Category Archives: Addiction

December 30, 2011 · 11:49 am

Best Food of 2011…

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 “My son is a homosexual and I love him…..I love my dead gay son!”

 Oh yeah, let’s open this with one of the classics.  It always struck me as strange when Patrick Labyorteaux stripped off his shirt how weirdly fat and muscular he looked at the same time. His core was like a chubby triangle. Great movie, Heathers.  And whenever I think of the most awesome, inspirational bites of food in my life, my mind immediately goes to that awkward funeral….and then to Brokeback Mountain….and then to some Lifetime PSA movie that doesn’t even exist.  This phenomenon is new to me as of this year, after a single bite of food that I will eventually get around to talking about.  But first I must elaborate upon a rating system that I touched on during my trip to DC…..

 2011 was a MONSTER food year, and my rating system is this- If I didn’t like it, unless it was REALLY horrible, you just don’t ever hear me talk about it. I’m not a food critic, I’m not going to bore you with all of the shit that is wrong with a place unless I get poisoned or physically threatened.  If I like it, but I’m not going to rush right back, you may or may not hear me mention it….The Farmhouse here in KC comes to mind as an example. Good food, I’d throw it out there as a recommendation, it’s worth a second and third try at some point, it’s just not going to break into our dinner rotation.  Then there are the restaurants and single dishes that I LOVE….and in the past year you’ve heard me talk about most of those.  I am always trying new places, but I’m a creature of habit.  If I truly love a place, it makes it into “the rotation”….no small feat. Then we go there all the time, and you get totally fucking sick of my Facebook updates from that point forward.

 But THERE IS a personal rating I possess that makes all of the Michelin stars in the world totally superfluous dogshit in comparison…..and THAT rating, which came to me straight from God in the middle of a single bite of food (which I WILL eventually get around to talking about) is….”Gay Jock Hate Crime of Love”.  Or as it will be referred to from this point forward, GJHCOL.  For the uninitiated I am going to break it down for you in a way that will unsettle you like a burp that smells so bad you think you may need to see a doctor.  With that said, I am obviously in no way advocating actual hate crimes if a bite of food sends you over the top.  My brain is just kind of fucked up, and this is how extreme sensory input and my grey matter have to talk to each other if they want to get my attention.

So anyway….in a vision it came to me…..  We are all familiar with those horrible zero budget Oxygen type movies that highlight something that was a relevant issue two years ago.  They always star Meredith Baxter Birney and some twenty five year old actor who is being passed off as the troubled teenage jock or the bulimic princess.  Well, in THIS movie it’s the jock, complete with his awesome letter jacket where he hides his secret smokes a la Greg Brady. But this jock has another, much bigger secret. FLASH FORWARD!  It’s the end of the football season, and the awkward semi-secret newly formed friendship he has developed with a yell leader (even though they’ve been neighbors forever…long story) transforms into an emotional bond that finally reaches its logical conclusion one night when they are in the gym putting some equipment back into the closet (the director had to throw some real softballs out there imagery-wise, Oxygen watchers are pretty goddamn stupid). Long story short, a “hey man…I never told you how much it meant to me when you…taught me how to read” confession turns into a long embrace, which turns into some very consensual kissing, shirts off, no Laboryteaux doughboys though, they are totally ripped, aaaannnnnd….love story turns to TRAGEDY!   With hot tears streaming and snot bubbles the size of grapefruits, the jock suddenly backs away as if struck by lightning.  He begins to emit an “Eeeee…eeeee…EEEEE” noise like that dude who was banging Forrest Gump’s mom, time stands still and the barometric pressure in the immediate vicinity changes so rapidly their ears begin to pop.  In a fit, he rains very vicious yet still ineffective blows down upon the object of his affection…the camera panning away as his conflicted, soul-cauterizing wails continue to boom throughout the halls. Then we fade in to Meredith Baxter Birney, quietly crying as she sits on his bed, wondering aloud what she could have done to help her son who now sits in the county jail….YEAH, maybe a little more understanding from YOUR sorry ass when you forced him to play football after finding him rifling through your makeup drawer and this would aalllll be different….not every child is as perfect as your precious Alex Keaton, whore.

Lots of restaurants, lots of food to cover, but that whole scenario is what flew through my brain after one bite of the following menu item.  “I HATE this thing….I LOVE this thing….I do NOT KNOW HOW TO FEEL SO I MUST DESTROY!  DESTROY!!! BUT OH MY GOD I LOVE IT SO! Eeeee….eeeeee…EEEEEE!!!” 

Categories are out of order, photos are spotty at best, and not everything I talk about will be “gay jock hate crime of love” good….but this little fucker was:

Best Bite of the Year- the Foie Gras BLT at Eola, Wash. DC

The only bad thing about this dish is the photo.  Bacon cured foie gras with a tomato-madeira concoction inside of truffled brioche. As God is my witness, this is one of the richest, most delicious bites of food….ever.  I mean, it spawned “GJHCOL”, just out of the blue.  If you love offal, you will love Eola. So much good shit, go back and read my DC reviews.

Best “It’s a Classic For a Reason, Dumbass”- Citronelle, Wash. DC

I’m not including Citronelle because it’s insanely expensive and I got my ass royally kissed….this place gave me a double whammy of GJHCOL back to fucking back.  First was the Blanquette of Nantucket Bay Scallops..tons of butter and the most perfect little scallops I’ve ever eaten…slight caramelization on the tops, translucent in the center.  Then the death blow- Halibut with saffron lobster sauce….the sauce was the thing…beyond lobster stock, saffron and butter I do not know what all was in there, but it was probably the best sauce of any kind I have eaten in my life.

Best “Where In the FUUUUCCKK Did This Place Come from?”- The Corn Exchange, Rapid City, SD

 

The Corn Exchange was an absolute surprise shot between the eyes as far as food and service.  I’d read great reviews, and it was the only “fine dining” option within a few hundred miles of where we were staying in Deadwood that sounded worthwhile.  As with most of these “best of’s”, for more info consult the original write-ups, but I will say….the young people on staff had incredible training and if they so desire will be able to go on to work at ANY high-end establishment in any major U.S. city. Their enthusiasm for the restaurant was as enjoyable as the food. And the food…if you’re anywhere near the area, I give it my highest recommendation.  Above I’ve featured their corn pancake topped with smoked salmon just to give you something to look at.

Best “I Feel Bad for Having to Tell My Local Chefs About It”-  Crab Pasta at The Boiler Room, Omaha, Neb.

The handcut tajarin with peekytoe crab at The Boiler Room was the best pasta dish I’d eaten since I dined at Quince in San Francisco.  And I’m not throwing that reference out just to sound cool, if you know your shit you know that Quince is the real deal. There are a million little intangibles when it comes to toothy perfection in a pasta, and Chef Kulik just destroys it up in Omaha.  GJHCOL level deliciousness. I shit you not, if I saw it posted on their website menu in the afternoon for that night’s special and I had the time to make it up there, I’d seriously consider a spontaneous trip to Nebraska.  The Boiler Room is the real thing, eat there.

Best “Softshell Crab at The Rieger”- the Softshell Crab at The Rieger, Kansas City, Mo.

I know, this one was a surpise winner in this category.  Your asses all knew The Rieger was going to show up here….just a matter of when and what.  No secret that I now just refer to it as “headquarters”, and I do look forward to softshell season 2012.  I’ve eaten plenty of softshell crabs and THESE…they are special.  But there’s so much good shit at The Rieger I just kind of settled on this dish because our time with it shall always be fleeting.

Best “Recovering Alcoholics are People TOO”- soft drinks at The Rieger and Justus Drugstore, and the Van Verde at Bluestem

Now I know these things weren’t all formulated just for my sorry low-bottom ass, BUT I am forever thankful for delicious and thought provoking non-alcoholic options when I dine out.  The Rieger Kola, pictured above, is just King Motherfucker and that’s the way it is. Flavorwise, it is the killer.  I’ve been opting for the Green Tea Ginger soda more often recently, but I always go back to the Kola.  At Justus you simply choose between savory and sweet when ordering a mocktail, and I promise you whatever you receive will be as incredible as any of their alcoholic drinks….okay, obvious bullshit THERE, but hey, they are still awesome.  And honorable mention absolutely goes out to Van at Bluestem…the no-booze version of the Van Verde with all of its cucumber smoothness is the perfect beginning to a five course meal in the dining room.

“Best Storyline”- Port Fonda

Like The Rieger, here is another place that I’ve ranted and raved about since our first visit to El Comedor on the hottest day of the year….July First Friday.  It has been chronicled here at least twice, but has to be included in my personal best-of for this year.  It got its start early this year and since then has exploded in popularity with dynamite walk-up Mexican street food, and a private dining experience that blows the mercury straight out of any hipster-cache thermometer. Great food, awesome people, and one hell of a story.  With the passing of Starker’s chef and owner John McClure this fall, a huge gap was left in our food scene and the fate of Barrio, the taqueria set to open in Westport in 2012, was unknown.  With the type of loyalty and love that makes me proud to be a KC food nerd, the folks at Port Fonda and McClure’s business partner Dan Doty teamed up and that taqueria is still going to open in the Spring of 2012.  The Port Fonda storyline expands and the collaboration and respect that is shared amongst some of my personal favorite people in this town will continue to be legendary. 

Best “Comfort Food- Redefined”- Vietnam Cafe, Columbus Park

One of the major food groups my wife has been missing badly since she moved up here is Vietnamese.  I took her to one place in the River Market where I’ve eaten for years, and we tried a couple of places that were new to both of us.  After a couple of visits to each of the (unrelated) Vietnam Cafe’s we have in KC, the one in Columbus Park just sucked us in.  Pretty much every chef I know and every friend who loves food has raved about Vietnam Cafe, but I never want to jump on a bandwagon even if I trust your opinion.  The place delivers, and has leap-frogged over restaurants like The Corner when we’re seeking soul warming comfort food. The pho, the rice dishes, the crazy low prices, the insanely fast service and people watching….I NEVER eat quickly anymore but I always find myself hoovering in whatever they put in front of me.  We need zero reason to head over there, so if you have not been….go, dummy.

