Augieland

Gordon Ramsay at the London, brief thoughts and porn

Thoughts on my dinner at Gordon Ramsay at the London:

• This is exactly the place to take people who love food, but not necessarily a destination for foodies.
• The food I was served could not have been better prepared.
• Like an Olympic dive that could never get a ten because of its low degree of difficulty, the perfection is a bit perplexing. Nothing was so original or inspired as to amaze, but at the same time each component of each dish was exceptional in quality and execution.
• The room, if described in parts, would sound busy, but as experienced comes together much like the food: it is warm and intimate enough to be alive, while leaving the space to enjoy your meal and your company comfortably.
• The swivel chairs are by far the best seating I have encountered in a fine restaurant.
• There are aspects of the room that feel like the subtlest interpretations of Western motif, particularly the some wagon wheel-esqe chandeliers and bridle-y wall hangings.
• All in all the place feels like one of the greatest values in town on a dollars-spent-to-experience-provided ratio.
• Go because you want fine food, not because you want to be awed.

Menu Prestige with lamb choice, the porn:

Thoughts week ending 11/10/06

… I just assume diners know that real Kobe is back in America after a hiatus. But Meg recently linked this rather fluffy piece in the Post so I figured I would offer my experience with it here. I became aware of the embargo’s end shortly before I had what I assumed was real Kobe on my second L’Atelier visit. I didn’t ask so I can’t swear it was authentic, what I can say is it was exponentially better than all the other meat I have been served around town that was branded as Kobe or Waygu (don’t know if you have been to Old Homestead but little in New York food is as pathetic as their offerings).

When I had this discussion with my friend Mark, the Chef De Cuisine at Morimoto, he explained that to truly appreciate the finest Kobe it should be prepared Shabu Shabu. In a nutshell, you quickly swish very thinly sliced Kobe through a hot, flavored liquid and pair it to differing vegetables and dipping sauces. Absolutely convinced that Mark had gone insane from too much Japanese exposure and that meat with that kind of fat content could not be better boiled than seared, I accepted his challenge, leading to my first ever full meal at Morimoto not at the Omakase bar.

The meal left me feeling three things: that Mark is a very good chef producing very cool food from the Morimoto kitchen, that I am a bad friend for confining my dining at his restaurant to the Omakase bar with which he is not involved, and that I was totally wrong – Shabu Shabu is indeed the superior manner for Kobe preparation.

Grilled/seared/roasted and all other high heat methods scorch the predominant and flavorful fats, while with Shabu Shabu the flavored broth heated by an incredibly hot rock releases and encourages them to bloom, offering more of a slightly melted silky texture. Words like rich, buttery, and unctuous describe fast high heat preparations of Kobe and they are indeed special. However, I have no words to describe the sensation of this dish. I will tell you it ended a headache that I had in my temples and I spent most of the rest of the evening with the aromas running through my head in rather blissful contemplation.

There are many reasons to be into trying Kobe and it is an amazing ingredient. If your inspiration is that you are into flavor contemplation and you have an opportunity to try it as Shabu Shabu I think it is well worth taking.

Not sure why I never posted a report on the meal; maybe because I didn’t keep good enough notes, or didn’t want to concede my wrongness to Mark. Either way it was an exceptional meal. I did shoot it, though. Here are the pics of the Kobe Shabu Shabu course:

Café Cluny, 421 saturatillian stars

It takes nerves of steel to decorate your restaurant with a three foot cockroach. To be fair, I am not sure it is a cockroach or that it is carved from driftwood, but that’s how it looked to me suspended from the ceiling in the back corner of Café Cluny, the new little French place in the West Village serving straightforward bistro food. I am sure you are asking, “the West Village needed a new small restaurant serving French bistro food, how will it stand out?” Well, besides the three foot driftwood cockroach, a serious collection of sketches of flora and fauna, and a strikingly good portrait of a young Jonathan Waxman in pencil, it has a stupendous appetizer.

