macrobiotic magic @ grand apetit

even though I'm still more than 3 posts behind on some great early July meals and recipes, I needed to post a mention for the delightful vegan macrobiotic food I had the pleasure of eating last night.

grand apetite may be light on the decor (and the salt!) but it more than makes up for this with a hearty and healthy meal at a price tag you'll hardly notice, even when the dollar is getting its (green)backside kicked raw by the euro.

while the menu offers a number of options, it seems to make to most sense to pick either the tart or the assiette, both just over 10 euros with all-you-can-drink heavenly herbal tea. the assiette, pictured above, comes with two different grains (I went for couscous and the croquette), three or four little salads, some cooked veggies, some hijiki seaweed, and some tofu. after you order and pay, you go find a table...which you set yourself! in a city filled with fois gras and frites, it was a terrific treat to hunker down with some whole grains for a little while...

the restaurant is a couple of blocks away from the Bastille, located at 9 rue de la cerisaie.

(oh, and, apologies for all the weird lower-case in recent posts; my de facto iPhone blogging app eliminated autocaps and I'm apparently just too lazy to hold the shift key.)

Payard: seared scallops with blood orange

Last Saturday I took my kid sister and K out to Payard (74th and Madison). We wanted to go to the nearby Buzina Pop, but they were shuttered with a sign which (rather passive aggressively) announced they were moving downtown "where they belong."

Payard is a stunning patisserie with a luxurious two-floor restaurant attached. It is also tres cher (with attentive service befitting such luxury), so we only ordered 2 entrées and ¹app to share.

The duck (w/seared breast and confit) was nicely cooked but nothing thrilling (though I was glad my sister got a chance to taste one of my favorite meats). The Chatham Cod was certainly tasty, but just not the tastebud explosion of uni -infused reduction, bacon, caviar, and black trumpet mushrooms promised by the menu.

The scallops (pictured above) were, however, even better than I could have imagined from the menu description. Perfectly seared over a bed of frisee tossed with avocado, hearts of palm, nicoise olives, blood orange slices, and a delightfully tart blood orange reduction. Too bad it was just an appetizer portion!

I was feeling too po' for dessert so we picked up a bar of Hershey's new dark chocolate with pomegranate.

I think I'd happily go back to Payard on someone else's tab or for a special occasion, but the food wasn't quite dazzling enough for me to commit that kind of cash on a regular basis...

Busaba Eathai: Pad Thai

Lured by what blogs said was the best Thai food outside of Thailand, K and I decided to spend our last London meal (we didn't know it would be our last but K got a stomach bug the next morning) at Busaba Eathai (yes, the last word is a conflation of Eat and Thai) on Wardour St in Soho. The line literally stretched to the end of the block, but the host (without even glancing at it) assured me that we'd be seated within 15 minutes. While we waited for about 10 minutes, we were quizzed by more than a few passersby who were trying to understand what all the fuss was about. I didn't give a good answer then but I can now: busaba eathai is a restaurant which has earned its hype.

You are seated at a communal table but, unlike our experiences in Paris, there is no expectation to socialize with your fellow diners. You receive your menu while waiting on line so a server takes your order seconds after you sit down (this + the lack of a dessert menu is how they ensure speedy turnaround). The service is indeed efficient, but it is friendly and helpful, too.

K and I ordered the pad Thai and butternut squash curry (pictures above) and fried calamari (pictured in next post). The pad Thai was delicately flavored, the usual grease replaced by an actual sensitivity to ingredient combinations. I tastes the lime, the peanuts, the grilled prawn, the fried tofu, and the crabmeat distinctly, each with their own unique texture and each cooked to perfection. Once we devoured the dish, there was nary a drop of oily residue on the plate--a great sign! The curry which we ordered with a side of addictive coconut rice was likewise near perfect. The only way to describe the texture of the squash would be to, absurdly, say it was "falling off the bone." The heat of the dish was well-balanced.

Parlez vous neerlandais?