“Best Way to Guarantee You’ll Need Your Entrees To-Go”- The Italian Nachos at Cascone’s

This dish will go on every “best of” list I do for the rest of my life….totally non-traditional, insanely unhealthy and filling, and absolutely mandatory.  Fried pasta chips, ground Italian sausage, asiago cheese sauce, parmesan, pepperoncini’s, black olives, tomatoes…..the only way you’re going to touch your entree is if you’re eating with at least three other people.  Total stoner bliss, death row meal material, this is something that will remain legendary.

Best “Only Reason to Drink Coffee Other Than My Own”- the espresso at Grunauer

You know me, I roast my own coffee and have for at least a decade. I generally only use beans from Ethiopia or Yemen with the occasional use of Sumatran or Indian Monsooned if a good crop is available. I make my shit STRONG, my regular cup o’ joe will leave the flavor of most espressos in the dust.  But the Meinl espresso they make at Grunauer is probably the single best restaurant coffee I’ve ever had.  Usually if I can even detect coffee flavor when dining out I’ll say it’s “good”…so when I actually get flavor overload, then holy shit, I’ve stumbled upon the beverage version of GJHCOL.  More places like Justus and The Farmhouse are doing French Press these days, and there are many choices for locally roasted beans, but Grunauer’s espresso is far beyond anything else I’ve ordered in KC.

Best “Made Me Wish I Was a PMS’ing Teenage Girl So I Could Truly Appreciate It”- the Christopher Elbow/Port Fonda drinking chocolate collaboration

These crazy fuckers got together and took what is ALREADY a ridiculously rich and flavorful beverage (that you can’t call hot chocolate because it truly is “drinking chocolate”) and took it to the next level.  I’m not a huge chocolate lover, but God in heaven, the addition of what tasted like orange peel and spicy chiles made a believer out of me.  No need to go looking for it, it was a one-time thing as far as I know, and you know it was delicious if I’m not even mentioning the freshly fried churros they served with it.

Best “Yes I Am Aware It’s a Polarizing Place, But the Food is Phenomenal and  My Street Cred is Such that I Can EAT WHEREVER THE FUCK I WANT”- Justus Drugstore

The title of this award pretty much sums it up.  Do I know diners and restaurant professionals who do not like Jonathan Justus?  Oh yeah. Absolutely. But until I hear stories about him poisoning Tylenol bottles or happily serving Rick Perry or Sarah Palin, I will continue to be a fan. The man puts out some consistently thoughtful and well-executed food. It is rare for my wife and I to spend a thirty minute car ride combing over the finer points of the meal we just ate, and more often than not that’s what happens after our meal there. And the service….excellent.  If you know me, you know the only chef’s ring I’m going to kiss in this town is Howard Hanna’s, and that’s only because we have the same wedding band….I don’t fall for the fanboy bullshit.  If the food was not top notch I wouldn’t eat there just to remain in the KC dining elite, much less rave about it.  Anyone who doubts my ability to completely alienate and terrorize a REAL douche of a chef, feel free to consult the local archives. 

 

Best “Who Knew That Shit Went Together?” – the Sweetbreads and Scallops at The Rieger

That’s pretty much it. Who knew?  Two of my favorite foods on the same plate together, both executed individually and perfectly.  If I’m a dumbass for not knowing this is some legendary goddamn Escoffier classic, well then fuck ME…

“Best Reason to Own at Least One Chest Freezer”- Paradise Locker Meats

I’d say at this point about 85% of the meat we eat comes from Paradise Locker. We are lucky to be able to buy from a place that caters to many, many top tier dining establishments.  Smartest half hour drive ever.  They know their product, and it’s not like Lobel’s… you don’t have to have an upper-east side salary to afford to buy most of your meat there.  Now, it’s not as cheap as your factory farmed grocery store truckload sale selections…..but the trade-off is YOU CAN ACTUALLY TASTE THAT IT’S MEAT!   We are happy to eat a slightly smaller quantity of a much higher quality product, and the selection is varied enough to make it a lot of fun.  It’s a whole circle of life thing…you support a locally owned operation that supports local farms…a meaty and delicious goddamn hippie dream.

Best “Better Late to the Party Than Never”- the radish pods from Crum’s Heirlooms

This was the year we joined our first CSA because it was the first year our favorite farmers (from whom we buy every week during the season ANYWAY) offered one. There were many, many items we loved and lusted over….kohlrabi comes to mind, mountains of kale, RADISHES, tomatoes….but the big one that stuck out due to its uniqueness (and newness to MY clueless ass) was definitely the humble radish pod.  Everthing that is good about a snap pea and spicy radish rolled into one little package.  Eaten alone, on salads….everything about them is good.  Our favorite thing is to mimic a Rieger dish and top a piece of grilled Farm to Market Bread with a salad that features the pods, radishes and greens, all topped with an over-easy egg.  Definitely loving the CSA way of life and the Crum’s are the best…..cannot wait to see what 2012 has in store for us.

“Best Testaments to the Fact That My Kitchen Kung-Fu is Strong”- Macarons and Sous Vide cooking

I’ve featured both of these things on my blog, so I won’t spend a ton of time here.  Mainly just wanted to say that between learning how to successfully make macarons, and bringing sous vide into my regular cooking rotation, I feel like a pretty goddamn accomplished home chef.  Above you’ll see the assorted macaron colors and flavors that were part of my Christmas gift selection for  very lucky recipients this year, and below that is some Ad Hoc fried chicken that was brined and sous vide prior to frying.  Macarons are a bastard to make, sous vide is like falling off a log….and both result in impressive and delicious offerings.  Oh, most recently the 48 hour shortribs (Piedmontese from Paradise Locker, naturally) shot to the top of my best-ever special occasion recipes….or not so special occasion…whenever I have shortribs on hand counts as special.

Best “I Don’t Often Choose to Read, But When I Do It’s About Food…”- Lucky Peach

Yeah, I like reading some gratuitous Bourdain rambles and I worship David Chang as a fellow lover of finely crafted profanity.  And you KNOW YOU’RE COOL when you can drop little nuggets out of THIS publication. Seriously though, a great read, I’m just about done with Issue #2.  Awesome recipes, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously.  I feel a kindred spirit when reading Lucky Peach, and it forces me to read….something I swore I would never do again after grad school.

Best “Poised for World Domination”- Colby and Megan Garrelts, Bluestem and Trezo Vino

And we will finish this hell-ride up by bringing it all back full circle….folks that took my expectations for fine dining in KC over the top.  Colby has made like forty trips out to NYC to be continually shot down by the James Beard dicks, and Megan has always been like “you all WILL believe that dessert is just as vital a part of your meal as a first course or main”.  Now I don’t know if any of THAT shit is the impetus behind the juggernaut, but they are vivisecting the local scene like a pageant mom with a grudge.  A second restaurant, a third on the way, any and all collateral damage to the flagship addressed with a vengeance, and the greatest thing of all for those of us who have been there since the doors opened….a cookbook (complete with signings and a media blitz that probably includes the outer banks of Siberia for all I know).   I don’t mean this to sound condescending AT ALL, but “watching Bluestem grow up” has been a total joy.  I eat a ton of different places, I always have some current obsession, but I always know that I can go back to Bluestem and get service and food that reminds me why I continually champion the KC food scene.  Well played, demons.

So wasn’t it great how I included the gay jock thing for no real reason and then only made gratuitous references to it throughout this whole mess in order for it not to be completely unnecessary?  Maybe in 2012 I’ll get a totally new yet still homoerotic vision that ventures into the land of the male g-spot….we can only hope and pray for that.

And that’s about all I’ve got….Santa was kind, we’re co-hosting a huge NYE party tomorrow night, and all is well.  Happy New Year, pricks.

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Filed under Addiction, Alcoholics Anonymous, Cascone's, Christopher Elbow, Citronelle, Crossroads Art District, Crossroads Social Club, eGullet, El Comedor, Eola, Fine Dining, Food, Food Blog, Food Reviews, General Thoughts, Health, Healthy Eating, Home Cooking, homemade, Howard Hanna, Justus Drugstore, Kansas City, Kansas City Food Scene, Kansas City Star, Lucky Peach, Patrick Ryan, Port Fonda, Recovery, Rieger Hotel Grill and Exchange, Sous Vide Supreme, The Boiler Room, The Corn Exchange, Vietnam Cafe, Washing DC Food, Weight Loss, weight loss surgery

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November 9, 2011 · 3:46 pm

The Boiler Room: Omaha, Nebraska

There really isn’t any other way to say it than to just say it….I’ve always been a boob guy. As far back as I can possibly remember, that fact has been a driving force in my life when it comes to my fascination with and admiration for the opposite sex. In this I am not alone, but much of the time we keep it under wraps, limiting it to guy-talks, locker room chats, anonymous bulletin board postings, whatever. I’m just out there with it…Russ Meyer is GOD, Christina Hendricks is the prototype for a collection of perfect Stepford Wives, Victoria’s Secret models are built like ten year old boys……..I know what I like and with very few “which of these is not like the other?” ex-girlfriend exceptions to the rule, it has been a fucking lifelong THEME. A goddamn QUEST! How in the hell my ramblings about my chronic alcoholism have unashamedly and transparently become a running theme before I ever rounded the bend into big-tit country is a total mystery to me. For those of you who know me, this news is as big a revelation as the fact I wear too much Under Armour. I’m not one of those loonies who scour the freaks of science websites that display obvious quality of life issues, there IS such a thing as TOO big….but for me it’s case by fucking case. The algorithm is a work in progress.

