London food = tasty? Yep

So it seems I only have time to write about food when I travel. Fair enough. So. Here I go.

En route to Paris (again), K & I decided to fly Zoom into London (again), spend a night, and then Chunnel into Paris. Setting out to prove again that London food can be most extraordinary, we did a little research and then happily "tucked into" four delicious meals. One thing that immediately struck us was how simple it was, from simple pub fare to gourmet gastronomy, to eat local, organic, humane, sustainable, fair-trade, etc. New Yorkers, stop kidding yourselves: if "green" living was a race, London would have lapped us thrice. Carbon neutral cabs? Pepsi Raw? While I have to work very hard in the Big Apple to find food that meets my ethical/ecological standards, I'd have to work as hard or harder to find London fare which harms the world.

Sounds like I should be on a soap box at Speaker's Corner, right?

All right, on to the food:

Humble Pie (80 Buckingham Gate)
After our Easybus dropped us off from Gatwick, we found our hotel room wouldn't be ready for another hour, so we decided to explore Hyde Park. After a lovely morning strolling (and rowing!), we headed back to the hotel for a nap. On our way, we realized that all we'd had to eat since the airplane's dinner was a banana each. Humble Pie International Ltd to the rescue. Adorable storefront. Exciting menu with adventurous variations on a British standard. We settled on a lamb marinated in Shiraz, accompanied by raisins, sweet potatoes, and a few other tasty morsels which I've forgotten despite my attempts to save the menu. Also: the most exciting case of drinks I've ever encountered, filled with a nice stock of juices by James White Drinks. We decided to share the Beetroot juice and the Apple/Crushed Ginger juice. They also have single varietal apple juices which is very exciting to this food dork.

Abeno Too (17 Great Newport St)
After our nap, we trekked 2.5 miles from our hotel over to check out the National Gallery and work up an appetite. We are very very hungry at this point--this information will be important to explain the following. A hunt on the blogosphere had led me to Abeno Okonomiyaki and its little brother, Abeno Too. When I first tasted Okonomyaki in Japan it was translated to me as "my favorite things friend," which made sense for this savory Japanese omelette stuffed with bacon, shrimp, cabbage, carrots, ginger, and other assorted vegetables, all covered with sweet Japanese mayo, okonomyaki sauce, bonito flakes, and nori. After waiting for about 20 minutes at Abeno Too, we were ushered to our space at the okonomyaki bar and got a peek at the menu. This wasn't grandpa's okonomyaki: there were at least 10 different varieties, each offering a novel flavor combination. Having scrimped and saved all day, we decided to go for the most expensive option on the menu: the Abeno Okonomyaki: Organic beef & chicken, bacon, pork, black tiger prawns, asparagus tips, Konnyaku, lotus root, mushrooms, and garlic. Our waiter/chef was a ridiculously well-travelled Londoner of Polish extraction who was currently finishing up medical school. Michael "the Pole" (his own designation) stood in front of us at the bar, chatting us up as he prepared our meal over the course of about 25 minutes. This was high art, the way each component was individually cooked and then delicately layered on top of a growing stack of eggy-goodness. Our barside seats to this culinary demonstration were worth at least as much as the cost of the meal. Michael explained that he and the other okonomyaki specialists train for at least two weeks before they are allowed to make the simplest items on the menu and that you must work at it for some time before you are permitted to cook the specialty we ordered. He also translated the dish as "Fry it like you like it" which is somehow more democratic than the version I'd heard before. Well, suffice to say, as we watched his mastery and smelled the delightful scents cooking up under our noses, our hunger deepened to near-starvation level. When he finished the preparation, we dug into the meal so quickly it did not even occur to me that I should snap a photo of his heavenly creation, hence the afterthought above. Suffice to say, the meal was incredible. We'll definitely be back!

Ye Olde Cock Tavern (22 Fleet Street)
The plan was to check out a place on Essex called S&M, specializing in Sausage and Mash, as we made our way towards the Tate Modern in the morning. Unfortunately, we navigated our way to Essex St when, in fact, the sausage joint is located far north on Essex Road. Dejected and hungry, we began strolling around looking for an English Breakfast. And then the rain started coming down and we dived into a place that looked warm and friendly, Ye Olde Cock Tavern. As you can see from the inlaid photo, this fancy establishment still has restored fittings from the 19th century. It has quite a rich history, frequented by the likes of Pepys, Dickens, and Tennyson back when it stood on the other side of the street. It also has quite a good English breakfast, offering a solid variation for those who are veggie-inclined. The meat version is a fried egg (runny), sausage (juicy), bacon (crispy), white bread (buttery), baked beans (creamy), and cooked mushroom (fungi). The veggie version trades the bacon for a grilled 1/2 tomato and a vegetarian sausage replaces the pork one. A perfect rainy day breakfast. I'd like to thank the kind staff for letting us order the meal even though standard British breakfast time had elapsed while we stood confused in the rain looking for a place to eat.

Jonathan Crisps: "Crisps for Snobs"
Parsnip, Sweet Potato, Beetroot.
Black Pepper & Ginger.
Mature Cheddar & Red Onion.
Sea Salt & Malt Vinegar.
Horseradish & Sourcream.
Sundried Tomato & Basil.
Black Olive & Garlic.
'Nuff said.

Yo Sushi (14 St Paul's Churchyard)
Yes it's a chain, but I'd wanted to try conveyor-belt (kazen) sushi and here was Yo Sushi, beckoning me to come in and sample its rotating raw sea creatures. Simple premise: you sit at a bar and a conveyor-belts brings food right to you. There are 5 different color plates, each corresponding to a different price. Eat what you like and the empties are tallied for your bill. In addition to some fairly standard choices, we had a tasty tofu, seaweed, and cucumber salad, Softshell Crab & Rocket with Chili Mayo, Kobe Beef Sashimi, and, my favorite, Scallop Sashimi with Coriander Pesto (inlaid photo). The bill was more than I might have liked given the actual quantity of food ingested, but it's always good to try out new experiences and I'd never done Kazen-sushi outside of Japan.

