Augieland

Enoclub, 292 cavernillian stars

During the truffle season, on Saturday mornings most tourists to the region of Piemonte will end up in the town center of Alba to walk the market and see all the Truffalos and their wares for sale. This trip comes with the warnings of locals that never, under any circumstance, should you buy – the prices are ridiculous, most of the truffles aren’t really the truly great ones from Alba, and so on.

By mid-afternoon your head is full of the aroma of truffles and you are hungry for a meal that must in some way involve that pungent scent eager merchants have been wafting at you for hours. What is needed is a kitchen, some simple supplies, and a trustworthy truffle hunter (every local knows one and will introduce/recommend one to you, necessitating that your local acquaintance be of a stature that he can prioritize you amongst the truffle hunter’s real clients -- usually local restaurants specializing in the real Tartufi Bianchi d’Alba which, believe it or not, are not as prevalent throughout Alba as you would think). Alternatively, you can seek out a restaurant that already has this infrastructure in place. If your referring friend is the same as mine (the greatest proprietor of the greatest hotel of all time, Giulio of La Saracca in Monforte d’Alba) you will end up in a basement off Piazza Savona, in a restaurant called Enoclub.

Besides running a simple hotel with more character than any other I know in the world, I list restaurant recommendations throughout the Langhe region as one of Giulio’s strong suits. Wife and I met him when we honeymooned in Monforte d’Alba. After guiding us through a couple of days in his town, Giulio’s parting advice was that for one of our nights in Alba Enoclub was a dependable place where we could find both a good wine list and real Alban truffles. The time we had on that visit was so good that we actually scheduled this day trip to the truffle market mostly to have an excuse to have their tajarin again.

It’s always around lunch on the third day of vacation that I regain a sense of how much food I actually need, and that’s when this meal fell. So in a lunch that can only be called light when vacationing I went with:

Peperone alla fiamma con Bagna Cauda: the classic dipping “hot bath” of garlic, olive oil, and anchovies in this case is puréed and served atop a composed dish of roasted red peppers, steamed cardoons, cauliflower and broccoli florets, and endive leaves. I had almost been convinced that the bad rap anchovies have was deserved in the case of the brown fleshed variety and completely unjust in the case of the white ones. This dish redeemed forever the product, now dooming the producer. If brown fleshed anchovies, which are the primary component here, can be this subtle and well behaved with little more than vegetables and olive oil as a counter someone is doing a bad job of preparing them elsewhere.

Tajarin al burro fusso con Tartufo Bianco d’Alba: the classic long thin strands of eggy noodles typical to the region dressed with fresh butter and showered in shavings of white truffle. I have been told that white truffles with red in their coloring such as the one we were served here grow on the roots of cedar trees. True or not, the markings of these are not dissimilar to a wine-colored birthmark on a beautiful woman and make for even more drama in the presentation. Apart from that, this dish is as simple as can be and something available throughout the region, which is what makes it so hard to explain why this one is notable as good. Maybe the chef has a better command of al dente, maybe he has a better butter source and combines the pasta cooking water more gently when dressing, maybe the locals are right and few guys actually use the superior local truffle, all I know is I have not had a better version of this dish.

Fruit in Moscato Aspice: perhaps because wine is the theme of the restaurant, but this version of this dessert seemed to play up the fact that Moscato is a wine rather than working with its aromas of fruit. The aspic was boozy as if it had been augmented with a spirit; not bad, but decidedly strong.

Enoclub is the type of place I frequent at home in New York. I have been twice in two years and both times the owner and his wife greeted me at the door. Attention is paid to detail and everything is made comfortable without going to far. The restaurant makes great food of the region. Like the places I love here in the city (think Hearth) it seems a place run by people who love what they do and are proficient enough to be successful at it. The lasting impression is that they do it because it is honestly what they want to do rather than because they think it will make them money. If I lived in Alba, much like Giulio I think this is the place I would suggest to people who care more for quality food than pomp or circumstance.

Antica Corona Reale da Renzo, 273 embryoillian stars

“Get the egg.” Sitting in the tasting room of Giacomo Conterno winery, having just tasted their ’04 Barbera (driving acids, red fruit, barnyard) and’99 Monfortino (black olives, black licorice, black tea), I was appreciating Roberto Conterno’s craftsmanship, conviction, and palate when he advised this for my upcoming dinner at Antica Corona Reale da Renzo. I took the suggestion seriously, maybe a little too seriously.

In the town of Cervere in the region of Piemonte is da Renzo, a well respected restaurant apparently so famous for their egg dish that not only is it patently recommended by wine-makers and hoteliers alike, but the picture on their menu’s cover is of it. Outside, except for a small sign fixed to a fire escape it is pretty unremarkable, inside it feels like a small country house converted for dining (linen and lace curtains, lace doilies, small separated rooms just about the right size for four tables, and a fireplace). All in all there is the sense that over a long time, through modest but real aspiration, rational appointments have been made here with the intent of excelling beyond the standard regional restaurant.

Having just come from tasting at G. Conterno the wine choices were pretty easy. Assuming that whatever this egg dish was it would play the richer side of the spectrum, there seemed to be sense in the cleansing acidity of a Barbera. We started with ’02 and moved on to ’04, the older a little more settled and showing more of the earthy notes, the younger bright fruit and acidity.

The food choices were more confusing while strangely simple at the same time. Everyone said get the egg, however they didn’t specify which. There is one antipasti egg dish, one primi piatti, and one secondi. The antipasti and the secondi both involve tartufo bianco as well, confusing the “get the egg” directive all the more. The waiter explained that although they were indeed different, they were not vastly so and therefore he wouldn’t be able to decisively tell me which was meant. Not wanting to have missed the one, I decided to go with both and figured the pasta that had uovo in its description would complete the cycle perfectly.

Cotechino on whipped potatoes was sent out as an amuse, setting the stage for things to come. Cotechino is rough cut pork and pig skin sausage seasoned with autumnal spices, usually boiled and served with lentils to celebrate the New Year. Here, what is often presented as hearty fortifying fare lightened by its accoutrement is served with whipped potatoes and somehow ends up a more refined dish. The bead of the filling would be called rough in relation to its size, but its texture feels as though each individual bead of pork has been tumbled in a polisher. The Cotechino slice is set on velvety whipped potatoes laden with butter and cream. To my American raised palate it tasted reminiscent of the absolute pinnacle of the flavors in corned beef hash.