And no story from my personal X-Files of cleavage lore would be complete without mentioning the city of OMAHA. For it was in OMAHA that I suffered a harsh life lesson after flying way too close to the sun. It was somewhere around 1994, I had spent most of the five prior years in a sheltered churchy-type social construct, and I was really green. Easy pickin’s for a savvy chick with very big issues and even bigger boobs. This was back when just having basic shit in common with a girl meant you were soulmates….”OH! You read RE/Search Magazine too? What song will we play during the first dance at our wedding??”. This girl, who will remain nameless, worked in a diner my friends and I frequented when I was in Bible College in Minneapolis, and sometime after I quit Bible College and went to the U of M she and I became buddies. What I didn’t realize was that even though we began dating and ultimately did start talking about marriage….I was still in the buddy role, but I was also a good provider for her when she needed a ride, money, place to sleep, shoulder to cry on, or whatever. A pretty girl with a huge rack and extreme body issues……looking back at the shit I put up with for minimal reciprocity is hilarious now. She was originally from Omaha, so we’d bounce back from there to Minneapolis to Kansas City back to Omaha…all dependent upon whatever drama she was suffering at that moment in time. It’s probably why I hate all of the Emo shit now….a bitter reminder of the hopeless pussy I once was. A trendy and fashion-forward lifestyle based on being a whiny doormat who won’t shut the fuck up about how much it impacts your tiny heart is just too much for me to think about. So long story short, THAT shit ended badly and I fled Minneapolis to Kansas City. I drank for a few days, and then I began my journey from my ministry license expiring to running the premiere porn store in all the land.

So OMAHA…I spent a lot of time there. A lot of time wandering around the Old Market back when deciding whether to spend what little cash I had on a Snapple or a pack of smokes counted as a financial dilemna. This is what any self respecting hipster from that era would call the POST-grunge days…..more than ten people outside of Seattle knew about Sub-Pop records, and seeing Urge Overkill live NOW meant you had to go to a larger venue than the neighborhood bar where you first saw them. With Kurt Cobain only having a couple of months to live, it would have been wise to talk to him longer when I met him at Liberty Hall in Lawrence, KS……Soundgarden SUCKED, Pearl Jam SUCKED DICK…..to us they ruined a scene we never would have known about had it not been for them “selling out”. Scoffing at the movie Singles when it came out, being the coolest guy in the room for having met G.G. Allin, road trips to Chicago to see The Jesus Lizard or Laughing Hyenas….the springtime of a boy’s life, ultimately ruined by a damning fascination with breasts. In Omaha we’d always spend a weird amount of time shopping at Drastic Plastic in the Old Market, and I’ll never forget the day I finally found my own copy of Bongwater’s “Double Bummer”. Interesting sidenote- the folks who ran Drastic Plastic (still run it for all I know) opened a sister store in Kansas City called Spiney Norman’s. The final location for THAT store was in the exact same place where one of my ultimate favorite restaurants, Bluestem, now resides. Life comes full fucking circle. And some shit don’t change…..still a boob guy, but much to the dismay of my wife and any woman who has known me for the past ten or twelve years….at some point I realized I had testicles.

So there we have it….a little too much memory lane preceding the actual reason for this post….but it’s Omaha-related. When we were there a few weeks ago I couldn’t help but remember the fun and the horrors of life back then. No money, no skills, no direction, no sense, no semblance of the white trash culinary discernment I possess now. I returned to Omaha a conqueror. A man who had gotten his shit together, to some degree, through the years. At the very least, I quit putting up with unnecessary shit…with extreme prejudice. AND I was sober, happily married, employed, and involved enough in the food community to get an immediate answer to the question….”Where should I have dinner in Omaha?”.

Short answer- The Boiler Room. There ARE other good places to eat, but all information pointed to The Boiler Room as THE place to begin. In short- solid, solid place for dinner. And not in that food-tourist kind of way…more in that “I’m a fat guy who knows good food so fucking trust me” kind of way. Oh, foodies of every stripe will love the place, but when I think of good food now it’s more along the lines of where a chef would tell another chef to eat. Beautiful space, but not pretentious. Knowledgeable, engaging and friendly service, but not all up your ass. Simple, homey, regional food themes, executed cleanly with great ingredients.  A proper application of heat…I realize that a fancy way of saying “cooking” would get me gang-banged if I were part of the infamous Bourdain/Dufresne/Chang conversation in Lucky Peach…but a “proper application of heat” is a big thing to me, so I can’t just say cooking.  Texture and temperature in harmony arriving to your table at the height of the marriage.  Yes “the food is still hot when it gets to your table”….I know, fuckers, I know. Big, big deal for me that goes beyond the most obvious. Most importantly- the sense of pride and ownership from the back to the front of the house that is 100% mandatory before I would ever say “go eat there, the place is solid”.

Go eat there, the place is solid. Oh, I’m not going to throw my favorite restaurants under the bus or anything, I’m just saying you’re going to have a great meal. Still a ways to go before something eclipses my scallop and sweetbread dish at The Rieger. Let’s not lose our minds here.

When you are trying a new restaurant, do what we do: over-order. Investigate that shit. If you have the right people in your ear telling you where to go you don’t have to be afraid of getting a tableful of shitty food.   We ended up getting three appetizers, two mains, and just one dessert and a capuccino…I didn’t get a photo of dessert, it was a delicious Early Grey Pots de Creme.  If you’re late to the party when it comes to reading my reviews….I error on the side of enjoying my food and my company when it comes to taking notes or pictures.  Oh, also be sure to mention if you’re coming in from out of town, or if you’ve heard great things about the place, etc. when booking your table….we didn’t get VIP’d or anything, but they did save us a fantastic table on the 2nd floor with the best possible view of the kitchen.  And what, besides bouncy boobies, is as fun to watch as a professional kitchen on a Saturday night?

Hand Cut Tajarin, sweet corn, peekeytoe crab, chives

With apologies to all of my local chefs who regularly serve me wonderful and compelling pasta dishes, this was the BEST fucking pasta I have had since my meal at Quince in San Francisco several years ago.  And ironically, I found out from our server that the dish was inspired BY Chef Kulik’s trip to Cotogna/Quince….in fact, if I remember correctly the trip actually inspired him to have a pasta dish on the menu every night.  This one is a winner, winner, winner….and was a last second throw-in as the third app when I couldn’t decide between it and the pork belly.  Perfectly done pasta, the best possible texture, rolled so thin, cut to a perfect and uniform width,  fresh flavors from what had to just be the milk from the corn, micron-thin bits of chive, and light chunks of crab.  Pretty much worth the 2 1/2 hour drive from KC just to have this. I’m not joking.  World class.

Braised T.D. Niche Pork Belly, cranberry beans, spinach cream, shaved black radish

As far as pork n’ beans go, this was a winner.  First of all, that “proper application of heat” got it to our table right when the fat was still melty but didn’t fall off your fork.  Really, really decadent.  And I like the way they present it….like a very thick bacon slice vs. the ubiquitous cube-o’-belly.  At home I’ve found this to be the best, and the easiest way to present it.  More surface area for that delicious crispy fatty exterior.  The texture of the beans, smooth earthy sweetness of the spinach cream and slightly hot bitter bite of the radish pulled it all together and kept it from being just another study in richness…which is not without its own merit.

Heirloom Squash Soup, bottarga, celery leaf, fingerling potato

Didn’t get a picture of this one, fuckers!  Great soup though, potatoes added some texture, as did the celery leaf along with some fresh bite. Very rich overall, cold weather stuff to be sure.  The addition of just a little bottarga on the top was pretty genius…it lent a certain amount of depth to the flavor with that little hit of ocean brine.  A condiment to be used very, very sparingly…perfect amount here.

California Escolar, potato gnocchi, beef marrow, oregon chantrelles, escargots

Pretty dreamy main course.  The fish had what one may refer to as the “proper application of heat”…flaky, moist, crisp and thin little crouton-like addition to one side.  The supporting cast really took this dish all over the place. First off, my server let me know that they were out of the escargots, but the chef would like to add his housemade sausage instead if that was okay.  Of course it was okay.  Awesome flavor and texture to the little slices of sausage….along with the little chantarelles, some broth and the rondelles of beef marrow, the dish was all over the place flavor-wise.  Very well composed, making an already great piece of fish far, far more interesting.

Braised Nebraska Piedmontese Shortrib, celeriac purée, nantes carrots, grilled eggplant, marrow crumbs

My wife ordered this dish, so since I was neck-deep in my escolar I didn’t try as much as I would have liked.  She loved the marrow crumbs….new to me too, tasted kind of like if God won the annual “Best Alternative to Panko” contest.  The shortribs themselves were very good…I mean, shortribs…one of the best cuts of beef, period.  I forget how much a good celeriac puree can add to a dish….a far better choice than the usual heap of mashed potatoes.  Recently my wife started using smashed white beans as a potato alternative….way more flavor and texture…this puree was a lot like that. I’d never sit down and eat a quart of it like I would potatoes, but the flavor is exactly what you want in a hearty, homey dish like this one.

Again, if you are in Omaha, this is where you want to have dinner.  I want to try Grey Plume and a couple of other places, but The Boiler Room will be mandatory dining when we visit.  

BONUS ROUND!

The “11worth” Cafe…..just had to throw this one in there.  I think my ex-girlfriend lasted about half a shift.  The place is a meatgrinder as far as service and table turning, an amazing military operation. And I’m sure that drunk rednecks and assorted rough trade aren’t as subtle when it comes to scoping boobs…so she bailed pretty fast.  Good, not fantastic, food. Awesome people watching, and you do get a ton of grub for your dollar.  Honestly one of the most impressive operations I’ve ever seen outside of monstrous Asian restaurants and dim sum parlors….the place just churns and fucking burns. Unreal.

 We got a breakfast burrito, and this huge plate of biscuits covered with manhole cover sized sausage patties and gravy that they call “The Robert E. Lee”.  My advice- get the small order. It is massive.

So anyway, in keeping with the food theme of late, here is another offering. And I made sure to keep enough time between posts to just be annoying.  Lots of good dinners and events coming up throughout the holidays for us.  We’re co-hosting a NYE party featuring some catered Port Fonda pork, and god knows what meals we’ll be enjoying at our regular haunts.

OH, I never end my food review posts with some annoying sign-off, but if I WERE going to do that now it would be something like….. When it comes to being seductive and satisfying, The Boiler Room in Omaha sure has one HELL of a rack!

See why I never do that shit?  It just ruins everything.

