egg 147º with Caviar: Michael explained that the white of an egg sets at 145º F and the yellow sets at 150º, so by cooking the egg and holding the water at a 147°, you can cook the white without setting the yellow, creating a perfectly soft-boiled egg.

23. Lobster Americaine: The poached tail of a lobster is served skewered by a plastic pipette that is filled with a reduction of the lobster's other components (the coral, the tamale and the bodies). When you pull the slice of tail off the needle of the syringe, you simply squeeze the bulb and your mouth is filled with the briny essence of the lobster.

24. Sea Urchin with Pomegranate Air: A slice of uni under a pile of pomegranate-flavored bubbles.

25. New England Clam Chowder: The parts of great chowder, decomposed. Potatoes and milk are foamed, the clam is raw, the onions are a chive oil, all the parts separated, concentrated, and brought back together as a more prononced flavor in your mouth.

26. Breaded Cigala: Cigala is a giant prawn that is usually served breaded in Spain. At Mini Bar, they take the thinnest slice of brioche and sear the flesh to it, giving a light buttery crunch to the otherwise soft langoustine with a spike of scorch to offset the meats sweetness.

27. "Philly Cheese Steak" Mini Bar, Katsuya, and the boys, obviously love to take the familiar apart into its fundamental flavor components and reorganize them into something that makes an impact. The flavors of a great Philly steak are steak, cheese, hoagie loaf, and sometimes mushrooms. Here we have a tiny French baguette, but just the crust, filled with a foam that is just the flavor of whiz without the goopy texture, then black truffle slices are laid on top, under slices of Kobe beef. This is then cooked with a hand-held torch. If you've ever wondered what is to be gained by "playing with your food," this is the dish that should make you encourage this behavior. It is the best cheese steak I have ever had.

28. Watermelon Air: In the role of intermezzo here was a bowl filled with watermelon bubbles. A trough of watermelon water that has had a light protein added to it is mixed with an immersion blender. The bubbles that are formed on top are spooned into a dish and served to provide this transition to dessert.

SWEET END

29. Apples with red wine "Freddy Girardet": When we first arrived, little round balls were being tossed in a sauté pan with a dark liquid. From their look, I deemed them meatballs and from the sweetish smell I guessed the liquid yuzu. It was actually this: the balls were apple, the liquid was cabernet and, after caramelizing for a couple of hours, they were our first dessert. An adaptation of the famous Swiss/French chef Freddy Girardet's apples cooked in spiced Bordeaux. Served with homemade sorbets.

30. Piña Colada: The last deconstruction of the evening -- layers of vanilla, rum, coconut, and bits of pineapple all layered in a dessert-wine glass.

31. Saffron Gumdrop: Saffron and sweet; two great tastes. Wrapped in a tart, edible, clear wrapper.

32. Fruit Cocktail: The pipette appears again, this time the bowl is full of a concentrated fruit puree, with small fruits spiked on it. Here I feel the need to mention, fruit out of season never makes sense to me and this focused on raspberries, which taste right in July.

33. Maracuya Marshmallows: A passion fruit-flavored marshmallows.

34. Chocolate Covered Corn Nuts: I tend away from sweets, they're just not my thing, but bitter chocolate and salty corn snacks, that's genius.

35. Halls Lollipop: A thin, powerfully minty, hard-sugar lolly on a stick.

36. To make up for the loss of the popcorn envelope, we were presented with a curry-flavored puff made of powdered popcorn that was spun in cotton candy. Very cool textures and flavor.

• The wines we had were solid. Some Chilean some European all backing up the food which was star by staying out of the way. Ask Ruben to pick and trust him it worked for us.

This really is a new movement, and the practitioners are figuring out what works best for what. At Alinea, Grant Achatz has created the multi-course, multi-hour, fine-dining experience that includes things like seared olive oil.  He has excelled at adapting finery to these creative concepts and presentations.  At Mini Bar, José and Katsuya have made the experience entirely about exploration. This meal more invigorates than sates. You sit on a backless stool, at a nondescript bar that from a distance looks like a sushi bar jammed into a local Hunan House . There is an enjoyable informality that encourages you to relax and be convivial with your fellow explorers, whom you sit abreast of, as well as your tour guides right in front of you in the kitchen.

Good things come in small packages. If you are a person able to give yourself over to Mini Bar's experience, you will be amazed at all the mini things you will discover. All in all, there is enough of each course to experience the tastes (I would say the biggest course was four bits and the smallest was one). At it’s end, you have had more of an adventure than a meal, each little stop a creative dish made by talented artist; each one unique and perfect. And the best part is that the check is mini as well. Compared to every other interlude I have ever made in fine dining, this one somehow manages to be come in at about one third the cost of my previous experiences. Bear suggested they managed to keep prices down by giving us the flavor and selling the actual food again somewhere else. Whatever the methods, DC has a real gem to show for itself and, as anyone that owns a ring will tell you, a tiny perfect diamond kicks the crud out of a huge, beautiful zircon, once you look deep into it.

Modern: 761 Popzillian stars

Modern art leaves some people wanting, while others are totally exhilarated by it. As with all art, there is just no knowing. I personally love some artists while others make me say "so what"? One of my all time favorite pieces of art is a Warhol self-portrait, but the cans of soup and Marilyn Monroe works that made him famous have no sway over me. Modern art simply impresses me or it doesn't. I have yet to see a piece that upset me as such, or one that struck me in my tracks. It is more often that I say things like, "that is just a different chair, it is not a new chair, and it is not a particularly beautiful chair, it is a different chair and I think this time they used chrome. I can't say for sure why this chair is in a museum."