K and I haven't been very adventurous these last few couple of weeks in Paris. Which is not to say we haven't been eating very well—we have!—but we really haven't visited any place that I haven't already rounded up in previous entries on this fair city. One nice discovery, on Rue de Turenne 95, just a couple blocks from our apartment (after two nice visits in rental flats, we are finally back in the adorable apartment K's family owns), is Le Bistrot. It's a dive to be sure, but I'm not sure one can actually get more food for one's money than the 8 euro giganto-salads they sell there. Our waiter would have seemed downright hostile if he wasn't so darn amusing in his desire to stop serving us, but when dinner for three comes out to 30 euros (including beer and wine!), it's hard to complain. I ordered the Nicoise and though the waiter mocked me a bit when I asked for extra anchovies, he made sure the kitchen heaped them on and I was happily able to spear a little fishy with each forkful. K's salad featured crab, avocado, and grapefruit which is always a dandy combo.

K was a bit grudging about our trip to Amsterdam; I understand: who wants to leave Paris…ever. I tried to prepare a nice culinary itinerary to ease the transitional trauma and I think we did pretty well:

While I wanted the first of our four meals to be the Ostrich with Truffles at De Koe, I discovered with tremendous sorrow that the café, legendary with the locals, is closed for lunch. We wandered over to Wagamama, confident we would find a nice restorative meal after our 4-hour train trek. There's very little difference between the A'dam and London branches except there are some local specials and you pay in euros instead of pounds which certainly does make the whole experience go down a bit more smoothly. K sampled one of their large soup bowls, filled to the brim with prawns, tofu, vegetables, and the fish of the day, and I had a grilled Butterfish salad over rocket (with watermelon and chiles, now up there with prosciutto & melon as one of my fave flaves!). We both found it strange that "rocket" hasn't caught on in the States, that is until I just googled around and found that it is, in fact, "arugula."

Evening found us at Van Dobben, a broodje shop (broodje are basically sandwiches on buttered white bread) which is so famous here that the street it's on bears its name. This is another local joint and they don't have an English menu posted. I asked the young man behind the counter if he could prepare us a couple of the most popular choice. He served up broodje kroket, a delicious concoction that can best be described as deep-fried beef stew on a bun. In addition to the yellow mustard on the table, there was some unidentified condiment which K swears was molasses-derived. I don't care what it was made from: I could have doused it on my hand and devoured myself. Three minutes later we had finished our dishes and I asked to try a roast beef, so rare it was nearly tartar (YUM!), and smoked eel (tastes like divinely UN-greasy mild lox and textured like a white fish filet with a bit more structure). Getting greedy now, we had barely devoured these broodjes before I was up at the counter again, asking to try a salt beef & liver combo, as well as a tomato, egg, and mayonnaise open faced broodje [see inset pictures]. I think by that point I was too stuffed to enjoy them or anything else…until 7 minutes later, when K and I walked into a nearby Haagen Dazs to chase the meat away with other saturated animal fats.

The next day we took a lovely canal walk up Prinsengracht for our third trip to the Pancake Bakery. You can read my earlier review of the always reliable pancake house. This time I had the banana/bacon pancake and K had the "Greek" (lamb, feta, olives, etc). Both were fantastic, though I think mine won out in the end as it could satisfy both the sweet and the savory. Another random highlight: the waitress, who we'd already heard speak English, French, and Dutch (like nearly every other A'dammer), also whipped out a mighty fine Italian when explaining the kids' menu to an eager and sophisticated 5-year old boy.

For our last meal, we took in an early dinner of the Netherlands' national cuisine: Indonesian. Having tried out the top-shelf rijsstafel at the swanky Indrapura, we were eager to sample a version which might not mock the weakness of our greenbacks. I read some great reviews of Café Bojo and while it clearly was no match for the delicacy of its more bank-breaking brethren, we certainly ate a tremendous amount of food for 22 euros. The longtong rames (chewy rice cakes in center of inset image) and the fried coconut were nice treats, as were the refreshing pickled vegetables in the uncharacteristically hot weather.