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October 14, 2011 · 9:01 pm

Making Macarons Is A Lot Like Autoerotic Asphyxiation…

You either walk around for a few days hunched over with neck pain, belt burn around your throat and one of your eyes partially obscured by blood from burst vessels- all the while grinning in oxygen deprived euphoria….OR…..someone finds your shit-sodden corpse hanging from a beam and they may or may not have the decency or state of mind to zip you back up or hose any incriminating DNA off of the floor before the coroner’s office arrives and gets their biggest laugh of the week. A lot can go wrong. A lot. Can go wrong.  In some cases, there is no such thing as TOO MUCH preparation or forethought.  And there is no shame in assigning a spotter to help insure everything ends safely and with the most rewarding results.  Autoerotic asphyxiation, strangulated masturbation, whatever you want to call it….truly parallels the creation of French macarons in its potential for embarrassing, irrecoverable tragedy, as well as the siren song of exquisite perfection…that highly prized yet painfully shy golden ticket that awaits you at the end of painstaking planning, artistry, and a little luck.  You’re either some idiot who killed himself jacking off, or you manage to take an otherwise overdone and underappreciated process and wring it dry by taking it to its fullest logical capacity.  There is a sense of dread involved with both…dread that is overshadowed by the promise of glory.  There is fear, the need for practice, and a Zen-like focus on the smallest details.  Lots of research and hopefully the ability to know when it’s time to cut your losses, back off completely, regroup, and save that victory for another day.  Your mind has to be right, and your mind has to stay right. If your mind isn’t right you are in grave danger.  Because failure can cost you a lot. It can cost you your fucking LIFE!  Or it can cost you at least twenty dollars in ingredients and an hour’s worth of prep.  Which of those two endings is scarier?? We would have to bring Plato back from the dead to ponder an actual answer to THAT question, my friend.  But I don’t think even he would know….we’re getting into uncharted philosophical territory….so I will just go about the task of education rather than force you to ponder the unanswerable…..

I was taught to make macarons by a professional pastry chef, and I have been making them for quite a while know….just shy of three weeks.  So I’ve learned a thing or two.  Mostly…the thing is, there is not one single thing you can do on-the-fly with these little bastards.  Call it mise en place, getting your shit together, whatever you want….you had better have every single thing prepped and measured ahead of time.  And get used to using the metric system, with baking that’s just the way it goes. If you hear me saying it, it really is true. There are some specific points at which you can blow the entire batch, and it isn’t like you can make some adjustment to save it…it’s not steak soup. 

Here are the ingredients I use because they are what I used in class. I know there are about five hundred different recipes out there.  I have no clue about those. This is the only one I know. If you’re tempted to let me know a better way, don’t.  I don’t care. If you’re some purist who would be appalled that this recipe is somehow lacking or not authentic….there’s no way in hell you made it past the first paragraph because it sent you into flittering fits of aghastment, so I’m not too worried.  ON THE OTHER HAND, if you’ve got some great ideas for butter creams, curds, savory fillings, etc….THAT I’m interested in.  And don’t try sneaking in the information I’m not looking for when you share it.  

200g almond flour (Bob’s Red Mill….forced through a small mesh strainer w/a spoon to get rid of large chunks)

200g granulated sugar

200g powdered sugar

150g room temperature egg whites separated into 2- 75g portions

Pinch of salt- I just put that in the almond flour from the get-go

50ml water

Hardware- piping bag fitted with an 8mm tip, flat bottom sheet pans fitted with parchment paper (you HAVE to have parchment paper), and as far as all of the other shit…because I hope for your sake you’re not going to try and learn from ME on your maiden voyage or the hardest thing you’ve done are cupcakes…I’m going to leave it to you to figure out the rest; mixer, candy thermometer, good pan for cooking sugar, etc., etc…..

In case I didn’t mention this before- HAVE your SHIT ready to GO.  Everything pre-measured in its own little bowl, parchment cut, thermometer firmly attached to your pan which is already sitting on the stove, pastry bag fitted with a tip and sitting upended in a tall glass, mixer clean and ready, etc. If it can be done ahead of time, do it ahead of time. 

The first thing I do is just put one of the 75g batches of egg whites into the mixer and start the whisk on the lowest speed.  I also go and add the granulated sugar and water into my pan and leave the heat off.

Then, I go and whisk the powdered sugar thoroughly into the almond flour, to which I then add the other egg whites and mix until I’ve got a good, sticky dough.  This is one juncture where you could add food coloring (gel is preferred over liquid), but for the batch I’m featuring today I left coloring out completely due to a tragic attempt on Saturday that ended with the equivalent of the coroners taking Abu Ghraib-style photos next to my dead body.  The dough ended up being too runny…and it could have been ten different things that contributed to it, but you eliminate the most obvious one first…in this case, gel coloring due to the liquid it added into my macaronage.

This is where shit starts getting more touch and go…..basically, you want to get those egg whites in the mixer whipped to stiff peaks right at the same time your sugar mixture on the stove reaches softball stage.  I have not yet found the perfect timing to this, so I offer no finite advice on when to start what.  But this is the point where the belt starts to cut into your neck a little bit.  A spotter would not be the dumbest thing to have here.  You don’t want to overbeat the egg whites, and you need to have that sugar within a couple of degrees for this to go just right. BUT….long story short, when your egg whites are at a stiff peak, and the sugar is at soft-ball temperature, you take the hot sugar over to the mixture and slowly pour it down the side of the bowl into your whites…..and the mixer goes on high and stays on high.  Most of your weight is being supported by the belt right now, it is fully cinched and you’ve got a pretty long journey to joy and safety from here, so be mindful.

With the hot sugar introduced to the bowl, feel the bottom to see how hot it is. What you want to do is let it roll on high until it cools way down….8 or 10 minutes. At the end of that time you should have a pretty delicious looking Italian meringue.  It’s pretty strong stuff, so you don’t have to be a total pussy when folding it into the awaiting dough…to about 1/3 of it at a time and avoid getting any crystallized sugar in there from the sides of the mixer bowl. 

I think this whole process is best if it’s NOT done in a particularly warm kitchen….just thought I’d throw that in there.  So you mix your meringue into your dough until all streaks are gone, coloring is incorporated, etc…….now you’ve got “macaronage”. 

From here, it goes into the pastry bag and you want the tip to be flush with the parchment paper and pointed straight down…..do about a five-count’s worth of piping….a little bigger than a quarter.  This was my first experience with piping anything, so you’re kind of on your own here. Once you’ve got all of your dough piped onto all of your sheet pans, be sure to bang them on the counter to make sure the tops flatten some and any big air bubbles work their way out.  Do not be shy about how hard you pound them on the counter….if your dough was done correctly it’s pretty sturdy. 

CRITICAL JUNCTURE-  the coroner’s office is waiting in the wings for this very moment- you have to let your dough sit out for at least thirty minutes.  The tops have to dry out some and get a skin built up so that when they bake, the skin forms the top crust and raises up to let the macaron’s “feet” fully form.  If you try bypassing this step, just go ahead and throw the batch away.  If after thirty minutes there isn’t a firmer, barely tacky top on your cookies, or if the dough has deflated and oozed into imperfect oblong shapes…throw them all out.  Of course, you can still cook them, they’ll taste good, you just won’t have macarons.

As your cookie dough is drying, start your oven and this is another thing you’ll have to experiment with…..but 310F is a safe place to start, so get it preheated.

When putting your baking sheets into the oven, DO NOT OVERLOAD IT.  You want plenty of circulation for evenness of cooking… half of this “successful” batch I did was ruined due to my impatience when I put too much into the oven at once.  Keep an eye on them, they’ll go for around ten to twelve minutes…..but the thing of it is, you want to see feet. If you don’t end up seeing feet, you’ve accidentally killed yourself somewhere along the way.  Feel the tops to see if they’re done enough for you….it’s kind of like pushing on an eggshell- if you see feet and it feels like the top will crackle under the weight of your finger, you’re probably good to go.

Of course, let them rest until completely cool and then run the thinnest spatula you have underneath to loosen them from the parchment.  

I’m not going to explain any more from here.  If you can’t figure the shit out from here, you’re dumb. Make sandwich cookies….have fun with flavors.  I didn’t want to spend too much time on butter creams or homemade curds until I had my shit down pretty tight, so in order for my macarons to still sound LEGIT, I went and bought some authentic English (the fucking INVENTORS of strangulated beatin’ off) citrus curds with which to fill my cookies.  The sky is the limit though, go figure that shit out. 

Oh yeah, don’t use that fucking edible pearlescent powder like I did because you feel insecure about naked non-colored macarons.  That shit is a nightmare.  You can’t get it all washed off of your hands and you walk around looking like a team of drag queens have been playing hot potato with your face. 

But that’s about it….macarons are challenging, but are more than worth running the risk of an erotic and embarassing early death.

All Content Copyrighted, 2008

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June 13, 2011 · 9:29 pm

100th Post! The Greatest Meal of My Life…

100th Post!  What took so damn long?  Oh boy!  I eat the fancy food!  I eat the fancies!  And the pretties! The pretties and the fancies!

To the most logical extreme within the boundaries of my level of supreme over-spending on dining, I’ve eaten some pretty good stuff. It’s much easier to justify that incarnation of a crippling addiction…it’s socially acceptable, delicious, and fun to talk about.  I forget how far from normal I am sometimes with the OCD sourcing, dining, planning and cooking. But the freakishness makes me the go-to guy for people who need a recommendation.  Either I can point you to “the very best of whatever”, or I have resources that can handle whatever I can’t answer. “Your death row meal”….”best bite you’ve ever eaten”….and a thousand other topics that have sparked Penthouse letter level discussions of meals gone by. A topic about restaurant health violations on another blog had me going back and rattling my memory for horror stories, and it made me think of the best meal I’ve ever had. It was not the pretties.  The fancies….about as far from the fancies as a mule pissing on a flat rock and having it splash way down into your shoelaces.  However, what was arguably the best meal I’ve ever eaten in my life was in the spring of 1990, while sitting in a gutter in Tepec, Mexico. I was 20.