Ask any New Yorker when the last time they went to the Empire State Building, The Met, or The Statue of Liberty was and you will be amazed how many have never been or at least not since a grade school trip. Locals go to local spots; tourists go to tourist spots. Which came first, the hotel bar or the museum restaurant? Both are obviously geared toward travelers, the décor and the prices always on a much higher scale than their quality or value.  People on vacation spend more money than they would at home and they expect everything they see to be a spectacle.

If Danny Meyer has a gift it is for creating places that attract certain types of people, and giving them exactly what they want, every time. At Blue Smoke, he established the first place in New York that serves exceptionally good BBQ to people who want and can afford it, in a room that feels authentically like a NY BBQ room would feel, had there ever been one before. There is no dumb kitsch, like chevron signs, but there is a lot of wood and the coffee comes in a mug, not a cup. At Gramercy Tavern, Danny created the room you eat true, American, fine food in. Danny has made a bread bar make sense at Tabla, and the perfect room for bankers to have meetings at Elleven Mad. What New Yorker isn't delighted to have Chicago dogs in our life, and to eat them sitting in a beautifull park? This long, successful track record makes me suspect that The Modern is perfect and it is I who was in the wrong place. Truth be told, I seldom go to MOMA, I hardly ever eat above 23^rd Street, and I hate places tourists like. So why go to The Modern? Because all of Danny's other places make so much sense to me.

The design of The Modern is very, well, modern. There are highly polished chrome columns, frosted glass drop ceilings, a bar of raw marble, and a gorgeous glass wall looking out on a sculpture garden. There is the prettiest spork I have ever seen laying next to your napkin when you first sit in your free-standing, half-round banquette, complete with leather throw pillows. It ends up feeling like the lounge in an ultra luxury hotel in South Beach.

I was out with Trombone and Bubby and we decided, with a list so vast and in the interest of efficiency, we would ask the bartender to pick us a white from Burgundy from '02 to kick off our wine experience. Our Bartender automatically deferred to a sommelier that quickly showed up and suggested a Meursault Les Meix Chavaux, by Domaine Roulot. Boy was it good. It started off all warmed butter on the nose and opened to show mint and cashews. On the palate, it was lemon and pineapple, with hazelnuts and cashews as it came up in temperature. It was a perfect pairing for the corn-nuts, which were on the bar as a snack

The wines for the rest of the evening were good, if a little lackluster. They were all paired per course with the tasting menu and from the by-the-glass list, and ended up feeling a little trite. There was a bit of irony at the end when the sommelier from the beginning of the night poured the last wine of the evening from a carafe and, when I asked what it was he said, "you tell me." So I went through the rigors of tasting, and declared it Northern Rhone because of all the Syrah, but with a serious amount of Grenache. It was the old vines Fonsalette, by Rayas, which is Southern Rhone, but a 50% Grenache 50% Syrah blend. So I guess what we have learned is if a wine guy blinds you on a purplish red wine just say "Fonsallete," and get it over with.

I would list the wines for you except that at the beginning of the meal the Sommelier said there would be a list for me at the end, and when the end came there wasn't one, so I gave them my card and they promised to email me what I had had.*

Dinner started with a beggar's purse stuffed with caviar and crème fraiche. I am a guy that believes everything on a plate should be edible; I eat the flowers when chefs use them as garnish. The purse was presented on a thin slice of lime, so I picked it up with the purse and it blew it right out of the water. The caviar was completely overwhelmed by the lime's rind and the crème fraiche barely toned it down. There was a lovely piece of gold leaf on top, which I also ate but, like I said, I believe if a chef puts it on a plate he wants you to eat it.

The amuse bouche came next. It was house-cured salmon with a small salad of small greens. It is not salmon season and, although there were flavors of the cure, there was no flavor of salmon.

The rest of our dinner was the Winter Truffle Menu, with the slight variance that, in a confused negotiation where we asked to substitute out two courses for Trombone (not a huge fish fan) we ended up with an entire change of course and order at the end. Not a huge deal, because Bubby and I are omnivores and nothing will upset us but, because the change wasn't explained as a choice of the chef in order of course flow, I assume our message was lost on the way to the kitchen. My assumption is based on the fact that when we got to the changed course, the fourth, there was a lag in an otherwise flawless service.

Black truffle Mile Feuilles with Hamachi and Sullivan County Foie Gras, with a Toasted Hazelnut Dressing: The toasted hazelnuts added a great crunch to the otherwise very soft construction of the dish. For some reason, breadcrumbs were also added, kind of showing you what the hazelnuts were there to do, but paling in comparison. There was also a slight metallic bitterness to the mille feuilles that was not bad, but not explainable.

Roasted Langoustine with Yogurt Emulsion and Cardamom Oil: Two langoustines with a very subtle yogurt. Langoustines have a unique texture. Especially when roasted, they take on a very particular mushiness, and I found it interesting to pair it with an also very mushy cactus pear. Except for the seeds of the pear, it was a rather soft dish in execution and taste.