First up was Uovo affogato su cardo gobbo di Nizza, fonduta di Raschera d’alpeggio e tartufo bianco d’Alba: presented under a cover and already topped with the shaved truffle making the release of the dish’s aroma at the table more dramatic is a poached hen’s egg resting on thick slices of local cardoons, in a fonduta of the sharp local cheese Raschera. Cardoons are celebrated in the Langhe and should be; at their best they look like a Paleolithic species of celery and taste like artichokes would if they had a little more conviction. These were some potent, bitter samplings which made sense as they drew distinction to the creamy cheese sauce and the unctuousness of the bright orange yolk of the egg once it was broken and allowed to ooze into the concoction.

For my primi, being perfectly willing to see a theme all the way through to the end, I had Ravioli al Tuorlo d’uovo, di seirass della Valle Pellice e Murazzano D.O.P.: saffron colored pasta envelopes that we call tortellini in New York, filled with a mixture of ricotta and Valle Pellice, the milky ricotta tempering the more strong, salty aged cheese. With notes of nutmeg, dressed simply in butter, the quality of the noodle and the cheese were encouraged to show off without getting too fussy.

Uovo in cocotte al tartuffo bianco d’Alba: a bowl of hot cheese with cubes of bread and a fresh hen’s egg in it, topped with a pile of shaved white truffle, is once again presented lidded. As the waiter removes the lid he proceeds to begin mixing the soupy concoction, immediately explaining that if you don’t the egg will set and rather than thickening the mix and lending the richness and ability of the yolk to translate the truffles’ aroma to the palate, the dish would end up as scrambled eggs, cheese, and white truffle pieces. Their way is genius, what you end up with is a thick soup whose nature is to mark your being with the aroma of white truffle.

For dessert I shared Aspice ai Frutti di bosco al Moscato d’Asti “Biancospino” dell’Az. Agr. La Spinetta su, salsa di pesche gialle ed il suo sorbetto, or at least I had a bite of the Moscato aspic with a red current in it, the gel wrapping the nuanced grapefruit and stone-fruit notes of the Moscato around the tart little berry.

I went into da Renzo looking for a meal centered on the white truffle and had a meal centered on Piemontese tradition. Three interpretations of very similar dishes, all based on regionally typical ingredients, gave an opportunity to see roots in this food. The people of Piemonte have been handed some pretty variant cards – their chicken eggs with their bright orange yolks are legendary, the flavors they coax from the milk in butter and cheeses are incredible, and white truffles may be the single all-time greatest ingredient. However, cardoons as they grow are inedibley bitter and fibrous, and judging from the table bread the flour available is not of the highest character. Yet all over the region the strengths of some ingredients have been accented, others’ weaknesses compensated for, and in the long run the combinations are even better than the parts.

At da Renzo these traditional and kind of standard dishes are refined and raised to another level. With a component as strong as white truffle it is easy to let it outshine the others it is put in combination with. All over the Langhe there are many ways to show off white truffle; the best three are through the fats of butter (usually on pasta), cheese (usually thinned into a hot sauce called fonduta) and egg yolks (any way that keeps the yolk loose). Here opportunity has been taken where possible to elevate these interpretations to a refined level and the result is marvelous.

 

Michelin Guide NYC '07 (those silly French II)

One small post changed me from a guy at the end of the bar ranting about wine, restaurants, and food politics, to a guy on a computer ranting about wine, restaurants, and food politics. That post was entitled Those Silly French and was written in response to friends asking for my opinion on the first Michelin guide to New York. Well another group of stars has been awarded and again my computer lit up with people asking my thoughts.

First, let me start with a conspiracy theory about industrial culture because these are the things that make my world go round:

If I were involved in the world’s largest tire company, when I met with my local government to discuss things like tax credits and pensions (as I understand it France is very involved in these areas with French-based companies) I would find it an advantage to be able to make the case that for seventy-five years I have worked to promote travel to France. I would also like to be able to point out that what started as a little book to encourage Frenchmen to wear out their tires driving all over the country in the summer travel season, successful due to its reputation for integrity, has turned into a reason people come to France to spend food dollars at an unrivaled rate. If this were one of my bargaining chips, which it assuredly would be, as the guide grew in popularity and became a viable business I would grow it carefully ever mindful that, to the end of remaining a bargaining tool for my actual business (tires), it would need to remain a significant motivator of the belief that fine food is available more in France than anywhere else.

I think Michelin is producing a French guidebook trying to establish itself in foreign markets, and I think part of this motivation may simply be to lend credibility to the French guide. When the whole world is saying there are almost a dozen restaurants in Spain operating at a level beyond all but a few places in France, what better way to quell these worries and keep your credibility than to acknowledge the irrefutable successes with some stars? And if the people start insisting that New York and other major US cities have as many great places as Paris while Parisian chefs are turning their backs on your ratings, what better way to keep your hold as the definitive voice on fine dining than to start a New York book?

Ok, that’s out of my system. Going forward let’s assume Michelin is just trying to grow a successful business. The perceived integrity referred to in the conspiracy above was based on a couple of simple truths that have been seeing some rocky times as of late. Some assumptions regarding Michelin’s ratings have proven to be false in recent years, such as that there was a huge anonymous staff traveling the world of dining, ever on the quest for places worth traveling to, or that Michelin inspectors had actually visited all the places reviewed. Then there were the rules that applied almost without exception, which I thought mattered most. Rules like that all restaurants must start at a base one star level and that only after multiple visits and time proving they could perform at the top level could they be advanced, which meant that if you were a three star Michelin restaurant you had achieved at a top level for many years with many and constant inspections.

Starting a New York book with any three star restaurants, let alone including one that was in its first two years of existence, belied any integrity claimed. This simple move more than any other proved that Michelin did not hold this book or this place to the same level that it holds its French books and restaurants, implying that the folks there don’t see equal merit in our food (unless of course they were giving additional credence and merit to some restaurants simply for being French, which also implies a lack of understanding of American cuisine).