Like Gavroche, Jarnac, La Ripaille, Le Gamin, Paris Commune, Tartine, and the many places in the neighborhood that also serve standard French bistro food but don’t identify themselves as uniquely French, this is a quaint room jammed full of little, two-person tables and bistro chairs that encourages an intimacy with the crowd. You are, after all, about ten inches from your fellow diners in two of the three directions that aren’t facing the table. Also, like all of these places, this one was full of patrons; it would seem outside Paris the best place to be a Parisian bistro is in the part of New York City where the East-West streets start running diagonally SE-NW.

When Wife and I walked in around six on a Monday to a rather sparsely sat restaurant we were told they could accommodate two but that we would need to finish by 7:30pm. This initiated a gamut of feelings in me. First was this isn’t Nobu and I stopped eating at Nobu because of the “I need the table back” thing they do. Second was, well, maybe the table has been reserved and this host is kindly squeezing me in, making a fair deal for both of us (we weren’t going to be long anyway, people who sit before six seldom are and he must know that or he wouldn’t be the gatekeeper at a restaurant in Manhattan). Third was what kind of inept reservationist loads a book around 7:30pm on a Monday? Finally, when the third phrase uttered by our waiter was “there is no rush” I figured best to write it off to new place jitters not worth being distracted by.

Ok, so the place is not very unique and is very popular very early in its run. What matters is the food and wine:

The wine list is trite and dear, however every bottle of wine on the short list is also offered by the glass. A tough program to maintain that would end up wasting a lot of fine wine, it seemed sensible with these simpler selections which may even improve with a little oxidization. The menu doesn’t care what you drink with it so neither should you. Get a glass of whatever you feel like; Swordfish “Au Poivre” will be fine with Malbec and Sauvignon Blanc.

Mixed Greens Salad: there can be beauty in a simple salad, as this example shows. Crisp, well selected greens with fine herbs mixed through, dressed in sherry vinegar and a nutty olive oil vinaigrette. There is a margin for error in such simplicity that many versions of this salad fall victim to, happily not here.

Sea Scallops w/ cauliflower puree & beet jus: no doubt the dish of the night. Seared scallops dotted with a touch of caviar resting on a velvety cauliflower purée which has been ringed with reduced beet juice, all topped with a scattering of what I assumed to be baby mache. The scallops, seared to a taut level, had a smooth texture, perfectly complimenting the luscious purée I would bet was 99% butter. The beet sauce offered a light sweetness, the caviar provided saline bursts that stood well individually rather than homogenizing as salt would have otherwise, and the mini-lettuce offered a light bitter touch of vegetal astringency to play off the tight spectrum of sweetness, saltiness, tartness, and richness of the other components.

For entrées we had Roasted All Natural Chicken w/ autumn vegetables and Hanger “Steak Frites” w/ fingerling potatoes, Swiss chard and garlic butter. The good side of both was the cooking. The steak had a great char with a tender, exactly-cooked center, the chicken’s skin was crispy while the flesh remained succulent; both were as good as or better than most of the versions around town. The accompanying vegetables were as good. The fingerling potatoes were called confit in the sides part of the menu, by which I assume they mean poached in oil, either way their waxy flesh had a sumptuous bite. The braised chard was light with only enough vegetal bitterness left to compliment the beef. The vegetables with the chicken were roasted Jerusalem artichokes, onions, carrots, and spinach, a mélange that played quite well with the deep reduction of chicken stock (with its zip of long roasted bones and vegetables) dressing the plate.

Notwithstanding the menu’s annoying habit of presenting certain options “in quotations,” the weakness of the entrées was a pronounced lack of salt, which is often the weakness at new restaurants. I never complain about salt in a restaurant that provides it on the table. If it’s there I can use it after all, but the level of preparation in this case wanted far better salt than was available in the shaker on the table. In the chicken dish the breast, the vegetables, and the sauce were properly salted, the thigh however was entirely lacking (I have to imagine because it was plated under the breast the last touch before service missed it). As for the steak, it was missing salt entirely as were its accompanying potatoes. After three bites I added some of the table salt, only to have it wash through and make the meat taste coated in salt rather than seasoned with. Better table salt would cure this, but I assume from the level of attention in the rest of the preparation it won’t be necessary for long.