We'll be back in London for a day at the trip's end so if you have recommendations for good eats, please do post a comment...Now on to Paris!

Too stuffed to type?

It's amazing how easy it is to fall behind on one's food blogging. I mean, I'm not trying to catalogue EVERY meal I'm eating here, just the memorable ones. But, what can I say, most of my meals have been pretty memorable. Faced with the ridiculously self-imposed responsibility to write about all of them, I've instead written about none. So now I play catch up.

Monday night we (K, V, Bear, and Truffle Boy) made our 2 mile walk over to 6 Rue Jacquard, home of Ave Maria. It's an Afro-Brazilian-French fusion restaurant and it's worth paying a visit for the décor alone. Vines descend from the ceiling. Barbie dolls dressed like Mexican images of saints and mounted in frames on the walls. Kitsch posters abound. There is a dish I love here. Its tongue-and-cheek title stretches across 3 or 4 lines in the menu. But I've had it nearly every year I've come so it was time to bravely march forward and try something new. So I opted for one with the shortest title, the Kirikou (sp?). Inspired by one of the national dishes of Togo (or so they say), it offered beef and massive carrots stewed in "African spices," sharing the bowl with tomatoes, rice, onions, cucumbers, mint, oranges, and parsley. The beef was tough for my taste but the stewing juices were definitely worth soaking up with bread. Sometimes one should stick with the known and just make sure that one's dining companions will let one nibble on the unknown. Said dining companions also make it possible to order dessert when one knows one is far too full. We ordered their award-winning "Death by Chocolate," accompanied by a digestif made of rum with macerated ginger and infused with cinnamon. As Bear pointed out, in America, the "Death by Chocolate" would likely be too rich to be savored and, after all, shouldn't one's mort chocolat be savored? To extend the analogy further, I'd say that ordering such a dish in America is like a chocolate cyanide capsule: one bite and your finished. Ave Maria's version, though, is like, I don't know, drowning because you've fallen asleep in the world's most comfortable bath. And the little ginger shot was just what I needed to revive me from my chocolate languor.

V departed Tuesday in the late afternoon, though the departure proved a little more traumatic than we might have hoped as we scrambled from station to station trying to find a metro with an open ticket window (for some inexplicable reason the ticketing machines in Paris do not take American credit cards though everywhere else seems to!). Bear and I walked over to a poetry reading at the Village Voice bookstore and then managed to sneak into a grocery store right before it closed. Once we got to the house, Bear served up a gorgeous and tasty antipasto plate with some fromage, white asparagus, caviar, and sausage while I started work on the seared lamb with a (2 euro!) Cabernet Sauvignon & fig reduction. We had cleverly purchased a jar of marinated eggplants which I dolloped onto some couscous for a tasty side. The main course here was actually the world's largest head of cauliflower. With individual florets the size of my fist, it could have served 8 but we three managed to put away nearly all of it. I'm so proud of us.

Yesterday (Wednesday), Bear and I had some crossed wires and didn't end up meeting up as planned at the overpriced and rude Deux Magots. Bear lunched solo and was charged 15 euros for a small ham sandwich and a café au lait and they wouldn't let her charge it on credit card (16 euro minimum they said)! Meanwhile, I failed to eat anything whatsoever save a few candies Bear bought from a street vendor. That's okay, because at 9:30pm I more than made up for it by gorging myself (and actually being out-gorged by the normally restrained K) at La Cave du L'Os a Moelle (Rue Lourmel), the communal table restaurant that we've made a point of visiting each time we've come to Paris. Here's the set-up. They have sittings at 7:30 and 9:30 and you make your reservation accordingly. You arrive and pick a bottle of vin that pleases you off the wall (they range in price from 10 euros to well over 100, but they are all take-away prices) and take a seat at your table. Since they had lost our reservation, the only community at our communal table that night was comprised of the 3 of us…which was certainly fine with me. On the table when you sit down is a jar of cornichons, a delicious whole-grain mustard, a tray of crudités, a bowl of world's tiniest shrimp (to be eaten whole I discovered!), a blood sausage terrine and another country terrine, and some rather delicious marinated grated vegetables (beets, carrots, and celery root, I think). Bear had reasonably assumed that said dishes were the entire meal and stocked up accordingly only to discover moments later that there were also 5 other courses awaiting us. You go over to a counter and serve yourself (NOTE: the following courses change nightly and depend upon the season and the caprice of the chef) a spicy & creamy fish soup, a stewed pork breast, and a dish of Brussels sprouts and carrots. Follow that up with a cheese course and round out the night with a bowl of fruit salad or one (or two or three or all) of the other 10 desserts they offer. Aside from the wine, the 23 euro price-tag is all inclusive and we really stretched the definition of the word "all" (and our stomachs!). I can imagine few things as delightfully appetizing as the marinated vegetables (as in, they literally prime our appetite for the later courses) and the giant slabs of pork (the fat melting—literally: rendering--in your mouth) were the perfect salve for a frustrating rainy day. I'm still thinking about the Brussels sprout dish—we think it's probably only seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper, but I'd be lying if I said I'd ever had a better vegetable dish. I don't know what the secret flowery syrup in the fruit salad was, but I do know that it had perfectly ripe mangoes, oranges, pineapples, currants, raspberries, and apples in it. I also know that it was easily the best fruit salad I've had in my life (sorry dad!). Bear had 3 servings. Or rather, I served Bear 3 bowls of it (I had the end seat and played waiter and busboy). The people who work there are adorable, kind, and at least tri-lingual and as you and your fellow diners get high on wine and French comfort food, a boisterous conviviality fills the air. I so wish I could have this experience in my native tongue, but somehow I feel like the whole atmosphere would be lost in translation.

Crrrunch!