Then there is their choice to do a New York guide (and this year one for San Francisco) and not a US one. Keeping in mind that Michelin is meant to be a travel guide about restaurants, there are at least five restaurants in Chicago I do travel for solely and regularly. Based simply on reputation, there are another ten in California I plan to travel for (when I do visit you can be sure I will let you know if I found them worth the trip). There are also two places in Boston I travel for, one in DC (and another two I would like to). There is at least one place in every major city that is worth a diversion to for a meal. Here we bump into my conspiracy again: if you properly try to assess the restaurants of America and not isolate them by city but simply apply the criteria of destination eating to the nation, towns like Philly alone should get a star each for its cheese-steak places (if you are there you should definitely try one at either Pat’s, Gino’s or Carl’s), not to mention at least two (I would say three Michelin stars are deserved) for Le Bec Fin. Fairly analyzing a region even as small as the original thirteen colonies would blow out the bloated count for France by comparison, which would be dangerous to the service Michelin provides of keeping people traveling to France above all other countries for destination dining.

So what do I think of the current list for New York? Well you are still reading so:

As I understand it the meaning of the stars is:
One: if you are in this city this is a very good place well worth visiting
Two: if you are near this city go to this place
Three: this place is so good it is worth traveling to that city simply for the experience of dining at

Applying this notion of the stars here are my thoughts

THREE STARS

Jean Georges: I would travel for this place and happily add the cost of travel to my dinner.
Le Bernardin: still haven’t traveled from the Village to try it.
Per Se: went, was let down and have not forgiven; one of the reasons I find it hard to cross 23rd Street.

TWO STARS

Bouley: very good, when I am already in its neighborhood visiting friends I happily go.
Daniel: I would travel from the Village.
Del Posto: good or bad it is a unique experience worth traveling to at least once.
Masa: hands down the greatest single meal I have had was here, but it is such a destination place sometimes I wish I lived far away so I would be forced to seek it out more.

ONE STAR

Annisa: no idea.
Aureole: they have wine fairies in Vegas right? That has always kept me from taking it seriously.
A Voce: travel to get fleeced by a wine list? yeah, right.
Babbo: goes without saying that people travel for this place; sooner or later people on their way to New York ask me for any secrets I might know about getting a res, especially those who have been already.
Café Boulud: I would cross neighborhood boundaries for this place.
Café Gray: still haven’t traveled past the other places in the mall for it, but haven’t given up.
Country Restaurant: had a bad time at the bar early and haven’t traveled past that.
Craft: makes no sense to me to go back to a place that puts the job of the chef on the diner, but this is New York and people like control so if that’s what you’re into it may be worth a stop when you are traveling to a dungeon or some other place that puts all the decisions on you.
Cru: I find it hard to believe there are many better meals to be had in New York than I have had at Cru so I travel there regularly, in fact I often go there first when on my way back from traveling.
Danube: haven’t been, know I should but it involves traveling past places I love.
Dévi: I really like Devi and have traveled at least eight blocks to eat there.
Etats-Unis: isn’t that on the Upper East Side, pretty much would rather go to Chicago.
Fiamma Osteria: it’s good.
Fleur de Sel: I love not having to travel much to go to this place, the Monday night wine deal may be worth commuter airfare, though.
Gotham Bar & Grill: I can think of few more definitively organically born of New York places, so I guess if that’s what you want it is well worth the travel.
Gramercy Tavern: People very often travel from far away to join me for meals here.
Jewel Bako: can’t travel past Degustation.
Kurumazushi: news of it has yet to travel to me.
La Goulue: got to look into this one.
Lever House: no idea.
Modern (The): no travel, no thanks.
Oceana: great meal but have never seen cause to travel back.
Perry Street: well I love spending food dollars at JGV so hard to say.
Peter Luger: travel to Brooklyn for a steak that variant in quality? Sure, as long as it is with a big group of people so excited by the travel they never seem to notice.
Picholine: as long as our USDA rules remain as they are for fresh cheese and hunted game it will be worth travel from all over.
Saul: if they ever do Michelin Brooklyn I may make a journey there to hit a couple places.
Spotted Pig: stopped traveling there early on; nice food but this is New York, pubs with good grub are easy to come by.
Sushi of Gari: heard great stuff, not enough to travel that far yet.
Veritas: you love wine, especially Parker wines? May be better spent travel dollars than Napa or Bordeaux.
Vong: not in a long time.
Wallsé: involves traveling past places I know to be cool, but its on my list.
wd~50: few people in the world with an opinion don’t agree that Wylie is pretty serious among those changing the face of world dining. You tell me, is that worth traveling for?

Without going too deep into the list I will simply mention three places unique to New York that I believe should be experienced by all, are worth traveling for, and could only exist here: Blue Hill, Savoy, and Hearth.

So I guess on their second attempt rather than seeming crazy the folks at Michelin just seem not to understand New York. Then again, if your goal is to understand New York, would you look to the French for advice in the first place?

Harry's Steak: 471 brokerillian stars originallyposted 5/24/06

After being closed for three years, Harry’s on Hanover Square officially reopened last week as Harry’s Café and Harry’s Steak, two separate restaurants. The entrance for the café is on Hanover Square, under the India House, and the steakhouse’s entrance is on Pearl Street. They are joined at their respective backs in the middle of the building, but other than that are separate entities. Harry’s earned its reputation as a “seven hundred three-martini-lunches-a-day” place in the 80’s, so I decided that on their inaugural eve, I would eat like a Wall Street guy. I took a booth in the bar area of Harry’s Steak.

The room is all new, the lacquer on the tabletops still shiny; the newly sandblasted stone walls look almost modern New Mexico rather than actually the hundred-plus-years old they are; and it generally has a new car smell. There is space around the tables but not enough to lose an intimate feeling. The room is sub terra by about five steps with ground level windows that allow you to be aware of the degree of light outside, yet don’t do anything as silly as allow outside light to come into the room. There is a sense that, over time, the luster will fade into the patina of a comfortable room in which people eat steaks and talk deals.