At the train station only a few minutes after paying our bill, I debated grabbing a kroket to go from one of the FEBO automats, but K talked me into getting a much more reasonable Mango & Passion Fruit Shake (more like a thick juice with fruit chunks). Four hours later we were back in Paris and I was eating a salmon burger on Rue Bretagne (though I was kicking myself for passing on the café's specialty: horse steak).

We have a week left in Paris and then back to London for a day en route to NYC. I'm currently on a hunt for the city's best fois gras. Any advice?

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).

Boston, Day 1: Peanut-butter burgers?

I spent Friday and Saturday in Boston (and Cambridge) with E, K, and C. It was pretty much 36 hours worth of eating and drinking, with just a dash of sleep thrown in for good measure. Here's what we stuffed our stomachs with:

Darwin's
A cute little sandwich shop a few blocks from the mighty Charles. The place names its menu after the local streets (which I discovered shortly after lunch when we passed the intersection of the two sandwiches I was choosing between). I ended up going for the Gerry, a Reubenesque (come on, how good is that allusion!) sourdough treat with hot pastrami, melted swiss, cole slaw, and thousand island dressing. As someone who feels compelled to every last bit of food I order, I was glad to see the portion-size was reasonable. Enough to fill me up but not quite enough to make me rue the day I was born. I washed it all down with an organic all-natural Cream soda.

Burdick Chocolate
We stopped in here for some quick sweet treats. While I wasn't in love with the ultra-cute handmade chocolates themselves (I suppose I'm spoiled by NYC's Vosges with its exotic flavor combinations), the iced hot chocolate certainly earned a place on my top 5 chocolate beverages.

Boston Beer Works
shark, marinated in Beer Works® We came here to stuff ourselves with enough grub to keep our stomachs from pestering us during the show we were catching that night. We only ordered from the appetizer column but the portions were certainly entree-sized. I ordered the Maco Shark Skewers: Fresh Mako marinated in Raspbeery Ale, grilled with tomatoes, onions & served with jasmine rice & fruit salsa. The very fresh fruit salsa and grilled tomatoes were excellent, with the latter popping with flavor in the mouth, but I was torn on the shark itself. The pieces seemed to come from very different parts of the sharks, as some were juicy and tender (like swordfish at its best) and others were more cartilaginous and tough. For some reason, the marinade was a little vinegary for my taste, but when I let some of the rice absorb it, I got more of the berry and less of the vinegar. I also nibbled from E & K's obscenely large half-portion of nachos, with dips placed conventiently in side-dishes instead of slopped on top in a goey mess.

Bukowski Tavern
With a kitchen open very late and a spinnable beer wheel for the indecisive, Bukowski's made for the perfect post-show dinner. There was one item on the menu staring at me like a dare: the Peanut-Butter Burger. Just a simple burger with the usual trimmings, except the patty was covered in chunky peanut-butter. A-mazing! One of those so-wrong-it's-right dishes. And yes, I know, peanut-butter and beef are combined all the time in various Asian cuisines. But, as many beef satay skewers as I've downed in the past, I was still surprised and delighted by the improbable taste of medium-rare meat with the salty goodness of the peanut puree. The crunch of the peanuts also gave the dish a lot of textural pleasure. I washed it all down with an equally rich oatmeal stout. I'm eager to try this dish at home with some of our left over CSA ground beef, though I'd by lying if I said I wasn't tempted to try to squeeze some jam between those buns :)

That's it for day 1. Day 2, or "Rachel Ray saves the day!", will be posted in the next few days.

Birthday Bash

Spent the weekend eating and imbibing to commemorate my birth.

Day 1 w/fam:

• Dinner at Grand Central Oyster Bar.
  
• GCOB has what is arguably the best shrimp cocktail in New York. 5 lobster tail-sized shrimp cooked to perfection and a tangy cocktail sauce with just a bit of bite.
  