It being Easter and all here in a Catholic city, much of the town closes down...except, of course, the Jewish quarter! After spending some time with the devout in Notre Dame (with our fingers still sticky from the Berthillon ice cream we, lunatics, that we are, picked up in the wintry weather today. I had the always delicious Caramel with Salted Butter flavor, K had the otherworldly Cassis, and V sampled the very nutty Pistachio), where we lucked into an "audition" (literally: hearing) of the massive organ (which seems only capable of producing the soundtrack to all of the 1920s and 1930s classic monster movies!), we headed over to Rue du Rossiers to make our semi-annual pilgrimage to L'as du Falafel. A man on the street takes your order (and your order is "Falafel Special"...5 euros--no bargain by NYC East Village standards but a steal in this city) and gives you a ticket. You wait on line. You cross your fingers and hope that the deep-fried balls of chick-pea treasure will just be emerging from their hot oil bath as you reach the head of the line. You reach the head of the line. Two aproned schwarma surgeons take your ticket, figure out what language you speak, and then tease you in said language. They play catch with your falafel which bounce and roll all over the many toppings with which your pita will soon be stuffed. White cabbage. Red Cabbage. Grilled seasoned eggplant (apparently a bribe of a euro buys you extra!). Tomatoes. Cucumbers. Tahini. And, if you say "Picante" at just the right time: hot sauce. Stick a fork in it and it's done. You can either eat it right there (which is probably the smart thing to do), or you can empirically discover the cooling time of falafel by trekking back to your apartment three blocks away. Here's the thing, though: even though it was cold, the falafel kept its crunch while all of the other toppings merge into TomaCabbaCucuPlantIni...and that's a very good thing!

Jean Bart Is No More, But Its Boutique Remains

So, promising great moules frites at ridiculously cheap prices I dragged our little truffle trio (which will momentarily become a quartet tomorrow and then reshape to form a new trio the next day) east toward Bastille to Le Jean Bart (86 Rue St. Antoine).

Though my French was not good enough to make out the various signs affixed all over the closed glass doors, it appears that the marvelously atmospheric dive bistro has suffered both a crippling fire and a pretty dire financial crisis. Though I'm not sure how the chronology played out, the proprietor ended up staging a sit-in to try to save the restaurant. Alas, the place seems to be closed indefinitely.

Strangely enough, right next door is Jean Bart's Boutique, offering the same menu, the same prices, and its own petit share of atmosphere. 8 euros buys you one of their 8 preparations of mussels accompanied by french fries. If you opt for their moules marinieres, you can get that, the frites, beer, and a cafe for under 10 euros. V, K, and I each chose our own bowl of moules and shared a demi of a Bourdeaux Blanc Sauvignon. I went for the Moules du Gallo (sp?), a tasty concoction of oil, garlic, white wine, onions, and snail butter. Though I did enjoy the dish, I'd be lying if I said that the distinct flavor of the snail butter was easily discernible and transformed this rustic dish into a masterpiece. Kinda tasted like butter, perhaps a bit snailier...? As V pointed out, though, the best part of any moules experience is soaking your baguette in the steaming jus at the bottom of the bowl. Based on that taste test alone, this was definitely one of the better moules dishes I've had, but it really is a shame that you can't get the moules themselves more immersed in those flavors. I used to serve moules in a great big ugly clear plastic party bowl that I presume was intended for chips & dip. Advantage: you can ladle a good heaping of the jus right into the middle and dip the moules in with each bite.

At any rate: the Boutique is definitely worth paying the visit but I don't think it's a must-eat...

Back in Paris, Back in Blogland

Ah faithful readers, your lovable truffle boy has returned. Apparently it takes a trip out of the country for me to squeeze time from my schedule, under-ripe lime though it often seems to be. Well, I'm back in Paris with K and another traveling companion I'll call V. Actually, I should probably give a quick run down of the 36-hours we spent in Amsterdam en route to France.

It was the third time K and I made an extended Amsterdam stopover and we know exactly what we want to eat, see, and do while we're in town for a few hours. Apparently, there is very little in the way of Dutch "national" food as many Netherlanders will proudly declare Indonesian to be their native cuisine. So, each time we visit we hit up Indrapura, a tasty little spot in Rembrandtplein that serves up rijsttafel, a fixed-menu meal featuring a variety of Indonesia tapas. Here's how the restaurant's website explains the the meal:

The origin of the concept 'rijsttafel' is difficult to trace. According to one legend it referes to the actual table used by the Dutch settlers during the colonial days in Indonesia. A traditional Indonesian meal is always based on white rice, not only because it is noutricious, but also for its calming and soothing effect in combination with spicy dishes. One fish or meat dish accompanied the rice seasoned with 'sambal' or chilipeper. In colonial days a simple meal like this symply did not satisfy the appetite of the Dutch planters, so a greater variety of dishes, from all over the islands, was added. It is this large amount of tasty dishes that as a whole forms the elaborate 'rijsttafel' of today.

It is tasty. Very. We chose the Purnama for 29 euros a person. White rice, fried rice, tempeh, peanuts, cucumber salad, spicy mango salad, various skewered meats (lamb, beef, pork) in satay-like sauces, various slow-cooked meats in peanut sauce and soy souce, shrimp crackers, a cabbage dish, and at least 3 other dishes I can't remember. Good deal. None of the individual entrees is, itself, more than casually appetizing, but altogether as a spread it is filling and offers a really diverse tasting. K mentioned that about half the dishes seem to offer very Thai flavors while the others rely more on Indian spices.

Another don't miss in Amsterdam is the Pancake Bakery. If you're like us and chose your digs in the Reguliersgracht/Rembrandtplein area, then you might want to take bikes to visit this adorable and cozy pancake specialist. Be forewarned though: this place does not serve breakfast and they do not even open until noon. Or rather, much of what they serve can be deemed breakfast but you cannot dare to deem it so until after noon. At any rate, Dutch pancakes are like French crepes but a little bit thicker. And Dutch syrup, stroop, is super-thick as well, smokier (can you use that for sweets?) and richer (but less sweet) than maple or, deity-of-your-choice forbid, Aunt Jemima. All three of us went for savory options. V ordered the very delicious Greek pancake (lamb, feta, onions, tzatziki), K went for my favorite, the Swedish (coriander and thyme marinated reindeer, onions, carrots, cabbage, poached pears, and cranberry sauce), and I tried something new with the Canadian (with crispy bacon, onions, mushrooms, ham, cheese, and curry sauce). We ripped off some "untouched" pieces of our pancakes and covered them with stroop to save money on dessert. Stingy? Yes. Tasty? Yes.