So that I could say I tried a dessert I sampled the Concord Grape Tarte with Peanut Butter Ice Cream (apparently the pastry chef does not believe in shorthand). People often try to reinterpret childhood memories like PB&J in dishes, some to good effect, some to poor. This one works, both components are solid and well produced but in no way genius, much like the ingredients they ape. The result is a fun, good take on the fondly familiar.

I originally thought Café Cluny would serve best as a way to skip the line around the corner at Tartine and its sibling good French bistros, except that a week in they are already very full, which leaves us with that scallop. The staff has nailed that cute and adept, if not expert, thing that usually takes years to get down. The food is good enough to expect it will get better. The best you can hope for from a restaurant serving the standards that are on this menu is aptitude, which this place has. Have a bad jones for simply roast chicken? This place will be as safe a stop-off as any other. But I would definitely be willing wait around a short amount of time at the cute little bar and have some drinks in order to eat more of their scallops.

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.

Thoughts week ending 11/03/06

…Because I see it as such a simple reality that the trans-fat ban is stupid and will in the long run hurt the cause of American health more than help I haven’t really paid attention to it much, but this article in the Motley Fool has forced my hand. To learn the lesson of why a trans-fat ban is stupid you need look no further than the origins of the problem.

At some point some genius decided that butter (a component of the human diet for a very long time) was bad for you and said we shouldn’t eat it, giving the American population the belief that butter = bad. Then some other genius invented a way to make non-animal products behave and seem somewhat like animal products, and for some reason believed and got others to believe that a substance with zero equivalents in nature was better nutrition for humans than milk that had been stirred a lot. Americans got the message that margarine was fine and began consuming more of it than they ever did butter. Later, the truth that science does not make better food but alternate food became obvious, and the fact that the created food item was bad for you was probably also apparent but not necessarily admitted to.

So now here we are. Turns out the alternate food is basically poison to some degree or other, but rather than learn from past mistakes and put energy into teaching Americans the nature of fats and that natural fats used appropriately are far better for you than any other possible substitute, big business has created a new food, this time from a plant they created that has a resistance to poison added to its genetic make up, and Americans are getting the message that fried chicken at KFC is not as bad for you as it used to be.

Rather than go back to the naturally occurring lipids that were doing little if any harm originally, the solution is a new synthetic food. The article notes:

"In an interesting aside, the company that provides the Vistive brand of low-linolenic soybeans is none other than biotech giant Monsanto (NYSE: MON). Monsanto put out a press release applauding KFC's move, while KFC said it is working with several possible suppliers, including Monsanto, to secure its oil. Known for genetically modified agricultural products, Monsanto says that Vistive soybeans are grown through conventional breeding techniques, but critics say that's a bit misleading because they still contain the Roundup Ready trait.

Connections to GM foods make this an issue that could, at some point, become controversial, since some people believe that GM foods might prove dangerous in their own right. Of course, it seems unlikely that the people who police their diet against GM foods are the same consumers who frequent fast-food establishments such as KFC, Wendy's, and McDonald's. (In a news conference, KFC President Gregg Dedrick said he didn't know whether the oil would contain GM soybeans). "

Nevertheless, the trans-fat ban will equate in the American conscience to “they made fried chicken safe” and our culture will take one more step toward ill health, particularly in the lower income populations that are the predominant consumers the of offerings of YUM brands.

I know there is no reason to believe me, I am an anonymous, credential-less guy with a website about food, but I hold these truths self evident none the less:

• Fried chicken is one of the greatest foods of all time and should be eaten in its proper place in a balanced diet
• Because you can’t eat fried chicken all the time you should try to eat the best when you do.
• There is a local place making better fried chicken than KFC in every town in America
• KFC is never in the running for good fried chicken.
• Oil made from a plant bred from genetically altered parents to resist one of the most thorough poisons known at the moment will definitely be shown to be bad for you and will be banned at some point after this has been discovered, just like the current laboratory fats.

