Augieland

Trattoria Della Posta, 283 lunadimielellian stars

One of the truths I love most about travel is that as great as the better restaurants in the major cities often are, most often the best time to be had is wandering into the small little hole-in-the-wall place on a side street or the long-standing restaurant in the converted country house just beyond the last road in town that a local mentioned as good.

Nowhere is this truer than in Italy, so much so that the same lesson can be applied to its cities. No one should die without seeing Rome, Venice, and Florence, but I have found that with them already visited, cities like Erbusco, Udine and Monforte d’Alba offer better return on your travel time than the more major cities.

Italy is a very regional place and each region is unique. Larger cities there, like everywhere else, tend to draw from many regions and the world, creating a blended cuisine that, while universally appealing, is not necessarily unique. Smaller, less cosmopolitan cities tend toward a regional cuisine typical to the place, the tradeoff being that most often it is rustic dining with humble foods born of humble tradition reveling in their humility. Finding a fine dining establishment at this moment whose focus lies beyond foie, Kobe, and bluefin tuna is a true feat indeed.

I found Trattoria Della Posta the first time the way you find all those “best ever” places anywhere you travel – a local friend said it was a very good place for me and Wife to dine on the optimal versions of Piemonte’s regional dishes during our honeymoon. We went back because it was just that. This time we enjoyed:

Amuse of porcini and tomato: porcinis and tomatoes that I suspect were roasted with herbs and puréed with olive oil. The result was an earthy, coarse emulsification with the metallic tinge of tomato paste that made me wish we had gotten a sparkler to start.

La carne cruda battuta al coltello con tartufo bianco d’Alba: I try the carne cruda at every single restaurant because of how interesting the variations of the dish can be. Here it is as polished as it will get, hand chopped veal formed in a ring mold, drizzled with good olive oil which picks up the aroma of a pile of cinnamon colored white truffle that has been shaved over its top, with micro greens, pomegranate kernels and bits of Castelmagno garnishing. The meat itself is lightly sanguine and perfectly salted, the olive oil fruity, the Castelmageno wonderfully and unapologetically strong in pieces small enough to blend well and provide a lactic contrast to the meat’s richness, the pomegranate sweet and texturally opposed to the other components, the greens light and slightly astringent, and the truffle the kind you fly to Italy in October for.

La cipolla ripena di toma di murazzano e salsiccia di Bra cotto al forno: this dish was not on the truffle tasting menu but is a house specialty that was well remembered from the honeymoon trip, so we requested it as a substitute for Wife’s raw meat course (she is on a brief raw meat hiatus). This is a light, tangy fondue made of aromatic local cheeses and strewn with bits of seasoned meat, collected in a roasted onion and roasted again at high heat. Because it was a substitute for a course on the truffle menu they were kind enough to top it with truffle in a shade of ecru. The resulting mélange was like a perfect version of southern American sausage gravy, except with light, zesty cheese aromas as opposed to simple milk (it now occurs to me that white gravy may be a good way to get more truffle in my egg dishes, a dilemma I am continuously facing).

L’uovo in camicia con fonduta di toma d’elva a tartufo bianco d’Alba: a gorgeous yellow fonduta in a covered bowl laden with white truffle. There are many cheeses in the Langhe region and all the ones that are used in fonduta make each version unique. Those made with toma tend to fall a little flat in my experience, but not in this case. Definitely mellowed, it still held nuance of its healthy aroma and sharpness of its lactic notes. Once the egg set in the center of the dish is stirred through, its brilliant orange yolk turns the dish a vibrant saffron color and you have what is almost undeniably the perfect vehicle for white truffle enjoyment.

Gli agnnoloti del plin al burro fuso e tartufo bianco d’Alba: a savory meat stuffing with the slight tang of game in a dense chewy pasta envelope, simply dressed with butter and topped with taupe colored truffle. A respectable dish that I would never reject, though it was not necessarily in the league of fits-like-a-glove the other dishes inhabited with their truffle accoutrements. The dish was exceptional and made sense as unique and typical to the region, but the pasta outshone the truffle in this paring.