And right before you hop the tram to the train station, make sure to stop at the northwest corner of Rembrandtplein for Vlaamse Frites. While you'll only rarely catch me touching the white nastiness we call mayonaise in these United States of ours, Euronaise is a whole different creature. A delicious creature that pairs perfectly with deep fried potatoes. Do it. Smother them. Pack lots of napkins and tell your arteries to be quiet!

Okay...on to Paris:

The Paris apartment this time around is on Rue du Temple, just two blocks west of the Seine and just a few blocks north of many of our favorite Marais haunts. We had a bit of a nightmare getting into the apartment the first night and, homeless at 12:30 in the am, ended up crashing into Belle Hortense with all of our luggage because it felt "safe." Who goes to a French literary wine bar in the middle of a crisis? Truffle boy does. While K and V tried to figure out where we were going to sleep that night, I got the menu from the nearby restaurant Les Philosophes (along with Le Petit Fer A Cheval, all three share an owner) and ordered "delivery" to the wine bar, where I was "safely" ensconced with my Sancerre. I got Steak Tartare for myself (how else does one know one has arrived in Paris?) and picked up salads for the ladies. K's was one of those delightful French creations topped with smoked duck breast, prosciutto, avocado, beets, and hot goat cheese on little toasts.

The apartment has a clean and reasonably well-appointed kitchen. Slick electric range & a nuker, but no oven and the cutlery might better befit a Fisher Price Kitchenette. No matter: V and I have already been cooking up a storm. Last night I braised some chicken quarters (doused in a little cumin, garlic powder, basil, salt, pepper, and flour--the only pantry items in the apartment!) in Riesling with carrots, leeks, and onions. Tonight, V and I shared kitchen duties. I picked up some goodness from Hedonisme (6 Rue du Mezieres), a lovely little organic/artisinal shop. Left with organic gnocchi, organic truffle butter (which, of course, is composed entirely of TRUFFLES and BUTTER!), and a bagful of pretty veggies. V prepared a lovely salad with a lemon-shallot dressing (as I said, we have nothing in our pantry) and I made the inset gnocchi with sauteed mushrooms & shallots, basil and garlic powder, and a few spoons full of truffle butter (oh, dear readers: may my veins run thick with the stuff when they cut me open on judgment day!).

Au Revoir! More soon...

Truffle boy is back...

I just happened to browse this site after a lovely couple of hours in NYC's Vespa Bar and it might be the Negroamaro talking, but I've made a resolution to get this site up and running again. So I will try to eat (and write about what I eat) with a little bit more regularity in coming weeks, and if I still can't get it together, I'm sure March's return to Paris will inspire me to blog away.

This little truffle pig is vacationing from blogland

Given the fact that my last post was in July, I think I've sadly realized I just can't keep up a regular blog posting schedule while the school year is in session (one of my "dayjobs" is in education). So, it looks like I'll keep my blogging to winter and summer recess.

Hope some of you will pay me a visit again in December!

Paris Round-up: Part 1

K and I have spent nearly two weeks in Paris thus far, literally hopping from cafe to tea house to bar to bistro to ice-cream shop to brasseries to creperie to lounge all day and all night long. There has scarcely been a moment that one of us has not been consuming something, but we haven't had an ounce of bad luck yet and we've been eating and drinking remarkably well. As anyone who's spent some time in Paris will realize when I begin listing our conquests, most of the places we've patronized are within a few doors of each other; K and I haven't really walked too far afield of the the 3 block radius or so of our apartment on the lovely Rue du Bourg Tibourg in the heart of the Marais.

Here are some of the trip's culinary highlights so far:

• L'as du Falafel (Rue du Rossiers): If you happen to be lucky enough to grab your 4.50 euro falafel special when those creamy crunchy balls of deliciously herbed chickpea puree come sizzling out of the deep fryer, you'll understand why this place deserves all of the hype that's been heaped onto it over the years. Complementing your perfect pita is a great melange of fresh and grilled vegetables and zesty tahini sauce. The schwarma is also superb!
• Mariage Freres (Rue du Bourg Tibourg): This is hands-down the world's best tea. The combined tea-house/shop's fragrance wafts down the entire block making it an irresistible pit-stop for those of us who are easily tempted by such heavily scents. Inside, the decor is colonial, drawing influences from all the great tea regions of the world, and service is white-suited and as delicate as it comes. You are seated with a 200 page book called The Art of Tea, which serves as both an informative dossier on the experience and a detailed catalogue (with tasting notes) of the hundreds of teas they offer. Although some of my favorite teas there are the Marco Polo, French Blue, Bal Masque, Casablanca, and The des Impressionists, I haven't had a dud yet. And the food is as good as the tea, with brilliant brunch platters and high-class afternoon tea sandwiches. My favorite combo (this week): K and I share the Pondicherry Afternoon Tea (30 euros) which comes with a pot of tea (we choose the Impressionists), a platter of tea sandwiches (featuring fabulous ingredients fois gras and smoked magret and shrimp and smoked salmon!), and a dessert (we always choose the coup du soleil, which is more or less a creme brulee pie with fresh raspberries tucked away inside the custard).
• La Belle Hortense (Rue Vieille du Temple): This is a combination wine bar/literary cafe/book shop that embodies most of what I love about Paris. Trilingual academic discussions fill the air with the haze of cigarettes and seemingly endless clink of glasses filled with gorgeous (and cheap!) wine. They make some of the best cafe in Paris--by my reckoning at least--and have some unique items like an aperitif made of truffles. If you work up an appetite with all of your yammering, you can order from the menu from Les Philosophes, the bar's sister-restaurant across the street (they have great steak tartar and excellent duck confit with honey, available as the main course in a 3-course fixed price meal available for 26 euros--if you, however, want to sample the most delightfully Gallic restaurant service ever, you should really head over to the restaurant itself and spend the evening attempting to catch the attention of the playfully surly servers!).
  