Buckwheat Soup with Black Truffle ravioli and a Poached Quail Egg: This was our favorite course. It had a deep flavor of mushrooms, not so much the truffles, but a good, honest flavor. As a note, poached quails' eggs are always over-cooked. This restaurant obviously has a water circulator (it shows up in the proteins) why not soft boil it in that? Now that would be modern.

Next up should have been Black Cod with Minted Baby Leeks and Blood Orange Sauce but, rather, it was Pancetta Wrapped Diver Scallop Studded with Black Truffles, Braised Sunchokes and Truffle Jus: I am pretty sure the scallop, which had had bits of truffle threaded through it, had been cooked sous vide, before a final sear. If not, it was in a cool oven for a long time. It was cooked all the way through; yet not rubbery as overcooked scallops tend to get when the process used was fast and hot.

Prime Aged Beef Striploin and braised cheeks with Chicory Emulsion: Pretty sure this was also done sous vide, because it was very uniformly cooked, however it was presented as Waygu beef and was tougher then the Waygu I have previously experienced. If so, this dish witnessed the bringing together of two popular trends in New York fine dining: sous vide and Waygu. Unfortunately, as sometimes evidenced in modern art, just because some hot ideas can be combined, doesn't mean they should.

Pheasant Breast 'Crépinette" with black Truffle and Seasonal Vegetables: An adaptation of the DB burger, it seemed to be a ball of ground pheasant stuffed with foie gras and truffle, bound in what I imagine is the crepe. Probably cool, but I had squandered my attention on everything before it.

We were so spent at this point we opted to skip dessert.

The Modern makes a lot of sense for what and where it is. In my head, I can understand why every decision was made. The truth is, everything was very solid; the place was full of what looked like happy people. Not every person should go to every restaurant. I think going forward I will spend my food dollars at Union Square and Gramercy Tavern, and leave a seat there for people that understand Ad Reinhardt.

*On 1/17/06 I found the following email in my inbox and, as a testament to the fact that, no matter what, a Danny Meyer restaurant is about thorough service, here is a list of what we drank. The last two are paired to the wrong course but the names and vintages seem right.

Course 1:  Black truffle mille feuilles with hamachi and foie gras

Wine pairing:  Sylvaner "Cuvee Vieilles Vignes", Dirler-Cade, Alsace,

2003

Course 2:  Langoustine with yogurt emulsion

Wine pairing:  Savigny Premier Cru "Hauts Marconnets" Chanson Pere &

Fils, Burgandy, 2003

Course 3: Buckwheat soup with black truffle ravioli and poached egg

quail

Wine pairing: Saumur, Chateau du Hureau, 2002

Course 4: Black cod with minted baby leeks and blood orange sauce

Wine Pairing: Domaine de Trevallon, Vin de Pays des Bouches du Rhone,

2003

Course 5: Beef Striploin and Braised Cheeks

Wine Pairing:  Chateau de Fonsalette, Reynaud, Cotes du Rhone, 1990

Course 6:  Pheasant breast crepinette with black truffle and seasonal

vegetables

Wine Pairing: Chateau Gruard Larose, Saint Julien, Bordeaux, 1994

Breath Palate

Imagine if you could make your breath smell like lemon tea or cola? What if you could match your breath to that awesome lavender toiletry set your aunt gave you for Christmas? Or even better, what if you were so obsessed with wine that you spent hours a day with your nose in glass trying to sniff out things that made it unique like rose petals and vanilla and learned a company had started making a saccharine-free toothpaste that came in like 50 flavors like rose and sweet salt?

I walked into C.O. Bigelow last week and saw a display of tubes of toothpaste by a company called Breath Palate. Some looked cool (sweet salt and Indian curry) some looked like they would be cool if the weren’t overblown (strawberry and pumpkin pudding).

Next to all the individual tubes were four pre-packaged kits of five tubes each named; sweet tooth, east meets west, smoothie and, the one I chose, Zen palate. Contained inside were five, white, travel-sized tubes in the flavors of:

Lemon Tea, #24: Actually tastes exactly like a glass of well-brewed Darjeeling with a thin slice of lemon in it. It is quite a fun flavor, while brushing, but not the best taste to walk around with.
Cola, #31: Tastes like cola; not as acidic as Coke or sweet as Pepsi, more like RC, but doesn’t leave you with that stripped feeling on your teeth the beverages do.
Rose, #6: Who wouldn’t want their breath to smell like roses? With this one I brushed and made wife smell my breath, with no indication of what it was, and she knew right away.
Lavender, #20: Because most of the time I have smelled lavender as an isolated scent it was cologne or bath products, it reminded me of soap, in a good way.
Honey, #8: Not as sweet as you would think; it is fun to combine with the lemon tea.

I have no love for the ridiculously over-done mintiness of most toothpaste so, for me, these are a great discovery. These all left my mouth feeling clean, while still believing I would be able to taste more things later in the day. They say all natural on the label, but I honestly don’t know what that means in the world of toothpaste. I know it means nothing in food. It does taste like what it says it will and it makes your mouth feel clean. I promise I’ll post again if the dentist tells me I developed 20 cavities in the upcoming year.

vintage, region tasting '02 burgundy 2.1

2002 Red Burgundies: The Grand Crus Part I was last night's EWS tasting. As always, it was held at the Warwick Hotel's conference room with a nice sized crowd for tasting, about forty. We tasted blind, all the bottles safely hidden in brown lunch bags and numbered well before our arrival. I have listed the wines in the order they were tasted.