So get some lard and a flavorful bird raised on a farm, not in a warehouse, bread it and fry it in a cast-iron pan. Even if you do it every day it is better for you than KFC, but if you do it right it will be just what it should be: comfort food perfect for good times…

…Just like some time in the future I will get to say “I told you so” about frying your food in factory-produced oil from poison plants, I now get to say I told you so, good wine and good food should always go hand in hand and just can’t be bad for you…

Woody's chestnut raised pork

A while back I did a post about the glories of the acorn-fed black footed pigs of Spain and the hams and charcuterie that arise from them. Soon after, I received an email from a gentleman named Woody explaining that he was a chestnut farmer/breeder and had recently been raising some pigs on the chestnuts he had been farming. While at this point he is not producing the pigs for sale so I couldn’t buy them, he explained that he would happily give me some for sampling if I was interested and would give him feedback. After entertaining the idea that he might be related to the wine guy at A Voce or some other restaurateur I have been less than nice to, I decided this would be quite an elaborate ruse and that maybe this guy was on the up and up.

Last week, right before my Alba trip, a Styrofoam cooler box filled with dry ice and some pig showed up (so it is worth noting all this meat spent 10 days in my freezer before the tasting). There was a tube of ground pork, a pork liver, an Iowa chop, and some bacon. In the interest of giving good feedback and running this meat through its courses I decided on three tests:

First test – Bacon. For the bacon I went over Pichon’s and did a side by side comparison with what I felt would be a competent competitor. For the other bacon we chose Seriously Good bacon from the guys at the Greenmarket with the Seriously Good Bacon sign.

To be fair, the Seriously Good bacon guys had no idea they were entering a competition, but there was a drastic difference between the two bacons physically. Woody’s bacon was striated with fat while the Seriously Good bacon was more a fat cap next to meat. Both types possessed almost a one to one ratio of meat to fat, the Woody bacon however had its fat spread throughout, while the Seriously Good bacon was more two distinct sides.

We went with two methods of preparation: microwave for its exactness and lack of human error, and pan-frying, because it tastes better. Each preparation was done separately, so as not to commingle flavors. The pan-frying was performed by Pichon in two pans, the microwaving for four minutes at half power in two waves.

I don’t know how much of these results were due to cut and how much were the chestnut raising, but texture does not seem a fair point of comparison. Woody’s won hands down. The fat on the Seriously Good was just getting limber while the meat was already too tough. The Woody pig, however, benefited from its fat being distributed in striations so that crisp was crisp rather than crunchy. This carried even into the tasting – as you chewed the Seriously Good bacon the sensation was of freeing trapped salt from the limber fat, while Woody’s was uniform enough to be perceived as one thing.

As for flavor, in order we preferred the Woody bacon in a frying pan, the Woody bacon in the microwave, the Seriously Good bacon in the microwave, with the Seriously Good bacon in a frying pan bringing up the rear. We tried desperately not to use the word “nutty” to describe the flavor of the Woody bacon. The best alternative we could come up with was when Ringwald noted its faint aromas of roasted winter squash, which did make some sense of the flavor. Sadly, as clichéd as it sounds, the fat of the nut-raised pigs was nutty, wonderfully nutty. Both bacons were salt cured, though the salt notes were far more pronounced in the harder fat of the Seriously Good bacon.

I chose Seriously Good bacon because I love it and wanted as fair a competition as possible. Going in, Pichon absolutely declared he doubted one bacon could be better, or even very different. But side by side I may have designed an unfair competition. Whether we admit it or not, bacon is about fat and the fat of nut-raised pigs just tastes better, more interesting, more complex, more pastoral and in general just more. Hands down the victor of this round was Woody’s bacon.

Second test-was actually an experiment. For the liver I decided we should try to recreate the sofritto Nettasdad made when we roasted the pig in October. I had tasted Nettasdad’s sofritto but was too busy with pig roasting and wine drinking to see him make it. What we had to go on was that awesome old hand Italian cook thing where he mumbled the recipe as: “the liver, the heart, some pork meat, some tomatoes, some garlic, some wine, some peppers oh yea and some peppers.” With this in mind, the gift liver seemed a fair excuse for me to test my hand at some-some-some.