This was back during when I was trying to decide what I wanted to do in ministry, and I spent a year in The Masters Commission program in Phoenix, Arizona.  Basically, it’s a ministry school of sorts where the church gets free unlimited labor for a year, and you get to send a TON of timber up to your mansion in heaven.  That was the year my brother died, and upon returning to Phoenix after his funeral and the holidays I was a bit out of sorts.  Filtering the grieving process through God’s will and all of that…an existential crisis that had to be wedged into the confines of black and white redneck theology.  But FANCY redneck theology…this was a superchurch that predated superchurches…Phoenix First Assembly…and I was one of the lucky few chosen for The Masters Commission/We’re Better Than The Mormons program.  If Jesus had a Seal Team 6, we were it.  So anyway, no less than a million stories THERE, but back to Tepec…

A bunch of people in the program got peeled off to go on a missions trip to El Salvador for a couple of months. I was kind of “in jail” because of my attitude and inability to let the Holy Spirit rush me through my grief, so I didn’t get chosen for that.  Two guys were picked to drive a 1973 school bus all the way from Phoenix to San Salvador, as a gift for the children’s missionary who ran the ministry that was hosting the group. Obviously, I wasn’t chosen for that task either. BUT there was no task that was crazier, more dangerous or just “out there” in general…so I had to go for the glory and street-cred and get in on some of that.  I called up Lloyd, our leader, and asked if I could not only go on the missions trip, but also be on the bus….I felt “led” to ask him, and I thought it was something that could give me a much needed boost.  No idea what my real motivation was at the time…glory and popularity chasing mixed with a bit of a deathwish…but long story short, he agreed to it, in part, because “even though you’re not old enough for us to insure as a driver on the bus, you will be good at keeping the other two from killing each other”.

Mark was a great mechanic and Andy knew Spanish.  They could both drive a bus. And someone really may have died if it was just the two of them. As it was, Mark and I had a very serious discussion about whether or not we could muster enough Spanish to get through the borders of Guatemala and El Salvador without Andy. Andy was a total douche who often put us in unnecessary danger, and as we drank two highly-forbidden bottles of Corona we weighed our options and by the slightest, tiniest margin decided NOT to leave him on the side of the road in southernmost Mexico.  Our leader’s instincts were correct…even though I did not drive the bus one foot during the 2000+ mile, eight day trip, my contributions were vital. Nobody died. And that was mostly luck. It wasn’t a big deal playing referee with those two or anything, there are just five million different ways to get killed on a trip like that and we bumped up against twelve thousand of them.  

At this point anyone who knows me has stopped reading because they have suffered through twenty years of the same El Salvador stories and are horrified that I have found a new audience.  I don’t think I’ve abused this particular story that badly, because it’s not as fun to tell as the ones where things were exploding…this was at a time when fierce fighting between govt troops and rebels was just winding down.  But it was like Monte Carlo compared to that goddamn bus.  The way it worked was this: Since you only have a few hundred miles of actual highway as you head down the Pacific coast of Mexico, it takes way, way, way longer to get anywhere.  Especially when you are driving a twenty year old school bus that has been freshly painted bright white with neon red lettering down the sides spelling out a poorly translated slogan “Because The Children Need Jesus”, that happens to be loaded down with a ton of puppets, toys, canned goods, and a bunch of other crap that gets rifled through five times each day by federal troops searching for drugs. A translator with the most broken sense of comedic timing and the assumption that all Mexicans have the same sense of humor tends to lose you some time as well. We’d have to drive from sun up to sun down, between twelve and sixteen hours per day and it still took us about eight days to get to our destination.  At night we’d stop at whatever town was closest, and normally two of us would get a cheap (even by Mexican standards) hotel room and the third guy would sleep on the bus to keep an eye on it. A lot of well meaning, well travelled, upper middle class liberal white people would lead you to believe that there aren’t any dangerous places in the world because bad things can happen anywhere…and it’s inherently bad and downright rude to put labels on anyone or anything.  Well, take it from me when I tell you that if you’re travelling through the entirety of rural western Mexico, when it gets dark you want to be in a well populated area for the night.  Time never moves slower than when your Jesus-beacon bus is broken down between two towns with thirty miles of jungle road separating them, and it is long past dark. It is a worst case scenario that we tried our best to avoid, and is what landed us in Tepec.

We skipped solid food for at least a couple of days based solely on the conditions of the Pemex gas station bathrooms. That, plus the fact that once you get into the more tropical parts of Mexico there aren’t many great places to pull off to the side of the road and walk into the jungle for a dump. The terrain is unpredictable and there is stuff alive out there. And as I mentioned before, towns can be very far apart and twenty miles can turn in to five hours.  The oppressive heat also makes it easier to stick to fluids.  While I never really regretted volunteering for the adventure, it was one of those things you knew would look a hell of a lot better in hindsight.  If I remember correctly, the day leading up to our stop in Tepec was extraordinarily brutal.  The high elevation scenery was not unlike Tony’s arrival in Colombia in the movie Scarface. Very scenic, green, misty, other-worldly. And you’d catch glimpses of that in between shit like staring wide-eyed every time you rounded a bend in the road to see whether or not your lane had been washed down the mountainside. Or the ubiquitous cow in the middle of the fucking road.  Or learning the unwritten Mexican law of the mountain road “if I rear end you and you can still drive your vehicle, I don’t have to stop”.  It was just a bad day, but they were all pretty much like that. And I think our plan was to try and make it to whatever town was past Tepec, and even though we arrived there right as it got dark we probably would have kept going.  But that fucking place just swallowed us up.

Most nights, one of us would be stuck sleeping on the bus. Which was total shit, because the “children who need Jesus” would stop by in droves to see what was up, and those little fuckers are mean…terrorizing you for not throwing open the doors and giving them toys at 3am, beating on the doors, throwing stuff at the windows…and you know as soon as you flip out on one of them you’ll have a whole Mexican village drawing and quartering you.  On a couple of occasions, all three of us were stuck on the bus all night. After trying to navigate through a maze of freakishly narrow streets to either find a hotel or the way out of town, Tepec was just such an occasion. That town sucked. And either we kept circling in the worst neighborhood, or the whole city is just cursed. If you’re one of those annoying people who get all offended and assume any negative comment about another country is spoken by an “ugly American”, go fuck yourself. The ‘hood is the ‘hood, in any language, and I’m quite familiar with the fine line between the types of areas where white people venture in order to get some level of liberal-guilt street cred, and the types of areas where you just do not belong. This particular area was just south of somewhere we did not belong, so we found a parking lot and planned to hole up there until morning.  The rest of Tepec might have gold-paved streets for all I know. We just happened to stumble upon the area where the workers who pave those streets go raping.

I don’t remember what we’d talk about on those nights when we’d all have to sleep on the bus.  Once we were just so wiped I don’t think we said anything at all…until about 3am when a soldier came beating on the door and we realized we’d pulled over to sleep at the entrance of a huge military base. We were pretty big on re-capping anything insane that stuck out in particular from that day. And we talked about food quite a bit. Overall, we were in pretty good spirits…this was all for God and we were looking forward to meeting up with our friends who had already flown into El Salvador.  You’d chit chat until you were ready to pass out though, because there’s no good way to sleep on a school bus. The floor is too filthy and there is zero air movement. The seats are too narrow and short to get a good position.  In the end, the best you can hope for is putting boxes or something in the aisle between the two seats to give your legs someplace to rest. But still, lying across the seats means those little bastard kids can crawl up to the windows and almost be in your face. And it was usually very hot.  Hot enough for me to get over any fear of going shirtless in front of others when it was time to get to sleep.

I wish I could remember the logic we used to get off of the bus in the middle of this neighborhood in the middle of the night in order to go and break a solid-food fast with something that was sure to have us soiling ourselves for days to come.  I think there was some talk of just two of us going, one to still watch the bus and be ready to come pick us up if something started happening…or power in numbers if three of us went.  Whether we all went or not is hard to remember, and what we’d find once we got there was a total pig in a poke. What I do recall is lying there generally pissed off, bored, and a little scared when the smell of cooking meat made its way across the parking lot. Grill smoke is a universal language, and we were starving.  The little cart/stand was about half a block from where we sat, and by this time in the evening it’s not like it was being overrun with people…which made it a little scarier actually. Some elaborate trap to lure us gringos out into the open with the promise of grilled meats.  In reality, we were about fifteen hundred miles away from anyone who cared being able to hear us scream, so if we were dead men we were already dead, so may as well have some food.

The little food stands are just everywhere in Mexican towns.  Tepec was the point at which we went from avoiding them altogether to the OTHER extreme…we started eating anything and everything we could find.  We avoided the bags of juice drinks kids sold because of the water, but other than that we ate a ton of stuff that would be Travel Channel-worthy.  In the ‘hood in Tepec, it was your typical little family food stand where they were selling some and feeding the family at the same time.  If I were the culinary genius back then that I am today I’m sure I’d have some involved descriptions of the food and condiments. Surprisingly, instead of tacos, tamales and things of that nature, we arrived to find…hot dogs and hamburgers.  Well, by Tepec standards perhaps.  The relatively identifiable shapes of the meats and buns were the only things giving them away. The hamburgers were slider-sized and overcooked, with a tiny bun and way too much of a mayo/crema/onion/pepper mixture on top.  The hot dogs were really different….think of a freakishly fat leg stuffed into some kind of spandex, with random slits in the fabric where the fat presses out…and instead of tied/twisted off ends to close the hot dog the casing is just open with some meat coming out.  All I can remember is some kind of green hot sauce with those.

Now, I’m not going to pretend I have some Mexican hot dog poetry planned here…there isn’t some crescendo that surpasses all of the words I’ve dedicated to temples of gastronomy in New York and San Francisco.  I was a twenty year old kid with several days worth of filth on him, hungry and dehydrated, sitting on a curb in Mexico with his feet planted in a nasty gutter, eating deliciously charred mystery meats like his life depended on it.  It’s funny what you can be thankful for when you’re at a place way on down the road you never expected to see, and you find something familiar and comforting in the scariest of surroundings.  We ate with a speed and volume that amused anyone who happened to stop by for a meal, and we downed God knows how many sodas.  Without question, the best meal of my life thus far. It was a turning point that happened in the midst of a much larger turning point that I can look back at now in the comfort of the past twenty years and know in my heart there isn’t a hell of a lot in life as nice as finding something good to eat instead of worrying about whether or not you are approaching the twilight of your existence.