Business dinners start with cocktails, so we had one. With all the innocence in the world I let my Glow choose, and she decided on Cosmos. This being Wall Street, where no deal gets broken without a penalty, I decided to stick by my trade, but modify the details. I asked for a Cosmo with just a touch of cranberry, Cointreau, and fresh lime juice, in combination with whatever citron vodka they used. They gave me exactly what I asked for, and it was good -- as good as it was before everyone in the world watched Sex and the City and started calling kamikaze shots with cranberry in a cocktail glass a Cosmo.

Before Harry’s closed in 2003, it was a wine geeks’ secret getaway. Harry Poulakakos, the owner then and now, had purchased wine from 1972 to 2003 and amassed quite a serious, yet fairly priced list of about 60,000 bottles. When Harry got out, his son Peter took over the collection and sold it in the restaurant upstairs, Bayards. I am told the intention is to offer the same collection again at Harry’s in the near future. At the moment there is a good sampling from around the world but nothing like the famous old list.

I saw some decent wines at decent prices but they were all pretty current vintages and more fairly priced than great deals. There is one horrible indicator though and that is that they use Riedel O series glasses. As far as I understand it one of the younger generations of the family behind Riedel was frustrated by the space the stems on stemware were taking up in his small cabinets in his small apartment so he took them off.  Indeed the most important part of the wine glass is its bowl. The depth and shape of a bowl can have drastic effects on how your palate perceives a wine. The stem, although not as important, is still key to the glass functioning as part of the wine experience. It may save space in small places and there may be logic in keeping them for guests, and they do make very cool water glasses, but serious wine deserves a proper wine glass, with a stem.

So from the truncated list in the silly glasses we had a glass of Zinfandel (pretty heady, acceptable as a fruit bomb) and a Bordeaux (pretty simple, much more suited to the steaks then the Zin). On the whole there were about seven reds by the glass to choose from, spanning a good sample of grapes and regions.

For food we tried:

Beefsteak Tomato/ Three Ways: One slice of a tomato topped with very thinly shaved Vidalia onion with tomato ranch (what’s tomato ranch? is it dressing? then you need to say that), another slice with chopped bacon and crumbled Maytag blue cheese, and a third with a slice of mozzarella, a basil leaf, and a drizzle of olive oil. It would be insane to bash tomatoes for being out of season after ordering them in May, so I won’t, but I suspect if they source them locally this will be a great dish in the third fiscal quarter.

Dry Aged NY Strip on the Bone: Aged in-house 28 days, this was a decent steak with nice browning, not overly charred. There were both sweetness and richness, good salt and pepper, and no need to do much more to this than apply a knife and fork. I ordered it medium-rare and felt it favored the medium side. I would bet that very many people polled would concur that the steak I was served was medium-rare so I won’t complain, but going back I would order mine rare.

Dry Aged Rib Chop: A fine steak, although it wasn’t as good as the strip. Also aged 28 days in-house, it was not as well marbled as other rib chops I’ve tried, which I guess makes the next critique useless, but a rib chop is a cut of meat that does its best work under insane exposure to very high heat. This was very nicely black, but due to its low marbling ratio, it just wasn’t succulent. This chop had good, beefy flavor borne out in a substantial, yet giving chew, but it wasn’t genius, just good. It went very nicely with the house steak sauce, which says great things about the sauce but not necessarily good things about the steak.

Hash Browns: A light pile of sliced potatoes fried with a golden brown surface of clarified butter. Well-executed, but maybe better with steak and eggs.

Creamed Spinach: Rich and thick, with a taste of nutmeg. More about cream than spinach, this was probably exactly the dish that was first written down as a creamed spinach recipe.

Salt Crusted Baked Potato: As great as great baked potatoes are, they are truly nothing more than baked potatoes. I imagine it must be quite frustrating to make an exceptional baked potato; the good news at Harry’s is that it is not as much an exceptional potato as an exceptional presentation, which may just be what the baked potato needs. This is New York -- if you can’t genuinely be fabulous, dress yourself up as fabulous. Here, a large Idaho baking spud was baked in a salt crust, basically adding an intense thermo level to the classic diner foil-wrap. It arrived at the table in its crust, which was broken open with a hammer. It was then sliced into disks and served with five accoutrements in metal soufflé cups perched on a winding piece of metal that looked as if it could be an Ikea candleholder. In the cups were chopped chives, bacon bits, sour cream, cheddar, and corn with black truffle. I loved the potato if only for the corn, which was very good both on the potato and on a spoon.

For dessert we tried a cheese plate, cheesecake, and mixed berries with cream. Crossing the finish line with a boom, all these classic desserts were plated and served with far more ornamentation than the rest of the meal by someone who enjoyed flourish class in culinary school. We had a short time for dinner and the restaurant had done a great job of getting us everything in a timely manner, such a good job that we thought we had the time for dessert. After the extra attention given to plating we were only left with about 5 of the 25 minutes we had allotted.

Like most of Harry’s fare, the desserts will satisfy a craving if not create one. The berries were those very pretty, out–of-season, tasteless berries sold by companies like Driscoll. The cheesecake was a small, light, pretty version of classic New York Cheesecake, and the cheese plate was “a cow, a sheep, a goat and a blue,” served with walnuts, dried cranberries and raisin nut bread.

Harry’s always traded in no-nonsense, classic food that is exactly what is expected by most of the people in America, and that seems to be their plan going forward. If there are three levels of steak house in New York, on its first night Harry’s was solidly at the top of the middle -- far better than many, and only subjugated to a few. It will do its best work as a local place for people looking for good food in a neighborhood with copious dollars to spend on vittles and not a lot of close outlets offering solid fare. Once the wine list gets up to speed, it may be awesome, but at this point, just being pretty good puts them at the top of the game for their neighborhood, as well as for most of their competition.