Bonnes-Mares, Lucien Le Moine:

• Nose: Cinnamon, fennel seeds, moth balls, port, anise liqueur
• Palate: Long finish, blueberries, tart, young tannins

Musigny, "Cuvée Vielles Vignés." Comte de Voüé:

• Nose: Blueberries, cinnamon, black stones, anise cookies
• Palate: Acidic, minerals, sharp tannin, black stones, beginnings of harmony

Grands Echezeaux, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti:

• Nose: Raspberries, green notes, wisteria vines, minerals, game, cherry
• Palate: Fresh red fruit and green tannin

Corton-Bressandes, Follin-Arbelet:

• Nose: Red currant, raspberry, cranberry, cherry), minerals, barnyard
• Palate: Big red fruit, simple, young tannins

Romanée-St. Vivant, Leroy:

• Nose: Oak, Barnyard, toasted eel-skin, game, cherry
• Palate: Tart, cinnamon, clove, silky tannins

La Romanée, Bouchard:

• Nose: Minerals, chlorinated water, tight
• Palate: Good acidic spine, camphor, greens

Romanée-St. Vivant " Cuvée Vielles Vignés,"Dominique Laurent:

• Nose: Popcorn, epoxy, creosote, barnyard funk, hanging game
• Palate: Tart cherry, creosote, long lasting firm tannins, game

Clos Vougeot, "Musigni" Gros Frere et Soeur:

• Nose: Game, charcoal, horseshit, diesel, mushrooms, iron
• Palate: Firm and round, game, cherries

Romané St. Vivant, Jean-Jacques Confuron:

• Nose: Game, cherry candy, raspberries, cinnamon
• Palate: Zippy, ethanol, anise liqueur, great mature tannins

Musigny, Drouhin:

• Nose: Nutmeg, spice cake, Grand Marnier, yellow chartreuse, amaro, cherry
• Palate: Focused red fruits, soft tannins

Clos Vougeot, Jacques Prieur:

• Nose: Port, minerals, autumn spices, cherries
• Palate: Dense, raspberries, minerals

Bonne-Mares, Georges Roumier:

• Nose: Cedar, raspberries, game, glass, pet
• Palate: Crushed red fruit, firm tannins, defined acidity

Bonne-Mares, Robert Groffier:

• Nose: Glue, hung meat, lilac, horseshit, roasted salted game, Riesling
• Palate: Oily, rich, irony, cherries, smoke

The best thing about Burgundy is it keeps you guessing. More than the smells I encountered, the fun of this tasting was in knowing there was a name for the thing I was smelling and, right before I came to it, having to stop because my lungs filled up, then going back to it only to find a new smell had taken its place.

Burgundy is beautiful, elusive, sexy and as funky as George Clinton. My favorites smell of cherries wrapped in horseshit with Slim Jims on the side when they first open. Then they go all over the place. I've been told this doesn't appeal to everyone. If so, I wish less people would buy them so the prices would come down.

All these wines were wonderful. Not a dud in the lot. As should be expected from grand cru burgundy, trying to declare a best would be like trying to capture lightning -- their whole mission in life is to change constantly. What I will tell you is that last night, in that room, with those thirteen bottles, in that company, during that weather, in that sweater, with that lighting, I thought that the Bonne-Mares, Georges Roumier, showed best, closely followed by, Bonne-Mares, Robert Groffier, and Romanée-St. Vivant "Cuvée Vielles Vignés," Dominique Laurent.

After a very close collective vote, with every bottle making a showing, the group decided the Romanée-St. Vivant "Cuvée Vielles Vignés," Dominique Laurent was the runaway winner, with Romanée-St. Vivant, Leroy, and Bonne-Mares, Robert Groffier close together in second and third. What's that tell you? Nothing, and that's the glory of good burgundy. Enjoy!

Do you think this is a good idea?

There are many things out there that I am not an authority on, and corn subsidies are one of them. I have friends who are authorities and I enjoy trying to learn from them. Here is my lay understanding of the situation.

Because the government started subsidizing grain production some time long ago, farmers that wanted to be sure they would have money at the end of the growing season (not always guaranteed in the honest version of farming) could grow corn, wheat, soy and cotton and, if there was no market, our taxes would keep them flush on the supply side of market with no demand. As a result, the government became the biggest buyer of corn around, so they started looking for places that these grains could be unloaded. They subsidized research on alternative uses and learned things like that you can feed it to cows (as long as you pump them full of antibiotics because it will make them very sick.) With subsidies for corn an incentive for easy money, the market was flooded with this unwanted product. But the subsidized research resulted in the discovery of plenty of uses for the surplus (think high fructose corn syrup, and look at the ingredients of any food in a bag) with often disastrous consequences to the health and waistlines (though deceptively, not the wallets) of our nation.

It is a logic best illustrated by the actions of Catch 22's character Milo Minderbinder, who dips cotton balls in chocolate because too much of it has been purchased and the soldiers have to eat it, since it's already been paid for after all.

There is an article in the Wall Street Journal today explaining that big auto, Ford and GM, are making a big push to make vehicles that work on Ethanol, which is one of the many ways to use all the extra corn. Now whether Ethanol is a viable fuel source depends on which side you are on. The corn guys love it, the ecologists hate it, and this government thinks it's a viable alternative.

No one disagrees, though, that it costs way more to make corn into fuel, if you count in your dollars paid from our taxes to subsidize corn. That, even with the corn subsidies, it would cost the consumer more to run his/her car on ethanol and that, if the horrible system of subsidies finally ended, it would cost at least three times what oil currently does.