Il filetto di fassone con la cappella di fungo porcino e tartufo bianco d’Alba: tornadoes of filet mignon, seared and topped with roasted porcini caps, dressed with demi-glace and topped with a snowy white truffle. These were sided with a skewer of autumnal vegetables draped with the thinnest strip of pancetta, and a square of polenta topped with a thick oleaginous mixture that, although on the stranger side of the texture spectrum, was as thick with the foresty flavor of mushrooms as its consistency suggested.

Cheese: a world-class cheese cart was presented and I deferred to the woman pushing it to choose five from the area, each more pungent than the next, and she did, well.

A mini crème brulée was served for its appropriate bit of sweetness at the end of the meal.

Dessert was a puff pastry tart full of apples and apple brandy that I had in the place of chocolate soufflé. Nice and light, it suffered from so much sugar caramelization that it was more caustic than anything else.

We washed this feast down with a bottle of ’97 Giacamo Conterno Monfortino, followed delightfully by a magnum of the ’93. In America I would be terrified to open these gems so early in their maturation (Barolo traditionally made as this is I find best saved), but while wandering around the mile or so between the Conterno vineyard and this restaurant we learned that these two vintages are drinking well at this time, in this, their place. They were both beautiful – vibrant, elegant and youthful, with austere red fruit and soft, mature tannins. It could just be they are best suited to the food of their region, could be they taste better breathing the same air the grapes expelled on the vine, could be we were on vacation and relaxed enough to forgive the bawdiness of premature Barolo opening. No matter what, this was one of those meals where the food and the wine were in perfect synergy.

More often than not, as humble food is refined it ends up losing its roots to some degree. Provincial cuisine tends to trade a certain integrity when it aspires to a global standard of fineness, making a place offering food at a top level, unlike that to be found in the closest city to the region or the major-metropolitan cities of the world, a exceptional find in the gamut of food.

This is the perfect meal for celebrating the wealth of products indigenous to and better in this area which keep drawing us back across the ocean. A version of everything we had is available in almost every restaurant in Piemonte. Good sense and long tradition have made these the dishes available because they showcase the indigenous product as well as can be done.

Without turning to the indistinct food of the fine dining world, but offering fine dining all the same, this restaurant a couple of kilometers from the center of town in Monforte D’Alba sits right at the crossroads of rustic and haute. Della Posta produces food of the utmost quality and precision without ever losing a sense of its localness, and this is reason enough to make the trek.

Momofuku Ssäm Bar, 781 blastedillian stars

Well, I finally made it to Momofuku Ssäm Bar. It was my birthday and with many Rhones, steins, and Jagers well consumed we decided it was time to throw ourselves into the hands of David Chang and his partners in crime. Eight of us strolled in on our ankles around midnight, proudly wielding a white truffle (a birthday present from Asam and Seraph), presented it to David, and asked him to feed the eight of us until we could safely assume the edges would be dulled of what otherwise promised to be hangovers as sharp as the cutting edge of the awesome Masamoto knife Wife gave me earlier in the night.

I was way too well served to fairly critique the meal, but I feel safe declaring that based on how fun this food was drunk it is probably quite good sober. Here are pictures, some shot at particularly jaunty angles, of what it looked like. Over the course of the meal there was heat, sweetness, sourness, unctuousness, lightness and depth, a lot of dishes were consumed running quite a spectrum of flavors and textures.

Of the two oysters, I preferred the one with the red in the dressing. I woke up wishing I could eat another couple pounds of the roasted pork shoulder in bibb lettuce leaves with pureed kimchee. The lightly pickled vegetables were great, the mushrooms my favorite for their distinct ginger zing. Dishes like veal head terrine, fried cauliflower salad, and anything involving apples and bacon start at good and can only be made better. I remember these as better. The truffle played in two dishes, a roasted poussin that was near perfect, and a dish with wide gauged chewy, gummy Asian noodles with a poached egg that besides being first-rate was exactly the unique type of experience I look for. The hamachi was the first truly original uncooked fish appetizer I have encountered in a long time of eating uncooked fish appetizers. As for the pork buns, well they are possibly the greatest après-Jager food there is.