We grated about four garlic cloves and set them in a cool pan with olive oil to wait while I chopped up the liver in a rough dice and mixed the ground pork in.

Once the liver was cut up and the ground pork was added to it I turned the heat under the pan to high.

As the garlic started to brown I added the pile of meat and spread it around evenly. I moved it a little too much, I think, because in the long run the meat more grayed then browned. (Next time I will brown the offal first, then the meat).

Once everything was uniformly grayish brown I added some twists of salt, black pepper, and a couple shakes of chili flake.

Then we threw a large fistful of rough-chopped vinegar peppers in and let it simmer for about fifteen minute with about four glugs from a bottle of a California Cabernet Sauvignon we were drinking (‘97 McKenzie Muller to be exact).

The first taste lacked a certain acidic zing so I added a couple more twists of salt, a couple more twists of pepper, a few more shakes of chili flake, and about a quarter cup of the vinegar from the peppers.

Then Pichon remembered that Nettasdad had said tomatoes so we added about a half cup of chopped tomatoes and their liquid and let that cook down for another fifteen minutes. This added a different and sweeter acidity, rounding the dish out nicely.

Was it as good as Nettasdad’s? Who knows? (Like I said, I was Busy drinking and roasting while he made it.) It was very good and I think I can make it better next time. I would happily serve it to friends as well as enemies as was. How much of the credit belongs to Woody’s pig meat and liver? At this point I am willing to split credit, the worst critique we got was “that’s awesome” and that was from a sober person. If I am sure of anything it is that great cooking may cover mediocre ingredients, but just as much when fooling around in the kitchen trying to reproduce someone else’s good results great ingredients will give you a huge amount of leeway which I definitely enjoyed.

Third Test-For the chop I decided to take my hands out of the prep. Not many people make a pork chop so well that the New York Times reviewer dedicates the title of a review and a whole paragraph to explaining how he was close to getting it on every visit to a particular restaurant. Joey Campanaro is such a chef, so I called Little Owl to see if Joey would play along. I asked that he take my chestnut-fed Iowa chop and one of his now famous chops into his kitchen, prepare them identically, and come out and eat them with me and Pichon, not telling us which was which.

I gave the chop to Joey wrapped hoping he would be able to mask from me which was which; sadly this could not happen. So I never saw it uncooked. On the plate, though, Woody’s was a more traditional chop and obviously different from Joey’s very thick one so I decided to turn the tables, cutting them down to bite-sized morsels and presenting them to Joey and one of his waiters blind, both of whom preferred the house chop.

Again, this was an expected outcome. Joey, his recipe, and his chop have come together over time to be a pretty special combination and just throwing Woody’s chop in deprived it a fair evolution. There is no doubt, though, that Chef Campanaro was fair in the kitchen; both chops were the same hue of pink in the middle, the Woody chop a little more succulent and the Joey chop toothier, apparently by nature.

Once the four of us had tasted, the consensus seemed to be:
-- that the fat on the Woody chop scorched on the grill, giving it an acrid note. We figure that this cut may be better suited to roasting or some other longer, lower heat aplication.
-- that the fat in the Woody chop really adopted the fennel and black pepper notes of Joey’s marinade, so much that some bites were a little overpowering, and that the aroma of these lingered far longer with the Woody chop.

So what have we learned? First and foremost, it may be bad to accept candy from strangers, but pork should always be welcome. Second, that a diet of nuts makes for far more interesting pork. I don’t know what it will take for Woody to move from the fooling-around-raising-pigs-on-the-nuts-left-over-after-the-humans-are-taken-care-of phase to the pig-raising phase, but I hope it happens soon. This meat was amazing, seriously reminiscent of the greatest pigs I have had.

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.

Boqueria, 741 accuratillian stars: originally posted 10/17/06

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.

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.