Last week GM ran its first national advertising campaign promoting one of its so-called flex-fuel vehicles, the Chevy Tahoe. Ford last month began selling flex-fuel versions of its popular F-150 pickup. Vehicles that are designated flex-fuel are capable of running on gasoline but can use the alternative E85, a fuel mix that is 85% ethanol and 15% gas. WSJ 1/10/05

Ford and GM combined plan to produce 650,000 vehicles this year that can use E85, which currently costs about $2 a gallon. Vehicles that run on ethanol -- which is distilled from corn and grain -- are less fuel efficient than gasoline, in the order of 25%, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The average cost to operate a Chevrolet Monte Carlo, for example, using E85 is $1,578 compared with $1,344 on gasoline alone, according to the Energy Department's fueleconomy.gov. The gasoline version emits an estimated 7.6 tons of greenhouse gas per year compared with 5.6 tons for E85. WSJ 1/10/05

Auto executives note that ethanol is never going to be a complete replacement for gasoline because ethanol production isn't sustainable on a mass level. But if some fraction of gasoline could be replaced by ethanol, even 10%, that could have a significant impact on foreign-oil dependence. Critics are concerned about the economic equation. Ethanol is heavily subsidized, from federal dollars given to farmers to the 51 cents a gallon given to companies blending the fuel. But corn is just one way to create ethanol, and research continues that will allow it in the future to be made from anything that was once green, including sawgrass, rice straw, tree bark or sugarcane waste, to name a few examples. WSJ 1/10/05

Toyota officials said they haven't produced ethanol-capable vehicles here because they haven't needed the credits for government fuel-economy requirements. Toyota doesn't believe that corn-based ethanol is an environmentally friendly or sustainable solution, said Bill Reinert, national manager of advanced technology for Toyota's U.S. operation, but the company's opinion could change if ethanol is successfully made from other materials. WSJ 1/10/05

Some studies, particularly a recent one by Cornell University, have suggested that producing ethanol from corn costs more energy than it creates, when the diesel fuel used by tractors and the production of fertilizer and other factors are considered. NYT 1/07/06

At this point, I think we are all aware that Ford and GM are in an enormous amount of trouble in their own businesses, and I like to take the view that that is because they are bad at their business. Having lived through Iococa, I also believe the government helped them become bad. Either way, they are failing. By the way, Toyota is hugely successful.

I totally understand GM and Ford thinking this is a way forward. Ethanol is easy for two reasons: most cars already work on it (and, if not, the modification is easy) and the idea of making fuel from corn is a marketing dream. Sadly, it will take government involvement to make it accessible, and subsidies to keep it cheap, as inefficient as it is. It is a horrible idea. Buy a Prius and, if the American automakers don't start making sound, smart, forward-looking (the model T ran on ethanol, this is not new technology born of a concern for fossil fuel dependence) business decisions, let them fail. Please, let's not be fooled again.

Don't be a tourist

My friends have told me that if I have a special ability with food and wine, it is not a gifted palate nor an especially deft hand in the kitchen; rather it is the treatment I receive in restaurants despite the fact I am basically destitute financially and not particularly good looking or well connected. Essentially, I receive the treatment restaurants give their regular customers, and that is achievable from your first visit to any good restaurant (a good place being one with a vision and a mission beyond making money.)  This is a series about the behaviors I see as natural that some do not.

Don’t be a tourist. By this I mean be savvy. Know the fundamentals of how a restaurant works. Restaurant people, like folks in any other profession, have their own language and their own systems. Knowing and being interested in their basic paradigms shows them a certain respect. Respect leads to better conversation; it won’t get you invited to the Wednesday night staff orgy, but it will help the staff consider you a good guest. Here are a couple of quick tips for behavior that will help them see you, as you want to be seen:

1. Never order filet mignon in a steak house. Nothing screams "I have zero understanding of process" like ordering filet in a steak house. The more a muscle works, the more tough it will be, but it will also get more blood. More blood equals more flavor. Indeed, no part of a cow is more tender than the loin, however it also has the least flavor. No one has ever gone through the efforts to open a place specializing in steaks because they believe they can make filet taste great. Filet belongs in a normal restaurant, with sauce. When you arrive at a steak house, ask what the place’s special is, and get that. Rib Chop at Strip House, Porterhouse at Luger’s, Mutton at Keen’s and guess what at Delmonico’s? If the place doesn’t have a specialty, it is not a steak house and not worth the money.

2. By the time you have bought the cookbook of a chef or seen his TV show he is a brand, not a chef. Don’t walk into some celebrity’s restaurant and ask if he is there. If he is, you will know -- he will be the guy that keeps walking out of the kitchen because it's too hot. If he is there, feel free to walk right up and say hi. For a chef to get famous, he had to try very hard. It’s not like he was an actor or something. If he doesn’t embrace his fame, make him uncomfortable for getting what he wished for.

3. There is no such thing as an eight o’clock reservation. There are before eights and after eights. When trying to get a difficult reservation (say Thursday, in this town) ask for the ½ of the night you want and be flexible. Places make money on table turns and each table needs to seat twice. Holding a table open for an eight o' clock kills that chance. That being said, 5:30 is a crap offer unless you are 65+ years old. If it's all they've got, move on and figure a way to ingratiate yourself for next time.