Barron Point Oysters (WA) – w/ preserved lemon

Caraquet Oysters (Canada) – w/ cucumber, melon

Cured Hamachi-horseradish, edamame

Seasonal Pickles

Steamed Buns-pork belly, hoisin, cucumber

Grilled Spanish Mackerel-salted plum, pickled daikon, ponzu

Warm Veal Head Terrine

Winesap & Northern Spy Apple Salad – Benton’s bacon, lychee, peanuts

Fried Cauliflower–pickled chilies, delfino, mint, fish sauce

Mutsu & Macoun Apple Salad – crispy pork jowl, arugula, soy bean sauce

Roasted Poussin – acorn squash, crispy onions (and our truffle)

Noodles, poached egg, and our truffle

Col. Bill Newsom’s Country Ham (Princeton, Kentucky)
Edward’s Wigwam Smoked Ham (Surry, Virginia)
Finchville Farms Country Ham (Finchville,Kentucky)

Bo Ssäm-Berkshire butt (except I swear when it was presented it was called a shoulder, whichever it was it was great), dozen oysters, kimchi, rice, bibb lettuce.

It was my birthday so I am sure if you ask Wife, Thursday, Bear, Soho, Octopus, Code, or O’Groom you may get a better feel for nuance and subtlety. But as far as my old drunk self goes this place hit me like a happy hammer, and I’ll be back.

BLT Burger, 500 mixturillian stars

Classically, buying ground beef from a butcher meant there would be a mix of cuts in your purchase. The trimmings from the fillet, the loin, the ribs, or whatever cuts were being butchered that day would be ground together and sold more cheaply for burgers, meatloaf and so on. As the interests of large scale factory meat production came to matter more in the scheme of American consumerism than, say, quality, flavor, or cleanliness, butchering of our meat moved onto factory floors to be performed as quickly as possible. So the likely ratio of filet mignon in your ground beef to other cuts diminished and the likelihood of connective spinal tissue and other less desirable animal byproducts rose. This sent most of those of us looking for art in burgers to the few small remaining butcher shops, places that still do some of the butchering of beef on premises, because classic butchering means classic ground beef, which means classic burgers.

Chef Laurent Tourondel has opened a burger shop on 6th Avenue called BLT Burger and has started his quest for burger greatness by experimenting with and mixing ratios of cuts of meat. On the top left-hand corner of the BLT Burger menu is a short paragraph explaining that the burgers are a mix of short rib, sirloin, chuck, and brisket. There are no claims of grass fed, or heritage breeds, or pasture opportunities, simply a nod that better burgers come from a mix of cuts, some fattier some leaner, some supple some flavorful, that burgers are basic and attention to the basics may produce better results.

The room and the menu are both pretty simple. This room has been about five places in the seven years I have lived in the neighborhood, so it’s hard to keep track of what’s newly added and what’s old. There is a tin ceiling I imagine has always been there, seating in darkly stained sedate and comfortable rough cut wooden booths that may or may not have been there through the last couple of incarnations, and a bull’s head with about a six foot horn-span hung on the back wall that I doubt is a holdover from the failed raw bar. The menu has six burger choices – beef, turkey, veggie, Kobe, lamb, and BLT – with cheese and topping options. For apps there are chili, wings, and a couple of salads. To drink they have floats, milkshakes, boozed up milkshakes, and a pretty respectable beer selection. All in all, somehow appropriate for a malt shop in Greenwich Village.

CHICKEN WINGS crispy fried chicken wings: your choice of spicy Buffalo or tangy BBQ. We chose Buffalo. In general I subscribe to the “no breading” school of chicken wing, especially Buffalo, and these are breaded. Not over-breaded, in fact crunchy enough that the breading is not soft from soaked-in sauce, but breaded nonetheless. When fried, the breading on these wings was scorched and alone, when pulled off the wing, tasted a touch acrid, though this was not a big deal when eaten with the meat of the wing. Overall the flavor was fine: tangy, not very hot on anyone’s scale, the blue cheese dressing for dipping was great once you mixed the actual cheese into it. I suspect I would have perceived these more favorably had they been branded hot wings or something else rather than Buffalo wings.