Gotham truffles

Few things in the world get me to act as foolhardy as white truffles. On the first Thursday of October, Wife, Asam, Seraph and I stepped into Gotham for a quick introductory dinner for Seraph (she is new to NYC and it is a quintessential New York place, the thinking went). As I stepped to the hostess stand I smelled white truffle. When I commented on this as strange so early in the season, my olfactory supposition was confirmed as the hostess explained that earlier in the day Gotham had purchased their first white truffle of the season, greatly changing our planned course for the evening’s dining.

The fact that this meal was to be Asam’s treat is what made my rather opulent decision seem easy, at least to my obviously truffle-skewed brain. I saw a simple opportunity to eat truffles somewhat affordably by asking the restaurant to sell me the truffle and slice it onto the meal Asam was paying for, in effect splitting the check. Upon inspection, we realized it was more truffle than four people needed so we decided to pay a truffle supplement (my tab) and have the kitchen plan a tasting menu with three truffle courses at its center (Asam’s). In the long run the truffle itself was mediocre – flabby with a quickly dissipating aroma rather than a true deep pungency. If anyone is to blame for this, though, it is me for believing the case would be any different before mid-November in America. The dishes Gotham put together did their best to play to a weak sample of tartuffo bianco and were very good, great considering we blindsided the kitchen for a an all truffle menu on their first night of truffle season. Here’s the porn:

The evening’s amuse was sea bass cevice with the chew of flesh given a proper opportunity to tighten under the influence of citric acids. It played the brighter side of the flavor spectrum with mango, fine herbs, sliced grapes, and citrus, tempered by bits of avocado and olive oil.

Cream of Porcini soup with toasted pine nuts, lardons and roasted porcini was the first truffle course. When the truffle hit the hot soup its aroma automatically released. Sadly, beyond that the star of this course was the soup.

Seared Nova Scotia halibut in an airy citrusy sauce with mushrooms and fruit was the next thing to be topped with truffles. Again, a great course linking earth to sea, bridged by the light fruity notes, but no truffle wow.

Slow-poached hen egg on creamy risotto did the most to try to aid our truffle in strutting its stuff. But what I remember most about this course was how deep the flavor of the stock was. The stock so deep it was almost gamey and the lactic touch of melted aged cheese came together in this toothsome risotto.

The end of savory was the New York strip steak with Gotham onion rings. I am always pleasantly surprised by how nice this steak is.

A pre-dessert of grapefruit granita and a milky gelato.

Three mini versions of desserts from the menu closed things down: a red velvet cake, a cannoli, and tiramisu.

Boqueria, 741 accuratillian stars

Tapas are the garage band of the food world. At their best they are tight and inspire you to have raucous fun. Bad, they are neither here nor there, feeling like a small waste of time. By their nature, like covers of great rock, perfect tapas are someone taking a standard and riffing on it; if their interpretation is both solid and unique in some way they have succeeded. What I needed was Jane’s Addiction doing Ripple.

After a full day (11 hours) of listening to some of Spain’s greatest chefs discussing their methods, philosophy, and cuisine at Spain-10, watching cooking demos live and on video with little offered in the way of acceptable sustenance, I was hungry and I was hungry for Spanish food. While all of the food I had been listening about was modern cuisine utilizing newer techniques, it was one thing above all – Spanish. So although part of my hunger was pointed toward the contrasts and interplays of the modern philosophy, I realized what was actually going to satisfy it was not a long contemplative meal but rather a smattering of many flavors that were the underpinning of all this modernization.

During a break between Spanish-centric seminars I was introduced by a mutual friend and chef of a Spanish restaurant to Seamus Mullen, the chef of the kind of new-ish Spanish spot in lower Chelsea called Boqueria. This forced me to admit to not having been to a place I had heard good things about, a situation I seldom find myself in.

Somewhere between the hunger started early in the morning by Arzak’s lecture about the four fundamental sauces (green, white, black, and red) in the Basque country, and being assured by a person whose American renditions of traditional Spanish fare I enjoy that Seamus was doing a good job, I decided to and then did grab Wife and wander into Boqueria unannounced around 8:30 on a Saturday night.

The space is shaped like a traditional Bordeaux bottle with a couple of tables and a tapas bar/bar in the neck, with the front door playing the cork. The deeper you move through this bottleneck which seems to prefer a state of congestion, the looser the crowd gets until you pass the shoulder of the bottle shape to find a tight lively space abuzz. There are high tables holding groups of three and up running down the walls, with a long communal table running the center. We asked for two anywhere and, advised of an expected twenty minute wait, decided to grab spots at the inside, less congested end of the bar where two people who were just now being led into the back had been standing.

Sitting at the service end of the bar waiting for a server to pick it up was a plate of Pan Amb Tomaquet wafting garlic, tomato and olive oil scents at us and pretty much deciding that we would be ordering one of those and a cheap glass of Cava to go with it. After I got the Cava, but before the tomato drenched bread showed up, a spot became ready so Wife and I were sat side by side in the middle of the communal table, closely followed by our bread.

Before everybody started trying to make all wine taste like all other wine, regions had distinct wine and that wine went with their food. As a cocktail, this cheap lousy little Cava would have been boring, tasting of cheap yeast, cellar and metal. However paired with Pan Amb Tomaquet  (this one grilled in a panini press, with screaming garlic that just walks the edge of being way too hot and overpowering but is kept in line by the sweet acids of tomato pulp and unctuous Spanish olive oil), simple, rough Cava like this is the perfect perceptibly sweet counterpoint.

The menu offers four options: thirteen Tapas priced between four and six dollars, eight Media Raciones (average rations) for eleven dollars, four Raciones (rations) for nineteen dollars and three Para Compartir (to Share) ranging from fifteen to forty dollars per person if split by two. Grooving nicely on the simple pleasure of the Pan Amb Tomaquet, Grilled Bread rubbed with tomato, garlic and olive oil: we decided it best to stay in the groove and just run the tapas section.

Pintxos Morunos Grilled lamb, marinated in lemon and cumin: skewered tender rounds of lamb grilled hard and fast so they have a nice carmelization while staying to the rarer side, served on toast topped with a rough, chopped herb salsa verde.

Pintxos De Jamon y Melon Serrano ham and melon: three small balls of honeydew melon on a skewer with folded thin slices of Serrano ham in between. A mint leaf on each added a light touch, drawing out the contrast between light, sweet and crisp, and light, salty and savory even more.