4. Don’t ask for a recommendation unless you want one. When you are asking a server for recommendations you are basically asking a question that a good server will answer in one of two ways: he will either tell you his favorite thing or he will chose the thing the chef likes most from his repertoire. If you don’t intend to get anything he suggests on the menu, and you have said “what do you recommend?” you have asked the wrong question. If you are just trying to narrow a field, say something like, “I was looking at x and y which do you prefer?” When you ask a waiter for a recommendation you are establishing that you have respect for him in his position. If you then reject his advice because, “duck nuts are just too skeevy,” you have established yourself as a nit and your relationship with this place will follow on those lines.

5. When you have purchased a good bottle of wine, offer to share a taste to your server (rather then cooing about it to him). The sommelier has probably already had it, but the server may not have. Either way, you are sharing an experience. If he has tasted it, your gesture will probably be declined, although appreciated. If he hasn’t, you will be adding a quill to his quiver of talents and he will appreciate it. For what will cost you about one of the ounces in your bottle, you'll open a dialogue that will allow you to benefit from his experiences. Discussion may then ensue on your common likes and dislikes, which will greatly help you value his recommendations which will be good to know once you are a regular.

bread 6

In the food processor, with a metal blade, this time I put:

3 ½  cups Bellaria Farina tipo “00”(2.1g protein per ¼ cup)
2 tsp Diamond Crystal Coarse Kosher salt
1 ¼   tsp saf-instant dry yeast
1 ½ cup Lynx natural Mineral Water From Milan

I gave it a quick whiz in the food processor. Usually, before I slowly add the water, I combine the dry products for five or so seconds, but this time I realized after adding all the water I had forgotten the yeast so I sprinkled it in while I let the blade spin. Then I placed the dough in a large metal bowl to rise. The dough itself was extremely moist and loose. I laid the protective plastic-wrap across the top of the bowl, letting it lay inside the bowl close to the dough.

3 hours later I turned it out of the bowl onto a floured board, and punched it down. It was unworkable, I would guess I needed about ½ a cup of bench flour to be able to handle it without it gluing itself to whatever it touched. Once I got it to stop sticking it to everything, I divided it into 4 balls and let it rest under a floured side towel.

The 4 balls proofed for 1 hour. I then rolled them out, gently, folded them into thirds, pinched their seams closed, and rested them between two floured towels for ½ hour while I preheated the oven to 425.

I slashed the top of each loaf with a razor blade and cooked them in the preheated oven for ½ an hour.

This time I:
1.    Made the bread entirely of one kind of flour.
2.    Switched to Diamond Crystal kosher salt; there was too much variation in the flavor of the breads made with Mortons.
3.    Used a bottled mineral water.
4.    Ended up using much more bench flour then I’d needed before.
5.    The dough, in spite of all the bench flour, was almost liquid and required the lightest touch to work it and get it into the oven.
6.    Decided that “00” flour is soft as confectioners’ sugar and quite fun to play with.
7.    Switched back to spraying the walls of the oven with a spray bottle.

With Bread 6 I found:
1.    There was much more air in the crumb.
2.    It was far creamier tasting.
3.    It might tolerate even a little more salt.
4.    The crust was much lighter, except on the bottom where it was nicely thick.
5.    The late yeast addition doesn’t seem to have hurt it any.

Bread six was born out of an experiment involving primarily Italian ingredients.  Finding “00” flour was easy (all I had to do was go to The Garden Of Eden on 14th St) and European mineral water is ubiquitous. Sadly, the “00” flour they sell has about half the protein of bread flour. I will have to keep my eyes out for someone with “00” flour in the 4g+ protein range. I figured it was worth a shot, and think I have happily discovered some insights into the more airy crumb as a result.

Bring on bread 7!!!

bread 5

In the food processor, with a metal blade, this time I put:

1 cup King Arthur bread flour (4g protein per ¼ cup)
1 cup Arrowhead Mills organic pastry flour  (4g protein per ¼ cup)
1cup Heckers unbleached All Purpose flour (3g protein per ¼ cup)
½ cup Arrowhead Mills organic Kamut flour (5g protein per ¼ cup)
2 tsp Morton Coarse Kosher salt
1 ½ tsp saf-instant dry yeast
1 ½ cup NYC tap water

I gave these a quick whiz in the food processor, and then placed the dough in a large metal bowl to rise. The dough itself was very dry and tight. I laid the protective plastic-wrap across the top of the bowl, letting it rest inside the bowl close to the dough.

3 hours later I turned it out of the bowl, punched it down, divided it into 4 balls and let it rest under a floured side-towel.

The 4 balls proofed for 2 hours. I then rolled them out, folded them into thirds, pinched their seams together, and rested them between two floured towels, seam side down, for 1 hour. I also tucked the pointy ends under in the interest of creating a uniform shape.

I slashed the top of each loaf and put them in an oven that had preheated to 425 for ½ an hour and cooked them for 30 minutes, plus five minutes (see notes on this below).

This time I:
1.    Tossed 4 ice cubes in the gap between the stone and the oven floor when I put the bread in, and then again 5 minutes into the cycle.
2.    Divided the bread into 4 loaves (last time the center didn’t seem to cook all the way through).
3.    Went back to the 2 tsp amount of salt.