Bubby and I decided to split two burgers: the KOBE BURGER highest quality, Snake River Farm American Kobe beef, and THE CLASSIC BURGER tender and delicious certified Black Angus beef. The Kobe was ordered medium-rare, as is, and we added blue cheese to the Classic. The Kobe was great, every bit that had not touched the heat tender and juicy, the bits that had heat contact crunchy and somehow individual, but overall not as much better than the Classic as the price would demand. I assume this is a testament to the blending of cuts the chef has done in the Classic and not in the Kobe, but it may be just the nature of a small fast-food type burger. Without even factoring that it is less than half the price, the Classic is the superior option.

Both burgers come topped with torn leaves of iceberg lettuce, thin slices of tomato, some sliced red onion, pickle chips, ketchup, mustard, and mayo. The patty is from the under-six-ounce-size school I call the fast-food burger and is hit with enough heat to sear its outside. The burger itself is quite juicy, the bun is the simplest of picnic buns, the condiments are in perfect balance (the pickles, the mustard, mayo, and ketchup proportions all at levels that combine to accent the beefiness of the combination of meat as well as to add zing). As it happens, the best burger on the table was Wife’s. Having decided to stay out of our reindeer games for this eve, she ordered the Classic with Vermont cheddar. I only had one bite of it but the condiments’ flavors were far more in line with the cheddar than the blue. It’s the one I am going back for.

From FRIES & RINGS we had IDAHO HAND CUT French fries, quite tasty but limber in the accepted manner of homemade fries around town, with a little crispness to them. I suspect the kitchen will soon work out the double-frying method that will result in crispier fries to play better with such a juicy burger. SWEET POTATO fries, I liked these as much as I have ever liked any version, but to be honest I wouldn’t have ordered them in the first place. VIDALIA ONION rings, battered (more like tempura than beer) with a nice saltiness. The onion slices were quite thick and the batter didn’t cling well. This is a recipe that will need a little work as the restaurant gets up to full speed.

I became familiar with one of BLT Burgers’ managers when she worked at Morimoto so she kindly introduced me Chef Tourondel while we waited for our table and he, in turn, sent along CHILI BOWL housemade beef, pork & bean chili, topped with cheddar, sour cream & green onions (there were also some pickled jalapeños as well). Served in a tall, lidded crock accompanied by some corn bread, it was a little loose, salty, and lacking in both heat and cilantro zip for my liking as a stand alone chili, however when we poured it over the fries it was a good topping.

On the one hand BLT Burger makes a seriously good fast-food burger, on the other it has legitimate attentive service staff as well as a good list of beers to put with that burger. Put both hands together and you have a cool place to hang out and have a fun respectable meal with friends, on the cheaper side. Sure they have paper placemats, but they go on the table rather than lining a tray you carry from counter to seat. On its third night there was good music, a good crowd, a roof, and service from plentiful staff. You definitely have the place I had always wished EJ’s could have been when it was a couple of blocks south.

As an aside, for home burger-making freshly ground beef is paramount and you can mix your own. I have never gone as far as Chef Tourondel but I find fresh ground chuck to fresh ground sirloin in a rough 3:1 ratio works very well for home burger prep. The other key is seasoning with good salt earlier than you think, which pulls some of the water out leaving the inherent fat to provide the juiciness.

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.

 

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.

Hearth, 672 yearlillian stars

Because most weddings happen on Saturdays, most first anniversaries happen on Sunday and seconds on Monday. The good news is tradition narrows the gift for you: the first being paper and the second cotton. The bad news is you must be very careful where you choose to dine. Even if the appropriate restaurants near you are open on Sunday and Monday these are often the days the leaders of the team behind the food take off, so it matters that the place you choose has its game in order.