 

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March 9, 2011 · 9:59 pm

DC Grub 2011: Komi

Tuesday Night at Komi…

At Komi, when it comes to taking pictures, the decision is made for you…you can’t do it. It’s a rule of the house, and rightfully so. It’s located in a cool little walk-up, above a dry cleaner in Dupont Circle, so it’s a pretty narrow Quaker-Mediterranean decorated space with a very mellow vibe…so the last thing anyone would want is for the snapping and flashing of photography. And if that’s too much for your entitled mind to grasp, then you would REALLY hate the dining format…..no menu, you just eat what is put in front of you. It’s a set-price, 13 or 14 course menu with a Greek/Mediterranean mezze theme…..for the most part. Chef Johnny Monis seems to be a polarizing figure of sorts in the DC food community…..I read comments calling him overrated, genius, and everything in between. In my opinion, if you live in a town with all of the restaurants I’ve been talking about within twenty minutes of your doorstep, you are pretty fortunate. So with that said, as someone from “flyover country”, I say that if you think Komi sucks then you’re pretty damn lucky to have the options and experience with which to make that type of observation. Now, I’ve had enough “faincy” meals to say that I would NOT go throwing the GENIUS label at Monis, and I can absolutely understand that it would not be everyone’s cup of tea….but I had one heck of a great time, and this will probably be the first place I visit with my wife when I return.

Oh the sounds of Morrissey and chick guitar music on the stereo, and none of those annoying DC business boys who get progressively louder and more aggressively political as they drink. My reservation was at 5:30, so the room was super-mellow for a while. Business and the noise did pick up as the night went on, but nothing that would inhibit quiet conversation. The staff was definitely on the younger side and extremely enthusiastic about the food. To drink I had some of their housemade ginger beer and some Sprecher’s Cola. A couple of the servers mentioned to me how they’ve seen a huge trend in the offering of upscale non-alcoholic drinks, and from a business perspective….wise move. Now, you’re never going to make wine money on soft drinks, but you can EASILY match your mixed drink profits because there really isn’t much of a difference in what I paid for a “fancy” non-alcoholic drink and what I would have paid for bourbon or beer. And I’ll order way more soft drinks during a three hour meal than I would mixed drinks, obviously. Good to hear some places are at least thinking in that direction, I will say that housemade cola is one of my favorite finds recently. Soooo…..friendly staff eager to hear what you thought about each course, warm and mellow room, pretty “cool” fellow diners….overall I’d say the vibe at Komi (and definitely Eola) were closest to my personal favorite comfort zone. Very relaxed with a little jolt of excitement in the room. AND for me, the perfect amount of food (other than the mega-sized goat should). No bariatric sweats, not even once, which means some folks may leave pissed off that they didn’t get enough to eat.

The first course was a bit of finger-food, Steamed Brioche with Smoked Trout Roe (and crème fraiche?), a twist on a classic canapé and good little intro to the meal. I totally spaced on some of these courses….they did provide me with a copy of the menu at the end, but it was pretty much a list of single words, so that plus my bad memory….you get the idea. In case you don’t know anything about Komi, the general idea is that as the meal progresses, the flavors and portions get bigger…a culinary crescendo.

Next up was a crudo trio… Hamachi w/Salt, Madai (Snapper) w/Fried Caper Berry and Kindai ( Blue Fun Tuna) w/Fresh Grated Wasabi. I am NOT an expert, but all were very good examples of crudo in my limited experience. The first two were perfectly sliced, not too warm and not too cold, and the third was a finely diced quenelle.

Scallop Two Ways– first was a horizontal slice with blood orange, and the second was diced with caramelized coconut. Loved this dish, I could have eaten three or four more of the first one.

Lobster– sadly, I don’t remember a damn thing…bisque? Weird, I generally remember a lobster dish, but this one is lost to the ages….

Spanikopita– another weeeee bit of finger food…the classic in cube form, on a little bed of tzatziki you can roll it in before eating.

Egg Ravioli with Shaved Smoked Tuna– now THIS BITE, this bite was way up on the southern cusp of “gay jock hate crime of love” territory. Absolutely fantastic….nice thin ravioli noodle, perfectly creamy egg yolk and then the punch of that tuna…smoked and then shaved on what had to be the thinnest setting on a truffle grater. One of the most perfect bites of food in the world today.

House Cured Smoked Foie Gras– this was described by my server as “a hint of the dishes to come”…and I guess it made sense, so far it went raw-raw-creamy-fried-smoked-smoked…..so where there’s smoke there’s going to be fire? Anyway, this was a tasty and creative little bite of foie gras….but after you’ve had the bacon cured version at Eola, there probably won’t be another comparable cured/smoked version found in your lifetime.

And then out of nowhere, all of the hint-dropping suddenly revealed itself in the Half Smoke with Old Bay Pork Rind. Okay, I know, sounds a bit gimmicky…the whole culinary crescendo thing, but I’ll be damned if this wasn’t one fantastic hot dog. A little three bite version…spicy, perfectly grilled, delicious bun and relish, with an Old Bay pork rind on the side. I’d eat these all the time if I could.

Then, the Mascarpone Filled Date– a very warm roasted date split open, filled with mascarpone cheese and then sprinkled with a generous amount of salt. Totally worked…better than any similar version I’ve tasted at any tapas place.

Gnocchi– Damn, I really don’t remember what came with the gnocchi. They were very good texturally, and I think it was parmesan and some other things, nothing elaborate.

Casarelli– This was a little portion of housemade fusilli with ragu. The pasta itself was pretty impressive… homemade fusilli isn’t something I see on many menus, and the ragu had that rich, acidic kick you can only get from a long, slow simmer. Good dish.

And then, it was time for….the biggest and most irreverent dish of the evening- Katsikki– this monster of a dish consisted of a slow roasted young goat shoulder, homemade pita, tzatziki, pickled cabbage, hot sauce, herb salt and eggplant puree. A “do it yourself gyro” plate. It was really pretty glorious. No way to get into this thing than to squeeze on some fresh lemon and then dive in up your elbows in all of that roasted meat and slather on the condiments. This thing would have been a huge single meal on its own, much less the finale to so many other smaller bites. Trying the various condiments with pieces of the tender, roasted goat was what it was all about. I think they hand out a beach towel with this dish to keep the splatter-factor down. Obviously, when it comes to that much solid protein I’m done for, so they packed up most of it for me and it was one HELL of a midnight mega-snack. Yeah, very very tasty, kind of funny, Chef Monis is okay in my book.

Oh, then the most gloriously ironic course that I thought must have been invented with me in mind: a one-bite Mizithra cheese course. Just a little sandwich of cheese, less than a bite. I told them to let the chef know he is doing God’s work with this one.

Lemon– I think this was a cookie and ice cream dessert…can’t recall much about it.

Chocolate– This was AWESOME, and I’m not the biggest dessert guy. Chef Monis loves his salt, but unlike a lot of restaurants who have jumped on the salted caramel bandwagon, he does not overdo it. This was similar to that Kit Kat bar at Central, except tiny, less than 2 bites, and in my opinion way better. Chocolate, salted caramel and peanut butter, with some sort of crisp through the middle.

Lollipops– a little homemade sucker of a fruit I can’t recall and some black pepper.

Like I said, I did enjoy my meal at Komi. So much so, in fact, it will absolutely be at the top of my places to visit the next time I’m in town. I can understand some of the criticism…in some ways the no-menu/flavor progression thing can be a little awkard…..at one point I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to make a Home Alone face and scream, “Holy Fuck! They just gave me a hot dog!”. But in reality, sometimes it’s just too easy to overthink a concept or read too much into what a chef is trying to communicate. In the end, tasty and creative food, fantastic service, wonderful ambience…..and just plain fun. We can’t forget about fun.

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March 7, 2011 · 10:40 pm

DC Grub 2011: Marcel’s and Restaurant Eve

Sunday night at Marcel’s….
To say that Marcel’s was “winner by default” for my Sunday evening meal sounds kind of negative. While it is true that the majority of high-end restaurants are not open on Sunday and Monday evenings, which put Marcel’s on a very short list of candidates, I did enough research to be genuinely enthusiastic about my meal there. Would it have won out if I were only in town Tue-Sat and my options were limitless? Who the hell knows. As fate would have it, Marcel’s is where I dined and I enjoyed the experience immensely.

Oh, no pictures! ZERO! I didn’t take any at Marcel’s and gave up after one at Eve because I just wanted to relax and enjoy the meals, plus, even though I would NEVER use a flash in the dining room I just didn’t feel like the vibe of the rooms supported that level of OCD tendencies. Like I said, I’m thankful for the obsessive photogs, the pictures I DO take totally suck, but I generally associate that driven-to-photograph-every-bite-nobody-at-the-table-touch-your-food-till-I-get-a-picture personality type with someone who does not get the real joy of eating, the deep lust aspect and the fun. Probably horrible in bed.

From start to finish, Marcel’s puts on one hell of a floor show. The room is a little bit dated, but in a good, velvety, comfy way, and is absolutely what your out of town relatives would refer to as “fancy SCHMANCY!”. It has that classic “water glass never drops below ¾ full” type of service, which can put some people off at first, but I think it’s a lot of fun. Seriously, once you’ve done it enough times to witness “rich people” who eat at these places weekly use the wrong fork, butcher French when ordering, spill their water, and a million other little things you get over any insecurity pretty quickly. The staff at these places…..are professionals. And by that I mean, they have witnessed just as much crazy shit and had to handle uncomfortable situations just like any other joint….don’t let the interior design and fancy waiter jackets fool you. Drunks are drunks, boors are boors, bitches are bitches….no matter what type of car got them there. Of course, you are privy to some fantastic conversations that give you some insight into the lives of the privileged….a lady at the table next to me went on, and on, and ooonnnnn about the devastating betrayal she felt when she found out her live-in nanny had been counting her trips to their liquor cabinet as part of her room and board. Don’t tell HER she doesn’t know what Vietnam was like.

And on the dance went throughout the evening….a constant flurry of smooth activity from the staff. And there is a cool echo effect at Marcel’s where you can hear everything going on at the water station from clear across the room. My main interaction was with Jess, the captain, and I did get to chat quite a bit with the Maitre ‘d Adnane. Oh, and the water kid. He earned his fucking money, let me tell you. Jess was just a great guy, a gentleman’s gentleman…..as formal as you’d want him to be, but very easy to switch into a more personable mode. I handed the menu back to him pretty quickly and basically said I’d take the chef’s 7 course tasting, whatever he and the chef enjoyed the most would work for me. Servers always seem to get a kick out of that, and when doing “balls-out” dining it’s my favorite way to go.