• I had an oyster craving and what better place to satisfy it. For some reason I tend to prefer Canadian oysters, so I ordered one each of the Conway Cup (Prince Edward Island), Cortez Island (Cortez Island), Denman Island (British Columbia), Great White (Nova Scotia), Malaspina (British Columbia), Malpeque (Prince Edward Island), Nootka Sound (British Columbia), Ship's Point (British Columbia), and Snow Creek (British Columbia). The sweet and perfectly slurpable Malpeque is always my favorite, but the others were tasty too. I do wish that GCOB offered consumers some guidance with oyster selections...would it kill them to offer 4-6 word descriptions of the 15+ varieties they offer or at least arrange the oysters on the plate in such a way that the buyer can tie a name to a taste for future reference (when I open an oyster bar, each platter will come with a printed card like when you order the wine flights at Metrocafe)?
  
• For my 8th raw item, I ordered a single sea urchin. Now, uni is definitively my favorite piece of nigiri sushi (when served at a high quality restaurant, otherwise they're too pungent to actually consume) and I've had raw sea urchin preparations at French restaurants, but I've never actually ordered urchin at a raw bar. I fished around for the tasty parts that looked like uni, but didn't know what to do with the rest of the organs floating around in the shell. Did I miss out on some rare delicacies here?
  
• My mom was pleased with her gorgeously seared scallops in puttanesca sauce and my sister had the best fried calamari of her life (I guess it helps that this one was probably made from fresh calamari instead of the frozen stuff they deep fry at most restaurants).
• Dessert at Chikalicious.
• This microscopic East Village dessert bar is a must-have New York experience. Chef Chika stands behind her counter with a sous chef or two assembling stunning presentations of some of the tastiest sweets I've ever had. $12.95 buys you a 3-course dessert prix fixe (menu changes daily, but a sample can be found here) and $7 more pairs your choice with a perfect dessert wine (my prix fixe was paired with a sparkly red dessert wine: Les Clos De Paulilles Banyuls 2002 I think). Though the wait is often upwards of 45 minutes to get seated on weekend nights, the maitre'd is so calming that I've rarely grown impatient.
  
• Course #1: Dessert Appetizer. Lime curd with Mojio sorbet. Delicate and tangy, just enough to get my taste buds primed for the main event.
• Course #2: Dessert Entree. Strawberry soup with honey parfait. I've had this before: it's delicious and refreshing but I had my heart set on the lavender marinated kiwi that had sold-out. I actually think the dessert pictured above, the warm chocolate tart with red wine sauce and pink peppercorn icecream might be my favorite as it mingles three seemingly incongruous tastes.
• Course #3: Dessert Dessert. Petit fours. Coconut covered marshmallows, a little cake, and shortbread cookies. The marshmallows are always the best on this plate, completely distinct creatures from the puffed sugar we roast at campfires.

Day 2 w/friends:

• Brunch at Alice's Teacup.
• With a party of 11, we were really gambling in our attempt to get seated as walk-ins when all 3 of their locations were booked solid from 8am-8pm. K and I arrived 90 minutes ahead of when the rest of the party was going to arrive and out our name on the list. The very accommodating staff found a way to seat us just a few minutes after my first 6 of guests arrived.
• I ordered the "nibble," a tiered tea service that comes with a scone, a sandwich, a pot of tea, and cookies for $22.
  
• I chose the fragrant and pleasant Mango Amazon tea, an Indian black tea with mango pieces.
  
• The pumpkin scone, served warm with jam and fresh clotted cream, was easily the best baked good I've ever head.
  
• The sandwich was simple but tasty, smoked salmon and dill butter on Russian black bread.
• I ended up giving away most of my cookies, but the little peanut-butter one was heavenly (I am a sucker for all things with peanut butter. Hence, for the evening's proceedings, my friend A picked up a peanut butter pie!)
• Dinner with delivered Brother Jimmy's BBQ.
• I know, I know, NYC doesn't have real BBQ, but this comes very close. I don't usually step foot in any of the chain's frat-tastic locations for fear of getting trampled, but I'm happy to order delivery. But careful: it's always slow, very slow, and if you are ordering more than a few dishes, they usually forget one or two items.
• I always order the same thing: Northern and Dry Rub ribs (the real ones, no babybacks here!), collard greens, and mac & cheese (sometimes I opt for the candied yams instead). The Dry Rub ribs are spicy and smoky and firm and just perfect drenched in Jimmy's house vinegar-based BBQ sauce. The Northern ribs don't need any extra sauces as the meat is so tender, it's practically liquid already (and that's a good thing!). Even my friend C, a Texan transplant, enjoyed them.
  