Pintxos de Guindilla, Aceituna y Anchoa Pickled pepper, olive and white anchovy: as simple as that, the olive with a slice of piquillo pepper and a white anchovy filet around it held in place on a skewer. Got a friend that wants to like anchovies but doesn’t? This may be the best inroad; the good parts of the anchovy are drawn out by the spicy notes of the pepper and the earth-born green flavors of the olive, while the vinegar of the pepper and the richness of the olive temper any fish flavor leaning toward strong. It tastes like fish in the good way so it won’t change someone’s whole point of view, but if they are on the fence it may knock them our way.

Tres Croquetas Cremosas: Jamón, Pollo y Setas Three creamy croquettes: Serrano ham, chicken and mushrooms: the chicken had an aroma of fennel seeds, almost like Italian sweet sausage, the mushroom was the flavor of a good duxelle, and the ham was more about the creaminess of whipped potato, each on a complimentary sauce. They were creamy and hot as blazes inside, while crunchy and light on the outside.

Buñuelos de Bacalão Salt cod fritters: fried in an herbed batter, the inside had a dense chew with only the lightest waft of cod flavor.

Tortilla Española Spanish omlette of onion and potato: far more plentiful in potato than egg, this version of tortilla was like the Spanish you-could-eat-it-cold version of potato gratin.

Cojonudo fried quail egg and chorizo on toast: when our waiter served it he told us a story of Seamus first trying the dish in Spain in his youth and asking what it was, only to have Cojunudo repeated over and over later learning that “cojundo” basically translates to “really eff-ing good.” This is a crisped piece of chorizo an a toasted round of a baguette with a sunnyside-up quail’s egg on it, and it is indeed “really…”

Datiles con Beicon y Almendras Dates stuffed with almonds and cabrales, wrapped in bacon: I love cabrales. At its best it is serious cheese, so serious I live a little afraid of it. On a cheese plate I eat it last and only with a glass of Pedro Ximenez or some other really sweet sherry; it is that piquant. As an ingredient in this dish it balances and drops to the back, leaving this a date dish with a couple of complimentary flavors, rather than a bleu cheese dish as I expected.

Brandada de Bacalão Salt cod brandade: a pure creamy brandade in a clay dish served with grilled bread.

Pimientos de Padrón Blistered Padrón peppers with coarse sea salt: The first one each Wife and I tried were hot, the piquant burn-your-throat-after-you-swallow kind of hot. After about three more I remarked that the ensuing three had not been hot, so I suggested she try another. As we discussed how strange it was that if only two were hot they happened to be the first two we tried, our waiter stopped by and hearing our chat explained two things. First, that these were grown in California being the closest facsimile to the Spanish version available here, and that were we in Spain this dish would always be served accompanied by a sentence that translates to “some are hot, most are not.” So as far as that goes they nailed it. Each one tastes different and it becomes fun to keep eating them just to see what the next will bring. I gave up many of the dishes I was served at this meal half finished in the interest of not getting overfull before I could taste each thing, however every time someone tried to clear the peppers they were rebuked.

Aceitunas Aliñadas Marinated olives: various olives that favor the astringent side of the olive spectrum, these are perfectly suited to snacking while sipping an ice cold Fino.

About two thirds of the way through our tapas exploration, Chef Mullen wandered from the kitchen to greet some friends of his, the nature of the room causing him to pass us as he did. I took the opportunity to introduce Wife, reintroduce myself and compliment the seven or so dishes we had been served to that point. Soon after his disappearing back into the kitchen two dishes showed up with his compliments. These strayed greatly from my simple plan to  explore the place by way of simple fare, but other than that small hiccup, seldom are gifts from the kitchen as welcome as these.

      The first of the two was a torchon of foie gras rolled in dehydrated rose petals and crushed candied hazelnuts, with fig preserves on brioche toast; the second was seared diver scallop on black trumpet mushrooms with a green apple purée and crunchy little nuts. Both classic fine ingredients made unique by interpretation: the foie a traditional pairing of unctuous with sweet, distinctly Spanish sweet by choice of product, with a layer of perfume from the rose and the nut’s crunch contrasting the foie’s smoothness; the scallop doing the decidedly Spanish thing of linking sea and land, sweet plump diver scallop with the earthiest of mushrooms sweetened by the green apple. These two dishes offered a bit of satisfaction to the part of me that was craving finer, more contemplative food, and also made me eager to return to try the more composed dishes offered next time.

It is also worth remarking that we had a fantastic waiter. I do most of my eating as a repeat guest of places and have a group of waiters and wine geeks I have a definite rapport with that has in some cases taken weeks and sometimes years to develop, yet seldom do I find a server on a maiden voyage to a place who has both the competence and personality to settle right in and greatly add to the dining experience. Long before he realized that the chef was familiar with us, he was comfortable enough to tell us anecdotes about our food and discuss wines and dishes as related to their regional origin. I would tell you his name but I am afraid someone will go and steal him and I want to know where he is when I finally open Augieland (the all pork, foie, and offal restaurant) and go poach him myself.

These are tight tapas. Sure, if it was my band I would have sprinkled a little more salt on the Pan Amb Tomquet, or drizzled a raw, peppery olive oil or paprika on the brandade to offer a counterpoint to its homogenous nature, but I would just be doing a cover of Seamus’ work.

Of all of Spain’s destinations I like Barcelona the least. I like cities that could take or leave me as a tourist (Madrid hits this one squarely on the head). Barcelona definitely prides itself excessively on its status as a tourist destination. That being said, two of the things that make the city of Barcelona great are the Boqueria market that this restaurant is named for and the little bars down quiet side streets that behind unassuming doors are raging with people eating and drinking and reveling into the wee hours of any given night. On this visit Boqueria has done a good job of replicating that energy. When I stroll into this place with a couple of friends late on a Tuesday and order too many bottles of cheap wine and get swept up in the buzz that this room had that night, it may mean I can skip Barcelona, leaving much more time for San Sebastian, Madrid, Rosas and places as yet undiscovered.