1st Amuse- Curried beef and mango chutney– good amount of spice for one bite

2nd Amuse- Mushroom Consommé– the greatest things about these dishes, as well as little palate cleansers, are the precious little cups, saucers and spoons. Good consommé…crazy insane perfect dice on the mushroom at the bottom of the cup.

1st Course- Gratin of Oysters, mussels, baby clams, cockles and trout roe….served atop tomato fondue with some broiled gruyere on top and crispy Parma ham. Phenomenal dish….so many different flavors and textures that it should NOT have worked….but it did. Hitting very close to the “gay jock hate crime of love” zone. No comparison really comes to mind other than to say “the craziest most deluxe version of clam chowder ever”, which doesn’t come close to doing it justice.

2nd Course- Lobster Papardelle with English peas, carrots, squash, garlic beurre blanc…this dish was an example of each individual ingredient showing its ultimate potential. Perfect pasta, firm vegetables, meltingly tender lobster, delicious sauce. I’d eat this regularly.

3rd Course- Big Eye Red Snapper over ratatouille with a Balsamic reduction- This was one of those “how in the hell do they get such a deep and crispy crust on one side yet keep the middle of the filet translucent, tender and moist?” dishes. Great piece of fish.

4th Course- Foie Gras over duck confit and a celery root puree, duck jus, marinated raspberries and grilled brioche…the puree and confit really brought something to it, adding texture and keeping it from being a generic sweet bread and jam presentation. One healthy dose of foie too, similar in doneness and texture to what you get from a whole roasted lobe.

5th Course- Bison Tenderloin with California wild rice, red wine reduction…This was a good dish, and a couple of the staff came over to say “oh, you got the bison!”, but being from the Midwest maybe I’m just spoiled for good grilled and roasted meats. I enjoyed the dish, but probably would have picked something different like the boudin blanc.

6th Course- Cheese… Roquefort, Chimay, St. Andres…blah blah blah…the chutney, candied nut and apple matchstick variety. Good cheeses, but I am now officially on the record with my feelings about this. I’m going to start inquiring about substitutions for this course….seriously, I’m pretty easy to get along with so I don’t think I’d be pushing it. Even just one bite of something else, it doesn’t have to be anything special.

7th Course- Chocolate Souffle…I know, cliché alert, big time. And while I am no expert, THIS WAS by far the best example I’ve been served. Old school, good crust of sugar up the sides….a hammer to the brain after all the richness I’d already enjoyed.

Overall, this was just a great, straightforward and delicious meal. I don’t think we have a place like THIS in Kansas City, with the old school formal service in such an ornate room where you interact regularly with a full range of staff, from the Maitre ‘d to the busboy. Everyone willing to bend over backwards to make sure your experience exceeds expectations. I would definitely go back. I go into these “water glass stays full” rooms with my radar in overdrive as far as picking up on little flaws and things to make sure the place really IS at the full-water-glass level instead of being one of just trying to project the image. The folks at Marcel’s are real professionals who leverage effective teamwork. Friendly, helpful, they treat you great, are very open about what they love on the menu, they know food….what a pleasant Sunday night.

Monday Night at Restaurant Eve…

“Best twenty dollars I’ve ever spent”, I said to the cab driver as he dropped me off at my hotel late that evening. It was kind of a pain in the ass to get from my first day of training near McPherson Square, back to the hotel to change, back down to the Foggy Bottom metro stop out to King Street, then down to Eve…..in the rain. So when I realized how cheap, compared to the same distance in KC, it was to just TAKE A FUCKING CAB between the hotel and the restaurant, I was kind of blown away.

I’ll just bottom-line Eve for you to get it out of the way….the Tasting Room was by far the comfiest, prettiest, most inviting room of the entire trip, probably up there with my top rooms ever. And the food was very, very good. But if I were to go back it would have to be some kind of special occasion with my wife, especially considering the price point and availability of great food in DC. No regrets, it was a great meal, I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a special occasion-level restaurant in the area, but it lacked a certain “intangible” that kicks off in my gut telling me I have to get back there. THAT is what made Eve different from all of the other restaurants I visited.

Service- top notch. One or two millimeters below the full-water-glass level, but equally as enjoyable. Lots of younger staff there, happy to talk with you about the food. And Todd, I think that was his name….the wine/cocktail guy I spent a lot of time talking with, he rushed right over as soon as I mentioned to my server I wasn’t going to have wine and said if there were any non-alcoholic options I was onboard. He was VERY enthusiastic about putting together something for me, all he needed was a basic flavor profile I was going for…..more sour than sweet. He whipped up this housemade tonic/kaffir lime/citrus/secret ingredient concoction that kind of blew my mind it was so tasty. Later on I tried some of his housemade cola. This guy knows what in the hell he’s doing, and he’s cool as shit.

So the pretty room…you’d have to see it because I’m an idiot at describing interior design. It’s in an old house, and the tasting room has a very light wood floor, and these insanely high-backed wraparound booth seats. I was perched in one like Little Lord Fauntleroy. Most comfortable seating ever, and you’re all hidden back in there.

The meal started off with three little canapés….deviled egg w/caviar, salmon mousse and some sort of summer sausage/salami type of cured meat.

Amuse- Garlic and Turnip Veloute with onion and ham…a good little taste of soup.

Palate Cleanser- Kabocha Squash Sorbet and Fried Shallot…I don’t know why I loved this little taste of food so much, it was just a damn palate cleanser, but I did. Such a nice flavor and literally the cutest dish and spoon you have ever seen in your life. Don’t you wish I took a picture! Oh my GOD!

Sashimi of Big Eye Tuna with Preserved Meyer Lemon and Green Goddess Dressing– the quality of the tuna was great. It could have been about one or two degrees cooler, but still very, very tasty.

Terrine of La Belle Farm’s Foie Gras with Apple Pate de Fruit, Noble Tonic 5 and Toasted Brioche– I’m a spoiled shit when it comes to the amount of foie gras I’ve eaten, so you have to go to planet fucking Jupiter to get a blip on my radar. This was a good example, more like a torchon than a terrine though. And if it could have switched temperatures with the sashimi it would have been even better. Gorgeous presentation.

Butter Poached Maine Lobster with Ginger-Carrot Custard and Kumquats- Okay, this was a damn good dish. Nothing over the top, just perfectly done food….I need to butter poach me some lobster…as soon as I find a source in KC worth a crap.

Bacon Wrapped Chatham Bay Cod with Littleneck Clam Chowder– the clam chowder component was delicious, but it fell apart a little with the addition of the cod. Wrapped in the bacon, it was a little bit overdone and the amount of bacon really brought too much salt into the dish. And if I’M saying too much salt…..normal humans would definitely agree. Not a bad dish, it just didn’t seem to fit together very well.

Loin of Shenandoah Valley Lamb with Wild Mushroom-Bone Marrow Pain Perdu and Romanian Red Garlic– I’d probably eat wild mushroom bone marrow pain perdu at every meal for the rest of my life. It is even more awesome than it sounds. This was a great dish, with the exception of one REALLY big section of fat and sliver of tough connective tissue in the lamb. Not a deal-breaker, but again, worth mentioning.

Pan Fried Veal Sweetbreads with Violet Carrots, Braised Mustard Greens and Ham Hock Vinaigrette– with this the meal was back on track with no signs of stopping….perfectly crisp and tender sweetbreads, firm carrots, a big quenelle of the braised-down-to-nothing greens….deeelicious. Fish and lamb were forgiven immediately.

Cheese Course- 4 Components-
-Madeleine with Virginia Pecan Pie
-Cashel Blue with Path Valley Sorghum Cake and Pumpkin Seed Butter
-Monocacy Silver with Sicilian Pistachios and Sour Cherry Filled Donut
-Petit Frere with Pickled Pearl Onions and Irish Bacon-Oyster Mushroom Roll

 
Now THESE people know how to do a cheese course! Hell, I’d show up just for the cheese course! Without question the closest anything of its kind has ever gotten to the “gay jock hate crime of love” mark. Each component just a bite or two. Great cheese accompanied by something that took actual thought and preparation. Bravo! One of the most memorable courses of the trip. And cute!

Amano Artisan Chocolate Smores– deconstructed smores, rich but not overkill.

“Blood Orange Shortcake”- I can’t remember the actual name, so that’s what I called it. Toasted meringue, spongecake, citrus, a juice to pour into the bowl completely disappears into the cake. Loved this dish, a good pick-me-up.

Again, fantastic service and great attention to detail. Little things like pre-heating the cream for your coffee and including a bit of shortbread on the side, holding the napkin outside the rim of your water glass to shield you from deadly droplets as it is refilled….a ton of other tiny, sometimes cutesy, details. Oh, and being DC, a town laden with those loud, alpha male douchebags who have no indoor voice, I got a little bit of a floor show courtesy of a douchebag behind me and his douchebag wife. It didn’t really both ME, but there was one very young couple next to them on an obviously important big date that I felt sorry for as the woman squawked “OH MY GOD, JERSEY BOYS IS WORTH DRIVING TO NYC FOR! THE DIM SUM BRUNCH AT CAFÉ ATLANTICO IS TO DIE FOR! WHY WOULD ANYONE BOTHER GETTING A SEAT AT MINIBAR!?!?!” Then throughout their meal they drank more wine and got more political and confrontational over issues like giving criminal hackers an opportunity to “work with the good guys” instead of going to jail….and various BORING AS LIVING FUCK topics like that. Funny to me as a lone diner, but yeah, some people just need killing.

So yeah, good meal, glad I went, but I do not know if and when it will make it back on the calendar during future visits.