All things considered, even if we didn’t know we could trust hearth on a Sunday, I still think Wife and I would have chosen Hearth for our first anniversary last year. Along our way we have seemed to commemorate romantic occasions in the company of Marco and Paul, from Valentine’s at Gramercy Tavern to birthdays at Craft, and so on. There has always been an association between our celebrations, Marco’s food and Paul’s wine. Being people inclined to tradition, for our second anniversary this year we stuck with what has worked so well in the past.

So at eight-ish on the quiet Monday of our second anniversary, Wife and I sat down to dinner at Hearth. Perusing Hearth’s wine list is something that should be done by all; seriously, stop in, grab a seat at the bar and a drink, and read it. Where else can you learn how such and such a wine from Austria is like Christina Aguilera, better and more talented than Britney Spears’ version from France, but less appreciated? It truly is a fun read, and if you’re not careful you will learn something about wine. This, however, was a warm, kind of humid night deep in September. Although the weather wasn’t quite fall-ish enough to move us into autumnal wines, it wasn’t warm enough to merit a summer quaff either, which is what made me so happy to see the Saison (seasonally released beers as explained) on the first page of the wine list after cocktails.

The first Saison sampled was Dupont, Vieille Provision from Belgium, described as having notes of yeast, clove, anise, and grapefruit, all of which I found, but I was looking for them. As it opened, though, the notes turned entirely to hops, gradually going from a little funky to full-blown skunk weed, but in the good way. As it warmed it got heavy, but that didn’t keep it from pairing well with my appetizer.

STUFFED CABBAGE with sweet breads, Veal, Pastina and Broth: in a mahogany brown broth flavored simply yet very deeply of roasted meats were tiny squares of thin pasta, disks of carrot in three colors (orange, yellow, and crimson), and thin strands of cabbage and shallot. Set in the pool of this liquid were cabbage leaves wrapped around sweetbreads and ground veal breast with parmesan mixed in (a pillowy, soft stuffing with the richness of the meats and broth made deeper by the sourish lactic contrast of the cheese’s aroma). If I ever do get gout as everyone says I will from my offal and red wine heavy diet, I want to eat this while I heal.

The second Saison sampled was Le Baladin Wayan from Italy, described as having notes of flowers, toast, pepper, and citrus all of which became apparent when looked for. This one was incredibly food friendly, going particularly well with my entrée and especially with the raw fresh thyme leaves dusting the top.

ROASTED GUINEA HEN with Pancetta, Mustard Greens, Corn and Corn Jus: one of the greatest aspects of Marco’s dishes at Hearth is his levels of interpretation. In this dish corn is poppy sweet white corn kernels floating in a corn flavored brown fowl stock, the guinea hen is the breast roasted rolled in pancetta, and the confit of thigh is made into dumplings floating in the soup. Variations on a theme that come together with that touch of raw thyme that harkens back to the days he was working with Colicchio at the Tavern, and mustard greens and parmesan adding hottish astringency and sourness, middling the dish right at the level food in a restaurant called Hearth should be.

With the Hen we had the Potato Purée (third time this season), still reigning as my favorite available starch.

Celebrations must include dessert, but I still had some Saison to get through before sweets could show up so we asked our server to select us some cheeses he thought would compliment it. He brought us Emmenthaler from Switzerland, Trumpeter Meadow from Fence Line Dairy in Wisconsin, and Grafton 4 Star Cheddar from Vermont. The Emmenthaler had that simple and distinctly Swiss flavor that makes fondue go so well with aromatic whites and Kirsch, but was a little sharp for the Saison. The Trumpeter Meadow and Cheddar, however, were exactly right; the Trumpeter more nutty, the Cheddar more meaty, both complex enough to play with the aromas lingering at the end of the beer.

My taste for sweets is very narrow, but safely in the middle of it are concord grapes in the northeast of America in September. So it was simple to pick MASCARPONE CHEESECAKE with Concord Grape Compote and Sorbet: the sorbet was such a perfect representation of the flavor of seasonal grapes that I quickly ate it before I tasted the other components. Then, sorbet well consumed, I had the compote with the cheesecake which balanced the concentration of tartness in the compote quite nicely.