Green Market

…I don’t know if I am in a new restaurant rut or the city is, but when I think about eating these days the newer options all seem to be a new burger joint, a new steak house, or some ridiculous theme spot, none of which play nicely into my ideal of a place with integrity of vision, execution, ingredient and a sense of community.

In times like this I tend to do one of two things: revisit my most favorite restaurants, and cook at home. On the revisiting front I happily declare that Cru, Lupa, Hearth, Blue Hill, Gotham and Morimoto are all still wonderful assets to our community. As for cooking at home, even though or maybe because this was one of the worst tomato seasons ever, I have been loving different things from the greenmarket that I would be happy to tell you about.

First and foremost is the kefir from Tonjes Farm Dairy. People from Eastern Europe will tell you great stories about kefir making you live forever because of its active cultures. I like it because in good versions it combines a very sour lactic yogurt flavor with a very earthy pastoral flavor, and this is a very good version. I have not learned the entire story from the Tonjes folks yet; for most of this summer they were just the guys next to Tim Stark’s stand selling very good Mozzarella I was buying to go with Tim’s tomatoes before the season washed out. Then about four weeks ago I saw kefir listed on the Tonjes’ sign and bought a bottle (having gotten fed up with not being able to find a pedigree for the Organic Lifeway kefir I had been buying from Fresh Direct which the Cornucopia Institute has rated as “ethically challenged” for producing or purchasing factory farm milk, I needed a new source). Since then I have probably had about thirty small bottles of it, and cannot only tell you I love it, I can say that I like it best around the Wednesday or Thursday after my Saturday purchase.

Keith’s mesclun greens are the next awesome available ingredient. All kinds of greens – bitter, spicy, sweet, soft, fibrous – all triple-washed and sold loose at what seems a very fair price. I have been simply throwing these in a bowl and dressing them with a drizzle of Olio Verde, a pinch of Maldon salt, and a sprinkling of the grated aged Goat cheese Coach farms sells in jars. At this point I think I am taking down about a pound and a half of these greens a week and looking forward to more tonight.

There are many other things going on as well. Thanks to Meg I tried Flying Pigs’ liverwurst when I picked up my usual bacon and eggs. I sliced it and put it on toasted Rye from Rock Hill Bakehouse with some coarse mustard and sliced onions (Keith’s Farm again). I am averaging a steak of some cut or other a week from Hawthorne Valley Farms as well as their pickles for snacking.

Except for tomatoes it was been quite a harvest this year, and everything tastes wonderful but, sadly, years of wandering the Greenmarket has officially set the end date in my calendar as Thanksgiving, so get there and eat, or at least don’t say I didn’t warn ya...

InTent: 542 ambrosillian stars originally posted 7/22

A couple of weeks ago Wife informed me that we were invited to the opening party for InTent restaurant by a friend of hers that works for their PR firm. I had been looking forward to eating there and reporting my feelings on it for a while, but that visit did not exactly fit the bill. Those parties are fun but they are distractingly social, and although you have the chance to sample food there is too much going on to assess it properly or fairly. At the end of the party I left very well entertained, appreciative, and interested in returning but had learned little more than a couple of things about the place:

1. The little bits of food I had were quite good. I particularly liked a monkfish mousse.
2. Devoid of tables and chairs, the space is very much about varying types of stonework. It feels somewhere between a modern Greek American trying to recapture the marble glories of ancient Athens, or the dream spec house of a contractor that believes the current market is pro rock.
3. The leather (or close facsimile) banquettes lining the walls of the main room are likely the most comfortable seating I have ever encountered in a restaurant.
4. Francois Payard is the owner, Craig Freeman is the chef de cuisine, and Eric Estrella is the pastry chef.

All good notions, but not enough to go on to suggest or discourage friends from trying the place out. For that, I would obviously have to go back, sit down, have full servings of the food and contemplate. Having been invited to the party by a friend, I hoped to end up on a positive slant so as not to have to apologize for my opinions. Then I had the crab…

Wife and I wandered in around eight on Sunday night without a reservation, which meant we would need to sit in the front room as every seat in the back was taken. So we traded those buttery couches for café chairs, and the river stone waterfall for the backlit red marble wine wall, as well as the removable copper-colored Bedouin tent for glass doors open to the summer evening. Since the menu is the same in both rooms, a pretty easy switch except for the chairs. (The seating in back really is that comfortable).

WARM CURRIED CRAB NAPOLEAN CRISPY POTATOES Man is this dish good. The fine fingers of crab flesh perfectly married to the flavor of clarified butter, studded with diced celery and apple and stacked on long, thin crisped potato slices, surrounded by a yellow emulsion tasting lightly of saffron and curry. However it was intended to be eaten, I went with spreading the crabmeat onto the potato chips and eating it with my hands as if it was some crab dip at a bar near the shore. The lavishness of the warm crab salad on the perfectly thin, perfectly crispy, perfectly salted, just thick enough to support the weight of the crab when covered with an equal portion of the meat, potato chip was delightful. The redolence of the sum of these parts was profound. The question of would I recommend this place to a friend was answered as I finished this dish and snuck a text to Bubby that read “if you haven’t eaten dinner yet run to InTent and get the crab appetizer.”

For her appetizer, Wife had ISRAELI COUSCOUS SALAD TOMATO, CUCUMBER, ONION PARSLEY OIL and liked it very much, I was to wrapped up in the crab to bothered to try it.

As an Entrée I had TANGINE STYLE EGGPLANT RAISINS, PINENUTS AND PRESERVED LEMON COUSCOUS. I like dishes that combine the richness of toasted nuts with the tangy sweetness of raisins, especially when these flavors are ameliorated by the dividing texture of the small beads of couscous. The eggplant flesh favored the meaty end of the texture spectrum, while the other components of a ratatouille combined with the disparate flavors and textures of the raisins, nuts and lemon, offering sharp peaks and broad valleys in a harmony of Moroccan fragrance that encompassed the whole dish.