• The collard greens are probably the least healthy possible preparation of what could be a very nutritious ingredient, but damn they're good. Always a bit saltier than I'd like to be, but if I keep some beer on hand, I'm usually fine...
• There's nothing really special about the mac & cheese except that it's perfect for absorbing the fatty greasy salty saucy flavors from the ribs and greens. The candied yams are really quite good, though: you can actually distinguish 3 or 4 different types of sweetness, and it's a really nice mix of mashed and solid pieces.
• Although it sounds like pregnancy-fare, E convinced me to go in on an order of fried pickles (frickles) with her and wow I'm happy I did. I think they have now joined the pantheon of my other two favorite friend offerings: Sicilian aroncini and British deep fried Mars Bars.

My birthday extravaganza finally wrapped up last night, over leftovers of Brother Jimmy's, with K's birthday gift: a Personal Wine Curator for my computer. I'm very excited to start using that.

Vroom vroom

Tonight, K and I had a late working dinner at our neighborhood Italian joint, Vespa. The inlaid picture really doesn't do the decor justice at all as the entire restaurant is fabulously decorated, with vintage movie posters in a variety of European languages and well-chosen works of art from local artists.

We've been to Vespa three or four times before and have always enjoyed their fresh, seasonal, and authentic Italian menu and attentive knowledgable service. (Important sidenote: as a first-generation American of Italian descent, it has always been incredibly difficult for me to shake my Calabrian father's general disdain for all Italian restaurants outside of Italy. I grew up watching my dad repeatedly send food back to the kitchen, and so disappointed was he by one London Italian restaurant's take on his native cuisine, he went so far as to demand that the chef come to the table and prove his Italian lineage.) Though there is an exorbitant difference in their respective prices and qualities, I will say that Mario Batali's Babbo and Vespa are the only Italian restaurants in New York with which I have had any luck (Falai had some nice dishes but was really overpriced and the service was a little too aloof for my taste). Since K and I have usually popped into Vespa just before their kitchen closes on weeknights, this Friday prime-time visit was the first time we were able to get a sense of the place's regular clientele. Despite the restaurant's frat-tastic 2nd avenue location, the other diners were refreshingly classy, hip, and international (but not intimidatingly so).

Though K might be happy to return just because the place is a Euro oasis in the 2nd avenue dessert, it's the food that keeps me coming back. And I tried to take pictures of the food, I really did, but I just couldn't stomach (pun definitely intended!) the idea of defiling the restaurant's great vibe with my definitively unslick camera-work. Next time I'll just ask if the chef can send me home with a CD-Rom filled with hi-res shots of his food :)

So, here's what we ordered (everything to share):

Grilled Octopus Salad with Chick Peas and Yellow Tomatoes
Oh, don't let anyone tell you that octopus and calamari have anything in common. When prepared well, calamari is light and refreshing, reminding one of a sweet sea breeze. Octopus, on the other hand, takes one down into the sea's depths with its rich meatiness. Vespa's chef manages to pull so many wonderful homie flavors from the magnificent mollusks, charring the outside and leaving the inside tender. The acidity of the tomatoes and the crunchiness of the chick peas worked wonders with the dish, as well.

Bressaola with aged meat, parmesan, palm hearts, and truffle oil
Has there ever been a menu entree with the word truffles that I haven't ordered? Probably not. (Full disclosure: I had my first truffles by accident while living in Orvieto, Italy one summer. I had never even heard of these fabulous fungi until I observed an Umbrian restaurant devote significant pomp and circumstance to the ritualized truffle-shaving on one of their diner's pasta courses. A la Meg Ryan, I simply ordered what he was having. Tasty and (pre-Euro) only about $10 for the pasta and wine.) This dish was nice, though I liked it much more than K did. For my own part, I would have liked a few more palm hearts and a little bit less parmesan as the dish was salty enough with the aged meat. Rather than eat it is as an appy, I might have preferred to have a couple bites of this as part of a larger antipasti platter.