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March 6, 2011 · 10:30 am

DC Grub 2011: Intro & Eola…

A couple of things before I get into the details of each of the restaurants: First, high end solo dining is awesome. Obviously, the best scenario would have been to have my wife with me so that we could enjoy it all together. BUT if she were with me, there’s no way we would have hit all of these restaurants…this adventure involved a little bit of money.  But as far as going solo, man it is great. In my experience, you are very, very well taken care of…..whether it’s because they feel sorry for the orphan, or because if you are there alone you are there for the food…whatever, no idea. Maybe it’s just me. Not to brag, but if you want the most a restaurant has to offer, I’m  a good dining companion for you. I research the living shit out of restaurants like these before I go, so usually I am familiar with the menu and I constantly engage the staff to discuss the food and various aspects of the service and restaurant itself. I am great at schmoozing….and it’s not fake, I am genuinely happy to be there and if you are good to me I’m your buddy. And I tip really well. So a three and a half hour meal by my lonesome is a hell of a good time. Plus, you get to listen to other conversations and hear things like “Have you had foie gras???  It is SOOOOOOOOO FRENCH!!”. Second, the no-booze thing…..I have this weird inferiority complex, like I’m robbing the restaurant by not ordering wine. So when I declined any cocktails or pairings, it was in an apologetic manner….kind of stupid I guess, because I quickly learned that nobody really cared. Sure, they would love to double your check, but ultimately they want you to have a great experience. Looking at other tables during all of my dinners I saw several folks who, for whatever reason, didn’t order booze. Sure, I miss having wine, but honestly, I just enjoy the food more now….no dulling of my mind and palate from downing a bottle or two. AAANNNNDDD….non-alcoholic drinks and various housemade colas and ginger ales abounded during my stay. No booze was no big deal, and like I said, I tip really, really well….kind of like when you use a gift certificate and you still tip on the original amount.  Part of my tip comes from the fact I just want to give a little extra to my server because I would have normally plunked another hundred bucks onto the bill at a minimum when I drank. Oh, if you are one of those people who subtract tax and alcohol before you figure a tip….please stop reading and go away. Seriously. I hate you.  You are a stupid, stingy fucker with no class and if you’re doing math to save a few dollars off of the hundreds you just dropped, I guarantee you are one of those entitled pain in the ass types who just lacks joy and basic social skills. Fuck off. You are a pariah with a completely flawed philosophy on life. Your spouses and children abhor you and plot against you behind your back.

So now that those pricks are gone, on to the goddamn wonderment….

DISCLAIMER: The following acts were performed by a professional. Do not attempt to recreate this itinerary without extensive research and prior experience.  I shit you not. Money aside, it was very intense. 

DISCLAIMER #2: I have given up on compiling exhaustive and consistent descriptions of dishes. I just jot down whatever hits me, I let go of that bizarre OCD thing.  I’m thankful for others who go to the lengths I used to, I love food porn, but the writing, the picture taking…bleh. I take pictures when it feels appropriate, and always after I get reassurance from a server that the chef and staff don’t think of it as completely douche-y.  But again, I’m not consistent and sometimes I just don’t feel like doing it. I’m there for peace, good conversations, and the food. The food blogger shit is way down on the priority list.

Saturday Night at Eola–

Now this is a place I didn’t know existed until I mentioned my love of offal over on eGullet when I began planning this trip.  Initially, the menu sounded a little gimmicky, but the few reviews available were very positive. I actually moved my reservation for Restaurant Eve to Monday night in order to eat at Eola. Smart goddamn move on my part, let me tell you!  Chef Daniel Singhofen is going some amazingly tasty stuff! Wouldn’t it be annoying if I switched into exclamation mark mode when describing the food? WINNING!

So, nice walk-up former residence (I assume) just off of Dupont Circle…low lighting, clean and subtle room, comfy, cozy, lots of dark wood…a pleasant amount of the chill-factor.

As it is with most “faincy” restaurants, the service starts off pretty formal and evolves to suit you and your demeanor and attitude. I’m a guy who wants to have fun, enjoy good food, and be the easiest table the staff is going to have all night long. I put a very, very big premium on waitstaff who are emotionally invested in the restaurant and have real opinions on the food, and are enthusiastic about it. I was lucky on this trip, because I got that at every single restaurant.  Another common element was the sensitivity the staff had towards how you would like to pace the meal. I have a tiny stomach now, so I adjusted accordingly in order to let digestion happen and avoid the bariatric-sweats.

Quick note- there was no initial mention of a tasting menu option when my server presented me with the list of dishes. But as soon as I asked, we were off and running.

Deep Fried Pig’s Ear

The ears are brined, slow cooked, sliced and tempura fried, then served with a housemade tartar sauce. Deep fried lip smackity jaw gumming goodness.

Amuse Bouche- Confit of Pork heart with pecan– a “minerally and sweet” intro to the meal that let’s you know what you are in for.

Sous Vide Duck Egg with garlic broth and comte

This was the only dish I was iffy about, It was very tasty and rich, but maybe too subtle.  Either the broth needed a little oomph or it could have used more texture. 

Chicken fried pork tongue- pickled shallots, lentils, spiced apple puree

The brined tongue had more of a corned beef flavor and texture than tongue, and it was rock star good. This was definitely the “it may have sounded gimmicky at first, but this shit is for-real good” moment of the night. Damn,damn, damn good dish. And it was proof that the Chef Singhofen not only knew how to cook tongue, he knew how to do a proper, crispy, flaky chicken fry. Throughout the meal, whatever direction he took the ingredients, he always started with a very solid technical foundation and went from there. I really like this guy.

FBLT- bacon cured foie gras, truffled brioche, micro greens, madeira reduction

Probably the best dish of the night and without question the richest thing  I’ve ever eaten. Completely and utterly insane. When I say it was the richest thing I’ve ever eaten, I’m not fucking around. And it made me emotional. Fortunately for me, there were a handful of these moments during my whole trip, but this was the first instance…a “what the fuck” moment on steroids. So powerful that the only way I can describe it is to paint a picture….the feeling that hit me so strongly the image that came to mind was a college freshman jock still wearing his high school letter jacket like you see in one of those bad Oxygen movies who is gay but is in such deep and painful denial that he overcompensates with overt but awkward manliness until his first year in college when he has a Brokeback moment that goes horribly wrong….joyfully and blissfully locked in a forbidden embrace until the pain of his closeted existence boils over as self-loathing revulsion; and he reacts quickly and violently…so quickly that the joy has not completely left him, so he sobs as he rains blows down upon the object of his affection, tears streaming, snot bubbles the size of oranges…..letter jacket collar askew, soul torn open, lost, guilty, wide eyed and unable to process the moment……….I hated that sandwich…..I loved that sandwich so much….I could not bite it hard enough but I knew with each movement of my jaw our time together dwindled away…..why did it even have to be here?  Who thought this was a good idea?  Why does it make me feel so dirty? OK- so from here on instead of painting that picture over again when I get to one of those dishes I’ll just say something like “it was gay jock hate crime of love good” or something to that effect. If you’ve seen the episode of HBO’s “The Wire” where Chris beats that guy to death so badly it freaks Snoop out….throw some of that in there too. Just bam bam bam bam bam.

Pig Brain Tortellini

Again, sounds offal-trendy, but the pasta itself was absolutely perfect and the consistency of the brains made it a dish you could pass off as cheese filled.  Singhofen’s hand at homemade pasta is top notch, he knows what he is doing…I’d like to see his exploration in pastas in the same way his chicken-fry technique appeals to me.

Black Cod- sous vide with black olive paste, Carolina wild rice, cayenne glass

I’d had a ton of food already and been hammered with richness, so it took me a few moments to recover in order to enjoy this course. Totally delicious, the sous vide made it feel and taste like a perfectly cooked sweet scallop. Maybe the best texture of any fish dish I’ve had, and the black olive was prominent without being overpowering.  The more I ate, the more I liked it.  An intriguing combination of flavors I had not experienced before.

Lamb Croquette with arugula puree, barley and barley broth foam

 Very rich, a briney flavor to it, but I was told it had not been brined (and from various staff comments, Singhofen is as big a proponent of brining as Thomas Keller). Would make an incredible breakfast dish, or something you’d eat to comfort you while trapped indoors during a blizzard. 

Braised beef cheek with a red wine reduction and Anson Mill grits

What do you say about something like this? Sunday dinner good. Damn I love beef cheek. I do not know why it isn’t on more menus.

Cheese Course– I don’t actually remember what all was there, but pretty standard stuff. A nice small and manageable amount. I’m pretty much over the cheese course as a concept, with two very notable exceptions in upcoming reviews.

Orange Blossom Panna Cotta

My server told me that as he and the chef discussed the construction of my tasting menu, he knew I’d need something nice and light to finish off the meal. Excellent, excellent choice…..a nice few creamy citrusy bites to cleanse my palate and wake me back up.

Speaking of waking up….I am convinced that restaurants should do away with brewed coffee completely and make the switch to French press.  I roast my own coffee, so I’m a pretty tough customer to impress, and Eola does a good job and actually has a selection of coffees from which to choose. 

I’ll definitely go back to Eola, it was a wonderful experience and scratched the offal itch in a big way. The staff is all about the food and extremely willing to accommodate you in any manner as far as portion sizes and progression of the meal. Top notch, highly recommended.  What a wonderful start to my trip.

 Oh, I will at least MENTION the Nuevo Latino Dim Sum Brunch at Café Atlantico Dim…..not going to do a real review or post pictures. Not because it was bad, it just wasn’t a major component of the trip. Even though some of the dishes are classics from the minibar menu, it’s not even in the same galaxy as the minibar experience. Plus, cranking out such a huge number of the dishes and serving them to so many people at once interferes with the quality of the food and the service. Temperatures were a little off on some of the dishes, and in some cases a runner would drop off the food well before a server could come over and explain it.  At 35 bucks, plus the fact I don’t think they charged me for a couple of extra bites I asked for, it’s still a great deal. It’s just not at the minibar level, or even a regular dinner at Café Atlantico for that matter.  I’m still really loyal to the restaurant, and I’m sure I’ll always find a reason to visit when I’m in town, but maybe not the brunch.

Here’s what is on the chef’s menu right now…

Endive w/Queso Fresco Espuma, walnut and orange

Mango Oyster

Tuna Ceviche w/Coconut

Mango and Anchovy foam ravioli

Conch Fritter

Hot and Cold Foie Gras Soup

Potato with Vanilla and Caviar

Sauteed Mushrooms with 63 degree egg

Carne Asada

Pork Belly Confit with Passion Fruit Oil

Coconut Rice

Fried Egg with Black Bean and Pork

Pineapple Unagi

Pan Dulche

So more reviews to follow….there’s a lot to cover but I knew I had to break it all up.

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