So on top of being comfortable in a comfortable space and enjoying great food, what else could happen to reassure us that this is the perfect place for us to celebrate our nuptials year to year? When presented with a check the waiter told us a good friend of mine that happened to have been eating three tables away picked up the meal we had had up until his departure. In the long run, we enjoyed ourselves and had a meal I would have happily paid significant sums of money for, for nearly free. As magic as Hearth can be on a normal night, it goes to the next level on a special occasion if only by being as welcoming and comforting to everyone else as it is to us.

August, 331 monthzillian stars

I like suggesting restaurants; why else would I write this blog. I also enjoy restaurant recommendations, a thing people offer less and less the more I write. So when the time finally arrived to get out with other bloggers (Code and O’Groom) I happily let them choose, and their choice was August on Bleecker St.

I know what you are saying, “Um you always write about that neighborhood, and the name of your blog is Augieland, how the heck is it possible that you haven’t written up August?” The simple answer is I hadn’t been in the months since Augieland was started.

I know August as a good room with good food that for me would be more a stop by place than a planned evening place. Although I have never had to wait long for a table, they don’t have a bar so in my mind any wait would be spent standing outside, which as fun as it may be for brunch I shy away from at dinner.

The plan was to meet up one evening and partake in the Oktoberfest dinner special the restaurant was running. I happen to have been at August on the night before they opened visiting a good friend who was one of the opening chefs (a very short tenure, which may also contribute to my seldom visiting) and stood next to the big wood-burning oven while plans for a menu that encompassed all of western European food rather than just a country or area like the Mediterranean, and a glassed in courtyard were described. So for dinner with Code and O’Groom, it felt appropriate to have German fare in the now- finished courtyard.

The deal was from September 11th thru the 17th for twenty-eight dollars two people could each have a cast-iron skillet with a link each of house-made Bratwurst, Bauernwurst, and Bockwurst on a pile of spiced sauerkraut, as well as a plate of black bread and homemade caraway pretzels with a wholegrain and a Dijon mustard. All three sausages were pan fried with the Bock (the most traditional of the three for a Munich Oktoberfest celebration as far as I know) being the most mild, the Brat a little further along the spicy scale, and the Bauern being the most deeply flavored, although more finely ground than I expected. The pretzels were awesome, dense and chewy and liberally studded with caraway and the black bread was exactly as it should be, hearty.

To accompany the dinner two beers were offered, an Ayinger Oktoberfest and a Schneider’s Organic Edelweisse. The Ayinger was malty and dry with notes of spun sugar, great for sipping with the food.  The Edelweisse was lighter and a little hoppier, also well suited to the food and better suited to quicker drinking.

For dessert there was Schwarzwlder Kirschtorte, something like an individual black forest cake in a bombe torte shape. I remember the bite I took as being a lot of very good whipped cream with chocolate cake and marinated cherries.

Ok, this menu was a special that is in the past and no longer available, so why write a report on it? That’s easy, the dinner was great; we met and enjoyed fun people in a lively unique space, and had very good renderings of honest simple fare from parts of Europe usually isolated by cuisine in New York. The price was fair and the food was made in-house. I really don’t know what more you could ask for from a neighborhood bistro, except a bar ;-)

Chanterelle, 483 comingilillian stars

Be your guest at a sake and food dinner at Chanterelle in two hours? Of course I was the right guy to call when whoever it was dropped out, and of course I went.

In 1993-94 I would come into New York to work for free every day at a business in the Tribeca Film Center. These were the days when all of Tribeca smelled like roasted peanuts two or three days a week because Bazzini was a peanut roaster, not a gourmet store and condo complex. The Tribeca Grill was there and getting some attention, but the best meal and the best room were pretty much accepted as being at Chanterelle which had already been there for like ten years.