As her entrée Wife had SAUTÉED FILET OF DAURADE WRAPPED IN BRIC DOUGH CRUSHED POTATOES, SPICY MEDITERRANEAN VEGETABLES AND TOMATO OIL and declared it the best piece of fish she has had this year, particularly for the textural interplay between the crisp dryness of the dough and the moist softness of the fish and pulpy potatoes. I would have to agree based on the two bites she let me steal before finishing it.

For dessert we split SUMMER FRUIT SALAD WHITE BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE, SEA SALT AND WATERMELON GRANITE, little flakes of watermelon ice that perfectly fit into molars for crunching set in a nest spun of black cherries, apricots, figs, and strawberries. Even I, who care very little for dessert, was going to try one at a Payard restaurant, and was happy to find one as refreshing as this, allowing nature’s sugars to display without attempts to overdo it.

So I went in afraid I would not like the restaurant and was served one of the most pleasing dishes I have had in a long time, with the added benefit of Wife being delighted by one of her dishes. If there was a downside, it was the length of time between Appetizers and Entrées, but apologies were made early and the food showed before it was too late. Net-net I would consider that a positive enough experience on a restaurant’s third open night to plan a return trip, which I have done.

Posted in thoughts ending 8/25

…Went back to Intent this week and had the amazing curry Crab Napoleon again. This time it was far more about the curry than the crab. What had been a fantastic dish about the flavor of crab and butter accented by a touch of curry and the crunch of potato was this time an interesting curry dish…

PIG: rotisserie, charcoal, wet rub

Pichon, Helmet, Link and me standing outside a red barn-like butcher shop at the end of a dead end road in Chatham Township, NJ, on a chilly early autumn morning with a sixty-seven pound pig on a stick and four bags of charcoal, discussing constant rotation or focused heat with a man in a bloodied white jacket is the picture of this day.

The first plan was to cook a proper ghetto pig. One day I happened across Link and Helmet talking about pig cooking methods and joined the conversation. They were discussing whether to bury it with coal and banana leaves, or to roast it rotisserie style. I told the story of when I first got involved in pig roasting through Cuz, and that the research he had done had turned up a website by a couple of Cubans in Miami who like to butterfly a whole pig, strap it to a chain link fence and grill it, something I had always wanted to try. At this point Cuz and I have rotisseried many pigs and have strong beliefs on the proper way to do it, but I have always thought it would be fun to do the ghetto pig version of the guys down in Miami. So Helmet, Link and I started discussing approaches and methods and decided the pig would be done lashed to fencing and set on cinderblocks over charcoal.

About the time we figured out that un-galvanized aluminum fencing is almost impossible to get in the metropolitan New York area (I assume the weather changes of the northeast make it impractical to use unprotected steel, or aluminum) Helmet found this butcher in NJ that rents fire pits and rotisseries and gives you the entire pig already lashed to the spit.

The story as we believed it was that this place was a working farm and we would be involved in the killing of the pig, something I felt obliged to participate in because of the amount of trepidation it caused me. As it turned out, after having steeled myself to face the discomfort of taking part in an intimate task of involving myself in the moment of death of my food that society has so removed us from it seems foreign, I had actually taken an extra step away from being involved because the second most intimate thing about roasting a whole pig is the actual hands-on step of securing the beast to the spit and the folks of Green Village Packing, had already done this for us.

So we gave up a little involvement in the interest of convenience, which tears me. I hate convenience in food prep as a general principal. Wife and I long ago threw out our microwave believing that the little extra time taken in making things like mashed potatoes from scratch makes a far bigger difference in flavor. However, when preparing food for fifty folks, a little help is great.

When Cuz and I roast a pig we have come to a pretty stripped down method. We simply and liberally salt the inside of the carcass and fasten it on the rod. We then salt it again on the outside, and set it over the heat. Now, to be honest, leaving well enough alone is the hardest part from here on out. In order to give ourselves something to do, we’ve picked up the little nervous device of dipping long branches of rosemary in olive oil and smacking them against the skin of the pig while it cooks. I know that the skin of a pig is tough enough to make footballs from so I don’t believe we are doing any flavor adding with our little exercise, but it is still fun and dissipates the energy of hours of staring.

What the folks at Green Village Packing do besides giving you the fire pit, the charcoal, the rotisserie, and the spit, as well as affixing the pig, is to season its interior. They use a blend of garlic, herbs, adobo, black pepper and oil, all good and all sensible and all much appreciated. I clearly am a purist and find the flavor of slow-roasted pork best unadorned while cooking. I do like accoutrements like mojo, or vinegary slaw, or even hot barbeque sauce when it is done, but for cooking I keep it simple. That being said, nothing could be simpler than this.

Literally all you have to do is go home, light a fire, set the spit in the rotisserie and cook until the ham and shoulder achieve 165 degrees in the center. And that’s almost what we did. My belief is the pig should be belly side down over low heat for about 45% of the estimated cooking time (about an hour for every 10-12 pounds). Then 20% on each side, 10% with the back facing down, and the remaining 5% spent spinning over much higher heat to crisp and brown the skin. The logic here is that the concentration of the meat is on the pig’s underside, so time spent spinning it leaves ¾ of each minute with the densest concentration of the meat being off the flame, making the leaner meat toward the pigs back overcook. So without a calculator I guessed our sixty-seven pound pig would spend two and a half hours stomach down, an hour or so on its left side followed by another hour or so on its right, half an hour with its feet in the air, and the remaining time spinning with periodic temperature checks.

The reality is, as will always happen when men gather around a fire with raw meat, a committee formed with votes on how best to do it. Ultimately, we went with one hour belly down, one hour spinning, half an hour on each side (while a rosemary, garlic olive oil wet rub was applied to the off-fire side) and then spinning till it was finished (people like to watch things spin). There is also the truth that meat + fire = happy eaters.

About 90% of the pig was consumed within half an hour of it coming off the spit. I was proud to have been a part of it’s making (even though the back was a little tougher then I like ;-) and, as often happens when I cook, I had little interest in eating it beyond the taste that confirmed I was proud of the job we had done. Instead, I went inside to eat the sofritto that Nettasdad had made of our pig’s heart and liver. Now that’s the way food should taste; once I figure out how to make it I’ll tell ya.