• Creperie Suzette (Rue du Franc Bourgeois): In the past 5 years, K and I have probably spent a weeks-worth of our cumulative vacation time gobbling down this simple but adorable creperie's fine fare. From the simple sugar & butter crepes to savory offerings like the Franc Bourgeois (spinach, emmenthal, tomato coulis, and basil oil) and unique sweet treats like the Creme du Marron (chestnut cream and creme fraiche), this place is always good for a quick to-go fix or for a leisurely lunch or dinner in their air-conditioned interior. Dinner for two can be kept under 22 euros and they offer continuous service throughout the day.
• Cafe de Medicis (Luxembourg Gardens): K and I visited this cafe (overlooking the stunning Luxembourg Gardens and adjacent to the always-interesting Luxembourg Museum) before taking in the delightful marionette show in the gardens. While I can't really speak for most of the items on the menu, it's always a great place to sit-down with a cafe and they Club Sandwich Fois Gras is really something else: several geese worth of buttery fois gras is arranged, in a deconstructed presentation, with some slices of brioche, grilled pineapple, caramelized onions, and port glaze. I forced so much (albeit delicious and amusingly paired) fois gras down my gullet that I began to feel a little bit like the poor geese they make the stuff with!
  
• Le Nemrod (Rue du Cherch Midi): Just a few blocks south of the incomparable boulangerie of the late Lionel Poilane (which is thankfully still baking up his intoxicating sourdough-started loaves) is a great little spot where you can get Paris' best Croque Madame. Nemrod's version features not only the standard fine ham and cheese topped with bechamel and a perfectly fried sunnyside-up egg, but the entire thing is on a slab of Poilane's finest and it makes a tremendous difference. Oh, and they put tomato wedges on the sandwich when they put it through the broiler! It's a little out of way but it is definitely worth the trek...
• Pont Louis Phillipe (on the Ile St. Louis side): Best picnic location ever. Grab your bottle of wine, your smelly cheese, some baguette, prosciutto, and couscous and enjoy the acoustic strummings of nearby troubadors as you watch the Bateaux Mouche tourboats drive by and light up the City of Lights.
  

Okay, off to La Belle Hortense.

40 pounds a day

So, in honor of the overexposed Rachel Ray, K & I tried to do London on 40 pounds a day. One would think, given the exchange rate that $40 a person for 3 meals & tea wouldn't be that hard, but London is such an expensive city that we were much closer to gaining 40 pounds of fat than we were to keeping our wallets in check.

Our Zoom Airlines flight got in roughly 4 hours late (or right on time, as Zoom fully discloses that all of their departure and arrival times are approximate) so we arrived in London proper by noon, a little wary of mass transit given the recent bombings. We hit the streets from Waterloo station after stowing our baggage. I wanted to head right for fish & chips but K hadn't had any breakfast yet and wanted something resembling coffee and a pastry. We tried to find the nearest cafe (avoiding the 2 Starbucks we passed) and settled on the Charles Dickens Cafe because it accepted Euros and we hadn't gone to a cash machine yet. Big mistake. No iced coffee (which was all K really wanted), uninspiring pastries, and I don't know what sort of fuzzy math they used to convert the Euros, but we got a pound back from a 10 euro note after buying an espresso and juice.

More than a little bit frustrated, we moved on to find what we heard was the best fish & chips joint in London, Rock and Sole Plaice. The take-away menu was very reasonable (at least it would have been if those were dollar signs in front of the numbers) but there was a treat tempting us only on the sit-down menu so we decided it was worth the tripled prices. On one of Alton Brown's Good Eats episodes (Flat is Beautiful III: Flounder), whilst shopping for flat fish at a Georgia Whole Foods, the man himself asserted that if one ever has the opportunity to try Dover Sole, often very very expensive, one simply had to. With this declaration in mind, I had no choice other than to order the market priced (gasp!) Dover Sole, fried whole. I doused it in lemon and malt vinegar and began picking away at it. Great crispy and flavorful fried crust, doing exactly what a fried crust should do, keeping the delicate and buttery Dover Sole moist and tender on the inside. Even K, who is the first admit she doesn't have much of a palette for white fish and even less of one for fried foods found the subtle flavors very complex and satisfying. Since I wanted to nibble on an authentic version of a dish I've tried at home, I asked K to order the Cornish Pasty for herself. That was quite something, too, with the root vegetables tasting rooty, moist and flavorful (as opposed to starchy and dry, that is) and the ground beef very well-seasoned. The pasty's texture itself was as flaky as a puff pastry. Overall, a great fattening meal, which, unfortunately, cost nearly as much as the tasting menu I described in my last post about JLOB.

We headed over to the National Gallery and took in its stunning permanent collection and then meandered over to the National Cafe where we took in a Cream Tea service. A pot of tea, a scone, and a dish full of Jersey clotted cream for roughly $8 American. The tea itself was mediocre, certainly no Mariage Freres, but the raisin scone was quite something; I told K it was all of the pleasure of muffin tops without any of that pesky cakey muffin middle! Said scone was even further improved by the decadent Jersey cream (which, neophyte as I am, I mistook for butter as its color is hued more towards the caramel than the milk end of the spectrum) and divine raspberry preserves (the jar of which seemed to be reduced from a 1-ton vat of raspberries and yes that is a very good thing!). I'm not supposed to say anything about this but someone who happened to be sitting at my table (who certainly couldn't be K!) liked the preserves and cream so much that she actually started eating it by the spoonful whenever she could be sure that the waitress wasn't eyeing her. :)

We decided it was highly inappropriate to follow tea immediately with dinner, but we were on a tight schedule with a chunnel ride to Paris awaiting us at 7:43pm. We killed about 90 minutes wandering around the Leicester Square area, trying to squeeze the clotted cream through our by then surely clotted arteries, and then settled on a noodle-house chain called Wagamama. We were little bit concerned about the time, but our host reminded us that it was technically fast food so it shouldn't take too long. I ordered a delightful and refreshing pressed juice blend with cucumber, pomegranate and apple and layered like a parfait. K and I shared an app and an entree, opting for the deep-fried duck and leek gyoza and the seafood ramen. The duck was tasty though I realized that, with the exception of the occasional pork potsticker at Dumping House in NYC, I tend to prefer my dumplings steamed. That said, it was crispy while staying definitively un-greasy! After the day's delicious fried goods and other fatty indulgences, the main course was so clean and light: a very delicate vegetable broth with healthy-tasting ramen noodles (were they whole wheat?) and generous helpings of grilled shrimp, calamari, and dory. One rarely feels cleansed after a giant bowl of soup but this certainly did the trick!