Needless to say, with my budding young food obsessions I always wanted to eat in the subtle, classy room I saw through the white curtains walking to and from the errands interns are sent on. I was assured by those who could and did go that the husband and wife team behind Chanterelle, David and Karen Waltuck, were not only drawing seasoned vets of the greater West side of the triangle below Canal but that people from as far as the Upper East Side were coming down for the food, which they explained as significant to the kid still commuting from Jersey City.

I finally did have a meal at Chanterelle at some point and remember little more than awe, making this opportunity to get back there much appreciated. What hasn’t changed is that the room is still best described as tasteful, and Karen Waltuck still cheerily makes you feel at home in the front of the house while David does the cooking. What is either new or I wasn’t food fluent enough to take notice of back then is the presence of sake.

Sake is something I wish I knew more about. I have learned the fundamentals along the way – sake is brewed and is rice-based; the rice for sake is polished prior to brewing; and the more starch that is removed in the process, the more the resulting brew becomes subtle and nuanced. The levels of starch removal I have learned, in order of least to most, are Jumnmai-shu, Ginjo-shu, and Daiginjo-shu. I am aware that there are unfiltered varieties (when I have had them I seem to prefer unfiltered) and brews made from different types of rice. There are sweet sakes and dry ones, and no good sake is consumed hot. I know that with the average Japanese meal in New York I seem to prefer Ginjo sake. But that’s the extent of my knowledge at this point (mostly learned at Decibel around the same time I was working in The Tribeca Film Center).

Learning food and wine always requires learning a new language, even if it is just the words in English that pertain to the particular process. The thing about sake is it requires you to learn a new alphabet. This combined with the fact that most of the restaurants in New York with a good collection of sake and a knowledgeable sake-geek have loud, uncomfortable bars that specialize in mixology and not always food means there has been little opportunity for me to go beyond a beginner’s level of knowledge.

Most of the learning I do about booze happens at a comfortable bar with a genial and knowledgeable professional pouring and teaching. The good news is Chanterelle definitely has the guy to fit the bill in the personage of Roger Dagorn, though sadly Chanterelle is a bar-less restaurant. As I understand it it was Roger’s passion for sake that brought the brewers of these samplings to Chanterelle for this dinner and somewhere between him and Chef Waltuck this menu was planned. Here is how it went:

Amuses Bouches: a fried oyster resting on diced cucumber topped with salmon roe and a pinwheel of prosciutto and fig, paired with Ohyama Tokubetsu Janmai ‘Nigori’(an unfiltered and unpasteurized sake that looked and tasted somewhat milky with floral notes of lilac). The sake was quite light in comparison to the crust of the oyster and the sweetness of the figs.

Chesapeake Bay Crabmeat “Ravioli” with Golden Beets, Avocado & Almond Oil: sweet crabmeat sandwiched between thin crunchy slices of golden beet, served with bibb lettuce and avocado, paired with Ichinokura Junmai ‘Himezen’ which involved aromas of orange blossoms, strawberries and pear nectar while tasting like the white (pineapple) Haribo Gold gummy bears. The pairing ended up a study in the lighter aspects of sweetness – the beets, the crab, and the sake itself – with the avocado offering weight to draw out each component’s individuality along the sweet spectrum.

Beef Carpaccio with Marinated Mushrooms: thinly shaved beef laid on a plate and ringed with brilliantly peppery arugula drizzled with a sweet miso dressing was served alongside Ohyama Junmai Ginjo ‘Ginsuika’ which had a saline and bitter vegetal palate and aromas of raw pine-nuts and toasted nori. In my mind the reason to learn about sake is that the wine world does not necessarily cover all vegetables and fishes, so it was interesting to see it paired here with beef. The miso definitely lent a familiarity of palate between the French and Japanese but beyond that the sharper notes of the sake were enveloped in the beef.

Ragout of Chanterelles with Fried Quail Eggs: pan-roasted chanterelles in a brown jus with a sunny-side-up quail’s egg, matching Otokoyama Junmai Daiginjo, with rosehips and white pepper on the nose and a boozy palate of jicama. The dish was salty, earthy and rich and the sake acted as another ingredient, adding roses to the earthiness and pepper to the salt while thinning the yolk’s lavishness.