Notes on bread 5:
1.    The crumb is still far denser then I would like.
2.    The crust, although it has a very good crunch, is harder than I would like and seems thicker in gauge than my previous attempts.
3.    Tucking the corners under just made for even sillier looking ends.
4.    There is still a scorching issue, although much less, with whatever ends up on the left side of the center of the stone.

I think it mat be time to shake up the system, this is good bread, but not great.

Del Posto: 933 brunillian stars

People often ask me for restaurant recommendations and I very happily give them. When someone says, "I need a great Italian place," my response without fail is that for Italian in the city you can't do better then Babbo. Babbo most accurately recreates the food I am served when I am in Italy. In fact, the only place that even comes close to it in authenticity is Babbo's little brother Lupa, which for the right situations is sometimes, in my opinion, actually better.

Every now and then someone takes my advice and goes to Babbo and comes back to give me a ration of grief about the fact that they did not want "fancy food," they wanted "Italian food, you know chicken parm." It has long been my belief that we need a new word for this food, the American version of Italian. Well made, it is fantastic food; there are few things in the world as good as my friend Fatnucci's mom's Sunday gravy. But in all of my Italian travels I have never been offered anything I've heard Tony ask Carmela for on the Sopranos. In fact, I know of no one born in Europe that knows what Prahzooot is.

Del Posto is open, and never has there been a greater need for a word that separates the authentic food of Italy from Italian American food then now. I don't want to have to go through the discussion I know will ensue when someone tells me they want great Italian food, I send them to Posto, and they come back having learned what testa is, all upset that the restaurant didn't have "Gavagool" or some other Soprano’s dish.

The truth is that Italian food is never more genius than when some mother is making a tasteful dinner out of the parts of the animal or the garden that Americans have pretty much forgotten exist. The empire of Mario Batali, Joe and Lidia Bastianich, and Marc Ladner has long thrived on the fact that most Americans are impressed that somehow a chef managed to make their filet mignon tender so, in a subtle bit of irony, some of us will pay large sums of money for the cheapest cuts of meat, if they are expertly prepared. How big do you think the New York market for Squab liver was before Mario put it in those amazing raviolis at Babbo?

Walking into Del Posto is like walking onto someone's movie set of the awesome restaurant all the well-heeled Veronan's went to in their tuxes straight from the opera. It is enormous, it is gorgeous inlaid marble, it is sweeping staircases with elaborately wrought iron, and it is half-circle cantilevered balcony tables. It begs you to drag a smoke machine in, set some shafts of light up, and make photos of the good life.

I toured Del Posto two months ago, while they were still under construction, and I could not wrap my head around how this monstrous cavern of a space could ever be turned into a convivial place to dine. Not only did they make it convivial, it is actually warm. There is enough room between the tables to drive a series of large carts that a large percentage of the menu is served from, yet the room feels cozy, the lighting is right, and ochres, siennas, browns, and creams mix to make this airplane hangar of a room feel like a spacious town house.

All this room is needed not only for the carts but also for the staff. Obviously, the Posto team decided that this restaurant was going to have fine service, and they have assured this with legions of staff. There are a lot of people in this place paying attention to every detail of service; our table was crumbed between every single course. There are staff around at all times, easily grabbed for any thing you may decide you need. If the place was ten square feet smaller, or their was even one more person with a pitcher of water, it might feel encroaching but, as it is, it seems to be walking just on the right side of that thin line. As confidence develops and this group has lived in this room a while, I suspect diners will all be using words like "impeccable" to describe it.

The wine list has champagne! an enormous selection of the world's greatest champagnes. I can only assume that when Morgan Rich and Joe Bastianich got together and decided to stray from the Batali/Bastianich tradition of serving only the wines of the country they are serving food from, they agreed that the diversion could only be done if done exceptionally.

The wine list also represents a commitment to communal enjoyment of the Del Posto experience in the depth of its collection of large format bottles. The coolest tables in the place are the ones in the balcony that will accommodate eight to ten people and, if you end up there in those numbers, the three-liter bottle of Paola Bea Sagrentino de Montefalco will definitely be a great bottle to finish your night with.

Sadly, we were only four, so our best attack at the wine list was to pick a couple of the Italian gems we have always wanted (out of a list comprised entirely of gems). We had:

96 Billecart Salmon Brut Rose, Cuvee Elisabeth, which is quickly becoming my second favorite pink champers. The 96 had a wonderful citrus mid-palate, with orange water and lemon notes.

90 Marcarini Barberesco Pertinace. Sadly, this was a bad bottle. When we opened it, it smelled of a cellar. Not necessarily bad, but funky. I held it all through the meal hoping it would blow off and show some fruit. At the end of our meal it hadn't, so I asked Morgan to taste it and confirm whether this was right and it was just that Old World, or whether maybe someone in Piedmonte hadn't washed all the bots as well as they should. He agreed the wine was not in its glory and took it off the check, which was appreciated but unnecessary; bottle variation happens.

99 Contadi di Turasi. Chosen by the wine team for us, this was a fun bottle. Caramel, toast, and fruit on the nose, in the middle of the nose was model airplane glue and one of the spices in an Indian five-spice. It had a laser-like focus of ripe raspberry on the palate, while still showing some Old World funk. It didn't evolve far, but it was cool and all over the place.

01 Tenuta dell'Ornellaia Masseto. The best part about knowing for sure we were finally going to try this wine, on this night, in this place, was that it gave the house the chance to decant it about an hour and half before we drank it. By the time we moved on to it, the new woodnotes had dropped back enough to let all the crushed red fruit and licorice come up to the front. This is the nice kind of modern wine.

