Super Heeb Sandwich (Russ & Daughters)

Had this tasty treat at the Lower East Side legendary lox-spot, Russ & Daughters.  They call it the Super Heeb.  The regular (unsuper) Heeb is an oh-so-fluffy and just fishy-enough whitefish salad on a bagel schmeared with (double-whipped) horseradish creamcheese.  The mild-mannered Heeb earns its cape and long johns (thereby becoming...SUPER!) with a few bounteous dollops of wasabi infused flying fish roe.  Though lots of reviews have praised the Super Heeb's sinus-clearing potency, I think I've just drowned too much gefilte fish in horseradish sauce (and sushi in wasabi) to be impressed on that front.  That said, it is really quite good and a nice way to introduce the smoked-fish averse to their first white-fish salad.

Oh, and did I mention that their lox are sliced so thin that if you dressed yourself in them you'd be violating public decency laws in most states?

Une Pita Grec on @ Rue de la Huchette

So I've just set up SHOZU on my new iPhone which I'm hoping will increase the frequency of my blogging as I can now take a picture at a restaurant (or in my own kitchen) and have it posted immediately to this blog which a title and description. While I certainly won't have the luxury to fully indulge my writerly aspirations using the phone's on-screen keyboard, I can in the very least get a pretty photo posted with a brief description and add more later if I see fit.

And I see fit: the above pita was darn tasty. Crunch schwarma-style meat (probably a blend of lamb and turkey), a tzatziki sauce that wasn't too sweet, crisp lettuce, and well-cooked, nicely salted french fries to sop up all the juices. Washed it all down with une Fanta Citron and I was a happy. Rotund and happy. Later walked down to Ille St. Louis to see if I wanted a scoop of Berthillon icecream. I did. Quite an internal battle between the forces of good ("Try something new, like the Spiced Bread flavor."), the forces of evil ("You know you love the Caramel Butter Salt flavor...just get it!"), and the forces of very evil ("Order the Whiskey Chocolate flavor and you'll get your nightcap in at the same time!"). Good won.

Today K & I return to the Lizard Lounge's ex-pat brunch and have very exciting dinner plans. More later.

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?

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.

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.