Grilled Arctic Char with Grapefruit Butter: a grilled fillet of char on cabbage slaw with snap peas, orange zest and grapefruit butter, served along with Tsukasabotan Junmai Ginjo ‘Nama’ Sake which possessed a lactic richness and plum and balsa wood scents. Probably the finest pairing of the night, these were just in perfect accord. Like the greatest of wines, I find finer sake becomes more a familiar myriad of flavors without any one exact discernable unique note. This was the first sake of the night to smell and taste primarily like good sake, the fish’s skin had an awesome wood-grilled flavor to its grill marks that was almost plasticy, like a fugu tail but more subtle. Although maybe not the sake or course of the evening, this was definitely the pairing.

Spiced New Zealand Snapper on Vegetables Escabeche: a fillet of the fish with its skin seared crisp rested atop pickled vegetables and a similarly seared cauliflower floret and was served with Wakatake ‘Onikoroshi’ Junmai Daiginjo. The best word I have to describe this sake is pleasant; it conjured the image of sweet water as I have heard the term used to describe potable water in an unknown land, with a wispy aroma of perfume on the breeze. The dish, which I enjoyed, is remembered simply as nice which it was, it just didn’t speak to me like the drink did in this pairing.

Fricassee of Lobster with Lemongrass and Lime Leaves: lobster meat in a small cast-iron pot with a buttery sauce and citrus aromas was served alongside Tsukasabotan Junmai Daiginjo ‘Shizuku’ with a driving heat of alcohol behind its eucalyptus notes and an aroma of sweet flowers. I understand the motivation to serve this dish this way, but the result sadly was chewy lobster tail. The claws, however, went well and the butteriness of the sauce tempered the sake’s boozy heat.

Seared Duck Breast with Sweet Ginger Sauce: simply roasted duck breast with bok choi, chiffonade of scallions, and a chewy beggar’s purse resting on silver leaf was served with Kaika Junmai Daiginjo ‘Tobindori’ Shizuku with an herbal anise nose and a salty palate. This was the only mis-pairing of the night: as much sense as it made in theory, the scallions pulled an unpleasant acerbicness out of the sake making the great thought an unpleasant match.

Roasted Pears with Fresh Ricotta Crème and Honey Citrus Caramel Sauce: sweet more from roasted sugars than added sugars, it went along with Otokoyama Junmai Genshu ‘Fukkoshu’ Sweet Sake which smelled of banana bread, dried fruits, toasted fish skin and yeast, and was all pear juice on the palate. With this one we learned that most sakes are cut with water to bring their alcohol down. While this one wasn’t, due to its sweetness it was not as noticeably boozy as a couple of its predecessors.

In a perfect world, Chanterelle would have a bar I could wander into during the quieter before/after service hours and drink sake by the glass, trying to suck as much of Roger’s expertise from his brain as possible. That not being an option, I think this dinner was an acceptable substitute. During each course Roger stopped by our tables, often to introduce the person responsible for brewing the accompanying sake. He explained what made each sake unique, as well as his thoughts behind the pairing, and was very available for question answering.

As I understand it this was the seventh or eighth of these sake-centric dinners which are held annually at Chanterelle and a perfect night, as I learned a thing or two about sake and its process and enjoyed some inspired pairings. Until the Waltucks see their way clear to adding a bar, I can’t imagine a better venue for experiencing fine sake and fine food. Great food and great drink should not be separate, and need not be. These are well crafted drinks that paired well with well-crafted food, and in the crossing of traditionally staid lines I got to come to a better appreciation of both.

At this point Chanterelle is an august place doing an excellent job oft overlooked by me for the newer kids on the block. I was very glad to have this opportunity to be reminded of the brilliance that exists in the composed, sure confidence of a place that has proven itself and continues to by taking advantage of its position to explore things as unique as the pairing of pretty traditional French fare and the finest of Japanese sakes.