90 Quinterelli Bandito. This is a special wine, only produced in the best vintages, and it was a hard one to get my head around. It smelled terrible, wood and resin, almost as strong as Retsina, with all kinds of ethanol and grappa. Yet on the palate, it was delightful ripe figs, quince paste and roasted yellow apples.

All of the food started with an amuse bouche. It was cauliflower, lemon and parsley fried in a tight white crust that I can only guess was some version of tempura made with Wondra or some other super-light flour. More than tasting good, this bite was made to assure you that the legion of people working in the biggest kitchen I have ever seen know exactly how to make things just the way they want to. Somehow, the crust of this little nibble was as crisp as I imagine it could be without discoloring the starches at all; it was pure white.

As far as the rest of the menu goes, it is a very large sampling of indigenous Italian food, very little of which I have seen offered in New York (including at the Empire's other places). In attendance for this extravaganza were Helmet, Pichon, Afro and myself. I distinctly remember seeing things on the menu that were not offal, but for some reason we didn't seem to order any of them. This is a group of people who eagerly seek the opportunity to eat unique food and, sadly, chances to eat expertly prepared offal don’t seem to come up on this continent nearly enough. And then this happened:

From the antipasti section we had:

Cotechino with Lentils and Aceto Tradizionale di Modena: Boiled pork sausage scented with autumn spices on top of lentils, cooked with mirepoix and a drizzle of what we call balsamic vinegar.

Grilled radicchio trevisano with Fonduta: basically the bitterness of charred radicchio with the creaminess of fontina melted in cream.

Veal sweetbreads Picatta: actually a veal sweetbread crusted and served on a butter, lemon, garlic and white wine sauce.

Salumi misti with Erbazzone: A mixture of house-cured meats, lardo, guanciale, coppa, fennel salumi, testa, and lonza with a savory pastry in the center, stuffed with Swiss chard and wrapped in pancetta.

 

From the Primi section we selected three pastas and one risotto, which were served with each choice divaided into four plates divered one at a time in courses. Mario has made it his credo that pasta is the center of a pasta dish and that sauce should act a condiment, not a bath. So far it has worked for him without fail and in the end, looking back on the meal, all of our favorites were in this course. We had:

Pici Cibreo and Black Truffles: Pici is a thick strand eggless pasta, black truffles are tubers and Cibero is a pretty famous restaurant in Florence. As far as I know this is their famous dish and it is a creamy sauce with duck testicles and cock's combs.

Pappardelle Wild Boar: A wide flat noodle with a long, slow-cooked, savory wild boar ragu.

Ravioli chestnuts partridge: The ravioli themselves were thin and dark grey, the seam was about the same size as the pocket of stuffing which gave it the room to let its edge crisp up a little in the pan with the butter.

Risotto with Barolo and Castelmango: these ingredients come together to become a homogenization of the earth of Barolo, the nuttiness of Castelmango (cheese) and the creamy starches and toothsomeness of the Arborio. It is all lent sweetness by the carrot puree upon which it is served.

 

From the Secondi section we chose:

Mixed Grill from the Macellaio for 4 with Chicory Salad: The meats "from the butcher" that make up this mixed grill were: lamb-chop, sweet pork sausage, quail, calves' liver, and pork belly, all topped with some dressed bitter greens.

Bollito Misto: because we don't know when to leave well enough alone, we added this to share around. It was comprised of: testina, tongue, zamponi, veal shank, and capon thigh all boiled with some autum spices.

 

From Dolci we had:

Formaggio Taste of Three Served with Aceto tradizionale di Modena, Lambrusco Jelly, Honeycomb, and Pear Mostarda: pieces of two year, four year, and six year-old Parmigiano.

Assagi di Ciccolato

Three Chocolates: Plantation Organic 38% Cocoa Butter from Ecuador; Nobless 43% Cocoa Butter from Sicily; Weiss 70% Cocoa Butter from France. This was served with three tastes of rum.

Zabaglione: served with pears and crumbled pistachio cookies.

 

I went with simple explanations of each course here rather than throwing in words like wonderful, fantastic, ethereal or lovely, because they would seem redundant. With the exception of the Pici pasta (wich is awesome), I have had all of these before, both in Italy and here (when I could find them) and, across the board, these are the finest examples I have ever had. Everything was as good as it could be and, if you have had, or want to have, Bollito Misto, this is the best representation of the dish I have ever had.

 

It is hard to report on Del Posto without addressing all the talk about the restaurant being Mario's bid to get four stars. I can say for sure that the room and the service are at that level. As far as the food goes, we obviously stuck to the most humble of dishes and it is not often that humble things like boiled offal are discussed at a four-star level. I will say that, with Mark Ladner in charge of the kitchen, I rest easy that the quality of ingredient is beyond reproach. And I am confident in saying, based on this one experience, that it is absolutely the most excellently prepared Italian food I have ever had in America.

 

Will Count Frank Bruni grant the Empire the first ever four-star review of an Italian place (assuming he overlooks that he was a cog in their promotion wheel and does review it in spite of his announcement piece)? I don't know and don't care; I like to picture Mario, Lidia, and the boys are far above all that crap. You open a restaurant to share a passion with the world and make some money. This group has had a lot of success at that so far and this place shows they are clearly at the top of their game.