We miraculously caught the Eurostar and, as first class was in this case cheaper than economy, we were treated to a second dinner, though K preferred to sleep through it and I was too stuffed to eat anything besides the 5 steamed shrimp on a skewer. I did help myself to the free wine though!

Okay, more updates in coming days as we eat our way through Paris.

What a week!

So it's been a little while since my last post, primarily because I've been so busy eating. K and I discovered a great new restaurant near our theatre company's rehearsal space and the harvest has started heating up with our new CSA so I've had some great fresh produce to work with (this newsletter details what our weekly take was).

Let's talk about this restaurant first. It's called Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar, located on 2nd Avenue in the East Village and wow is this place a gem: service like you'd find only in the world's most elegant restaurants, jaw-droppingly stunning presentation, complex unique flavor pairings, and quite a lot of bang for one's buck.

I got the tasting menu and here is what I tasted:

• Fruit de Mer Sampler: 1 East Coast Oyster, 1 West Coast Oyster, 1 Littleneck Clam, and a Toast Point with Caviar. Served simply, each with a little flavor-enhancing garnish. Possibly the freshest raw seafood I've had and certainly the best I've had outside of Poke.
• Torchon of Tuna and Foie Gras with Blood Orange and Cilantro: Imagine the texture of creme brulee, rich, creamy and crispy (with a caramelized ginger glaze), but instead of a custard inside, there's a delicately mixed blend of tuna tartar and foie gras. The side salad was the perfect complement, with bright fruity acidic flavors to cut through any of the torchon's fattiness.
  
• Duck Liver Pate with Port Gelee and Truffle: An arresting deconstructed preparation which, when mixed, provided one of the most decadent savory treats I've had in my life. The creamy pate had a light whipped consistency and was topped with the sweet gelee. The waiter instructed me to mix the hefty spoon full of chopped black truffles into the pate, and then spread the mixture on toast points, garnishing it with the accompanying ancient mustard, pickled onions, and cornichon. A-mazing!
• Butter Poached Lobster with Pistachios, Haricot Vert, Mushrooms, and Lobster Jus: All of the pleasure of cracking open a steamed lobster and dipping it in melted butter, except someone has already done the work for you, pulling out the lobster's meatiest bits and infusing them with a deep butter flavor for you. They were tossed with the jus and the vegetables, with the haricot vert's crunch providing a nice counterpoint to the melt-in-your-mouth lobster and chewy mushrooms. The pistachios were ground in a line on the side of the plate, allowing me to coat each bite in the perfect amount of nutty texture.
  
• Pear Sorbet with Greek Yogurt and Vanilla: Simple and delicious. The pear and vanilla are a natural pair (pun definitely intended!) but the tartness of the greek yogurt really woke up my palette and let me taste the full round flavors of the the sorbet.
• "S'More" Chocolate-Pistachio Nougat and Toasted Marshmallow: Above and beyond the best S'mores experience of my life. The marshmallows were homemade and luxuriously textured, each caramelized to perfection like a very small creme brulee.
  

Not bad for $50 right? Yep, I said FIFTY DOLLARS!!! That's insanely cheap for such quantities of food this good. JLOB was the first (non-Japanese) restaurant I've visited since Babbo that I've said to myself, "My god I could never cook this myself!" I mean, it's not like I walk into every restaurant and say, "Oh, this is so easy I could have whipped it up in just a few minutes." That said, I can usually figure out a way to create a dumbed-down and simplified version of most things I eat at restaurants. Not so with JLOB; the techniques, the flavors, the presentation, the ingredients were all lightyears beyond my meager abilities. Reason enough to go to cooking school if I ever tasted one!

...And now a meal I cooked later in the week:


Gorgonzola Salad with Sundried Tomato Dressing:

A simple mixed salad with romaine, cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, roasted red peppers, red onions, and slices of gorgonzola, topped with a (thick) dressing made from pureed rehydrated sundried tomatoes, lemon juice, and pistachio oil.

Grilled Figs Wrapped in Serrano Ham and Stuffed with Gorgonzola:

As simple as it sounds. Slice fresh figs open enough to cram them full of the (chilled) smelly fromage. Wrap them in Serrano or prosciutto and give them a good rub down to make sure the ham is going to stay on. Pop them onto a hot grill and turn every 90 seconds or so. Serve immediately while the ham is still warm. Hot and cold. Salty and sweet. A party in your mouth.

Gnocchi with Chanterelles & Crispy Sage in a Brown Butter and Truffle Oil Sauce:

This picture looks pretty gnarly but the dish itself was one of my best gnocchi preparations. As you're boiling up the gnocchi, saute the fresh sage and chanterelles in butter. Pour in a glug or two of truffle oil and some starch pasta water to thicken. Toss with gnocchi and garnish with crushed red pepper and shaved parmesan.

Had enough?

Tough. It's my foodblog and I'll back log as many posts as I like :) ! You can be sure I've spared you from the details of most of the fabulous meals I've consumed this past week, like the great stir fry I made with the mizuna and chinese cabbage that came from my CSA this week, or my intoxicating trip to Poke with E & K. But there are two more recipes I want to keep in my little virtual recipe box, both from last night:

Grilled Seafood Salad with Grilled Tomatoes and Grilled Citrus Vinaigrette:

The perfect summer salad. Get your grill (or your grill pan) hot and keep it hot. Halve a lemon and a lime and grill them till they're striped. Squeeze half of the lemon and half of the lime into a bowl, reserving the other halves for garnish. Whisk in some olive oil, honey, salt, and black pepper until you have a nice emulsion. Put that dressing aside for a bit and work on the salad itself. Grill a medley of halved small heirloom tomatoes until they're striped and put them on a bed of chopped greens (I used the mizuna and red sail lettuce from my CSA). I happened to have some garlic scape on hand so I chopped that up and threw it on top of the greens and tomatoes. Now, with a hot grill, char up any mixture of small shrimp, calimari, and tiny bay scallops (at those sizes you can cook them all together without overcooking either of the elements...Trader Joes makes a frozen bag of the stuff!). Toss them on top of the salad, drizzle the dressing on, and garnish with the grilled citrus fruits and summer savory (also came with CSA but wow that was a great discovery!).

Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce:

It's true, I had a box of gnocchi I've slowly been working my way through; it's a great way to turn a skimpy meal into hearty fare and takes to a wide variety of flavors very well. Simmer some light cream and melt gorgonzola in to taste. Stir in some dried sage and a dash of white pepper. Toss the gnocchi in the sauce, drain of excess cream with slotted spoon, plate, and garnish with summer savory and shaved parmesan (as cheesy as the sauce is, the parmesan still cuts through and adds some nice treble flavors).

My Big Fat Low-Fat Burritos

The quandary: I wanted big and bold Mexican flavors but it was just too disgusting out to yearn for standard Mexican fare.

The solution:

I'll be honest, I've never cooked a burrito before. I've made quite a few quesadillas in my day and I make a mean chipotle chocolate chile, but I've never braved burritoville, as it were. I have made wraps, though, and that's pretty much all a burrito is. So, on to the components:

• Rice: I just used Trader Joe's microwaveable brown rice. It's moist and crunchy and ready from the nuke in just 3 min.
• Beans: I heated up some canned organic black beans and fat free canned organic refried beans (which I had to hydrate a little bit).
• Salad: Just shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes.
• Cheese: What's better than cheddar? Okay, pepper jack probably would have been fine...
• Beef: I had my last bag of frozen (humane) lean ground beef from last season's CSA to use up so I mixed about half a pound up with some grill seasoning, cumin, and cinnamon and browned it with some garlic in some olive oil in my cast iron. Once the meat started caramelizing, I stirred in a big ol' spoon of tomato paste and 2 chipotle peppers (canned in adobo). A little more cumin and cinnamon and then I took the heat down and let it all stew together for a bit.
  
• Toppings: Fat-free sour cream, guacamole, salsa, diced tomatoes, more cheddar, and a few slices of lime.
• Beverage: Corona. Lime.
  

Done and delicious. It was nice to control every single ingredient that went into a meal that I'm accustomed to ordering from the likes of Taco Bell and Chipotle, and it obviously tasted much better. It wasn't really the sort of burrito that you can eat with your hands, though--I got a bit greedy while stuffing it!

And for dessert...

Sweet Plantains
Slice 2 ripe plantains up on diagonals so they have more surface area than the usual disc cuts. Melt some butter in a cast iron and brown them on one side. Flip them and sprinkle some brown sugar and white sugar on, as well as a healthy dousing of real vanilla extract (off the heat if you have a gas stove). Make the plantains dance for you in the air as you toss them to coat with the vanilla caramelly mixture. Plate them with a lime wedge to cut through the sweetness a bit.

Mango Madness

I seem somehow to have lifted my food curse. Dinner was really pretty great tonight. With tropical humidity here in NYC this weekend (YUCK!!!) I decided to purchase a bunch of mangoes and see what I could come up with.

Mango Gazpacho with Shrimp
This is actually much easier than it sounds because if you can dig up all of the ingredients and a blender, it's pretty hard to screw it up. Take about 8 vine-ripened tomatoes and peel them (much simpler if you cut an "x" at the bottom and blanch them for 1 minute before shocking them in an ice bath. ) Chop them up and throw them into a bowl along with half a cucumber diced, half of yellow onion diced, half of a red onion chopped, 2 pressed cloves of garlic, and 2 minced jalapenos. In a food processor, blend together the juice of 1 lemon and 3 or 4 glugs of good olive oil. Put it on pulse and pour in the bowl of veggies, chopping until it is "rustically" textured (soupy but chunky). Add the zest of one lemon, the zest of one lime, and about 4 inches of microplaned ginger, as well as salt and pepper to taste. Pour into a large bowl and stir in 2 roughly chopped mangoes and about a dozen small boiled or steamed shrimp (or you can chop up larger ones if that's all you can get). Garnish with cilantro and lime. Sweet, salty, spicy, scrumptious!

Mango and Brie Quesadillas
Do all of your prep ahead of time, with piles of mango, sliced brie, jalapenos, and cilantro ready to go so your tortillas don't burn. Get a cast-iron or nonstick toasty over medium heat. Place a tortilla on it and move quickly. On half of the tortilla, layer sliced mango, brie, minced jalapenos, and chopped cilantro and fold the other half of the tortilla over omelette style. Press down with a spatula until the top sticks to the bottom. Let it cook on that side for no more than 45 seconds and then flip. Serve it with a cool sauce made of non-fat sour cream, the juice of 1 lime, lime zest, and chopped cilantro and garnish with a few more slices of mango. This dish is both refreshing and decadent. (Oh, and you might have noticed my dog Ben hiding underneath the table; he LOVES mangoes!)

If you're looking for a wine pairing for all of this (or if you're too tired to blend up some margaritas or Cran-quilas!), I suggest Cambrago's Soave Classico 2005. As the wine store clerk said, if you can deal with the fact that it's got Soave written on the label, it's actually a really great wine, and a nice bargain at $13.95.

Food curse?

Oh, friends. Your resident truffle pig is going through a rough patch. As if my earlier post about osso bucco bungling and tiramisu trauma weren't enough, I had a veritable salt cod catastrophe this evening. Sure it looks good (see inlaid photo) and sure 70% of it tasted great, but the cod pieces themselves were practically inedible. Thing is: I can't figure out where I went wrong. I soaked the cod overnight and shredded it just like I have in the past. I think it might have just been a bad cut of salt-cod. From here on in, I'm sticking to fresh scrod for this recipe.