Ravioacci with parmesan and celeriac, with leek cream sauce and pancetta
Great homemade pasta (small ravioli) in a delicate cream sauce with nice salty crunchy bites of pancetta. I couldn't distinctly taste the celeriac, but everything I could taste was yummy so I can't complain.

Pappardelle with Scallops, Mushrooms, and Asparagus
Wow! Outside of Italy (and Babbo), I don't think I've had a better pasta dish (sorry Dad!). The scallops were perfectly seared, the mushrooms (they weren't buttons, or baby bellos, but I couldn't put my finger on the species) were meaty, and the asparagus held its own with a great crunchy texture (though it was cut into narrow enough strips that the texture blended well with the rest of the dish). And the homemade pappardelle itself...I enjoyed that almost as much as the scallops (and I enjoy few things as much as well-cooked scallops). It was at once perfectly al-dente and melt-in-your-mouth creamy.

At the end of the day, I feel great about dining at Vespa if only because I've never left there saying, "Oh, I could have made that myself and it would have been much cheaper!" While it's true that 70% of the quality of an Italian meal is determined at the market itself (ingredients make the meal!), Vespa's certainly doing something very special with the last 30%. Their menu changes seasonally so we'll definitely be back to make our way through the rest of the early spring offerings before summer rolls around.

Anyone for the Anyway Cafe?

E, K, and I mixed business and pleasure at the East Village's Anyway Cafe tonight for some "French and Russian cuisine." I'm a sucker for any place that has horseradish-infused vodka and caviar on the menu!

We had a nice cozy corner table and shared a pitcher of said horseradish vodka and a really fabulous appetizer platter (the zakuski, a steal at $13!) which featured tasting portions of a carrot salad, beet salad, liver, eggs with caviar, house-marinated gravlax, some sort of trout pate, and a mesclun salad. Though neither K nor E cared for the liver, I was happy to have my April liver-fix. The horseradish vodka complemented the platter nicely.

For dinner, I ordered "Pelmeni Filled with Salmon & Caviar in a Light Cream Sauce," E had "Smoked Chicken & Mushroom Julienne with Mashed Potatoes," and K took the "Crepes with Wild Mushrooms & Ricotta Cheese." Though everyone was enthusiastic about their orders, as it often the case (either because I order brilliantly or because I decide to fully embrace my order with enthusiasm regardless of how successful it is), I liked my dish the best. Thin dumplings filled with delicate (and not overcooked!) salmon, resting in a light and buttery citrusy, creme fraiche sauce (with some dill, I believe), and topped with a generous serving of salmon caviar. While I much prefer raw salmon to cooked salmon (and the opposite with tuna, though by cooked I mean lightly seared) and while I'm never one to order ikura at a sushi bar, there's something about pairing poached salmon with those little squishy orange explosions of salty fishiness that makes me like both quite a bit.

While all in all, the meal came to about $30/head, one has to remember the total included about 8 shots of good vodka (so roughly 2.67 shots each, which we sipped like the dignified diners we are) and a fairly incredible variety of flavors courtesy of the tasting plate. The service was great and our waiter kept the baskets of Russian black bread (with dill butter!) coming to the table. (This does, however, beg the question: if I have a lukewarm or unpleasant dining experience, am I going to post it on the blog? I don't think so. I mean, the blog is a place for me to record positive memories, be they recipes or restaurants, so I can return to them when I get the urge; it wouldn't really help me to bash a restaurant, and anyone who's reading the blog can, I'm sure, find bashes of any truly bash-worthy restaurant on yelp.com and places like that.)

While I'm not quite ready to put Anyway Cafe on the sidebar yet, I will definitely come back here the next time we're trying to be adventurous and stray from our other East Village standards.