"Flaky Fish of Some Sort" Biscaino:
Heat up some olive oil over medium high heat with some red pepper flakes and anchovies. Once the anchovies melt, drop in diced carrots, celery, and onions and some sliced garlic, sauteing until they start to caramelize a bit. Deglaze with Vermouth and pour in a can of crushed roasted tomatoes. Stir it up and let it get a little bubbly before you stir in some saffron, cinnamon, and ground cloves. Lay the shredded fish in the mixture and cook until it gets flaky. Pour in some capers, green olives, and some boiled new potatoes. Once their warm, garnish with parsely and serve over rice.

Two Italian Meals

I think I've cooked (and dined out at) much more Italian this year than in years past. I have no idea why. The only reasons I could come up with happen to directly negate each other. Either (1) the presence of CSA produce in my life makes me want to cook and eat food that showcases freshness (which Italian does well) or (2) my inability, as of late, to go grocery shopping on a regular basis has forced me to rely heavily on pantry ingredients (which, with its dried pastas, canned tomatoes, etc, Italian cuisine naturally excels at).

At any rate, I cooked for K, E, and L for L's birthday schindig last week...the whole thing was sort of a culinary failure on my part but, with enough wine, few people complain about free food.

A list of my idiocy:

• I made Giada's Osso Bucco and I FORGOT TO PUT IN THE BOUQUET GARNI THAT I PREPARED!!!
• I made a mushroom ragout for some polenta patties and I FORGOT TO BUY CREAM TO THICKEN THE MUSHROOM SAUCE!!!
• After whipping up the ingredients for this Tiramisu recipe, I delegated assembly to E and I FORGOT EXACTLY HOW LONG THE LADYFINGERS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SOAKED!

There's more, but it just hurts to much to think back :)

I made up for my sins last night by cooking well for K.

Here's my Linguine alla Vongole:
Saute sliced garlic, minced anchovies, and a few red pepper flakes in a healthy amount of olive oil on a medium-high heat. Let it all get golden and yummy, taking it off the heat to make sure it doesn't burn. Deglaze with some white wine and lemon juice and then pour in a can of high-quality clams. Stir and give the ingredients some time to get to know each other under a lid and over some low heat. Boil up the pasta and drop a splash of the pasta water into the clam sauce. Mix the drained pasta into the sauce and pour on a glug on high quality olive oil off the heat. Garnish with parsley.

Preserved Salad: (see above picture!)
So, this simple salad is just mesclun, tomatoes, hearts of palm, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, anchovies, and parsely doused with a vinaigrette made from rustic mustard, balsamic vinegar, orange blossom honey, lemon juice, and pistachio oil. Yum.

Boston, Day 2: Rachel Ray saves the day?

The Neighborhood Restaurant
After spending a few morning hours in the hotel hot-tub, K, E, and I went to meet some of E's grad school friends for brunch. The Neighborhood Restaurant is known for serving hearty breakfast fare at student-friendly prices. The entrees (between $5 and $12) are all served with orange juice, coffee, cream of wheat, and a virtually unfinishable main course. I ordered the "Portuguese Breakfast," tempting it me as it was with a bevy of unorthodox breakfast items. It came with two poached eggs, linguiça sausages, 3 croquettes (shrimp, cod, and some sort of cheese), and some sort of dark entrail meat (blood sausage?). Oh yeah, AND rice and beans.

While the eggs were perfectly poached (runny yolk getting absorbed by the yummy rice and beans) and the linguiça was spicy and flavorful, I wasn't wild about the croquettes and I really had a hard time with the unidentified entrails. But such is the risk that accompanies my ordering antics. The real star here is the cream of wheat appetizer that precedes the whole meal. It's creamy, cinnamony, and just a little bit citrusy, warm and comforting without being sedating.

With our tummies stuffed to capacity, it was time to hit Boston proper. E had us walk the freedom trail to provide a very scenic route to our eventual dining destination in the North End. En route, I had to sample some fresh crab from a street market a block away from the Holocaust memorial. $2 for a large condiment cup worth of steamed crab. I hit it with some lime and hot sauce and yum.

Giacomo's
Seeing the line form outside Giacomo's an hour before the restaurant opens at 5pm makes one want to curse Rachel Ray for featuring this North End Italian Restaurant on her $40 a day. But here's the kicker: the lines were as long before the place became a Food Network celebrity. Don't worry about the line, though. If you can get there before opening I can't imagine you'd ever have to wait more than an hour, and I've waited at least that long just waiting to be taken to my reserved table at New York hotspots like Mesa Grill. And while I'm really not one for schmoozing with strangers, our incredibly friendly fellow line-mates made the time whizz by.

After waiting from 4:15-5pm (and seeing the line stretch around the block) until we were ushered in for the first seating, it was easy to see why the place was so popular: massive plates of delicious pasta at super-reasonable prices served up by hysterical no-nonsense waitresses who know their food and the neighborhood. I ordered the house specialty: the Frutti di Mare ($18). It is a plate of mussels, shrimp, calamari, clams, and scallops served on top of a bed of linguini and topped with the Fra Diavolo sauce (basically a spicy lobster-based marinara). It was simple and delicious. The seafood was all superfresh and pefectly steamed and the sauce was flavorful and just spicy enough (though I regretted not trying out their Scampiorgiacomo's sauce which is a lobster-based marinara with bechamel). The linguini itself was nothing to write home about, but the K's Butternut Squash Ravioli and E's Lobster Ravioli definitely impressed.

The meal for 4, with a bottle of wine, came to $80. It was a perfect way to end our fabulous 36-hour trip to Bah-ston (though I should warn all prospective Giacomo patrons: the lite fm they blast hovers in that delicate balance between comical and fully intolerable).

But you can't end a trip without dessert!!! Armed with our waitress's recommendation, we strolled over to Cafe Graffiti for some sweets. As I've mentioned here before, I don't have a dessert stomach so I certainly wasn't ready for the cannolis and cakes they had on display. I was, however, fully prepared for a cappuccino with a shot of amaretto.

And that, as they say, was that. Thanks E, C, and K for a great trip!