huevos con vino

As our trip to the East Coast wound down, we wanted to spend a fun evening with one of my wife’s good friends.  He lives in New York and works in the restaurant industry, so he shall remain nameless.  But his suggestion for dinner deserves special mention because the place was really damn good.

Pó is a terrific Italian restaurant located in Greenwich Village, only a couple of blocks from at least one subway stop.  The three of us showed up and sat at the bar since all of the tables were booked.  This arrangement turned out nicely since we spoke with the man of the house, so to speak, at random intervals throughout the meal.  He held court from behind a small bar that sat, at most, four people (as we found out) and that was the hub of activity for the restaurant.  All drink orders went through him, but we never felt cramped, rushed, or hovered over.  It was a fun experience more reminiscent of Europe than the US.

The menu at Pó includes some spicy flair, with chilies or chile pepper flakes appearing in many dishes.  Portions are gracious and deceptively large, plus the food itself is a little rich.  Somehow, the food tastes light and rich at the same time, which is a dangerous combination by the time you have eaten a few courses.  Pó has a great, convival atmosphere that, once again, feels more like friends dining together in Europe rather than an assembly line of courses.  Finally, the prices are decent, especially by my apparently inflated Seattle standards.  I noticed that food in NYC, in general, cost about the same as comparable food in Seattle, leading me to wonder why the hell I don’t live in Greenwich Village.

Anyway, at Pó the wine list is brief but thoughtful; I had two different Italian reds that were both very good:

• 2002 Cantele Salice Salentino Riserva - 80% Negro Amaro, 20% Malvasia Nera; bold and spicy, very flavorful, lots of clove and black fruit.  Good stuff with pickled vegetables and goat cheese!
• 2004 Baroncini Chianti Colli Sensei “Panezio” - 100% Sangiovese; very smooth and tasty with mostly red fruit and a bit of spice.  Very good with food, particularly slightly spicy sauce with garlic.

As for the food, I thought it was fantastic:

• Some delicious white bean bruschetta arrived first (on the house, I believe)
• Goat cheese and black olive tartufo with pickled julienned vegetables
• Black fettuccine with fresh mussels, sun-dried tomatoes, scallions, and green chiles (noodles made with squid ink)
• Sauteed green beans with toasted garlic, almonds, and bread crumbs
• Ricotta cheesecake with Vermont maple syrup sauce

The cheesecake was a little rich and creamy for my taste, more like New York cheesecake than slightly fluffier ricotta cheesecakes I have had elsewhere.  The maple syrup sauce was a good addition, though.

I would definitely go back to Pó.  If I lived in New York, I would probably return a few times per week, to be honest.  It is probably for the best that I live so far away.  I would need to exercise a lot more to burn off all of that black fettuccine every night!

The Southern leg of our trip at an end, my wife and I braved the wilds of Southwest Airlines and got back into New York a couple of days ago.  Our anniversary is essentially this week, so we decided to spend it in one of my favorite cities on the planet: New York City.  With about 8 million people, 200 million rats, 600 billion cockroaches, and at least 300 bazillion cigarette butts on the ground, it’s hard to feel any sense of solitude in NYC.  But that’s partly why I love it here.  You’re right on top of everyone else and everything nearly all of the time.  And you’re probably eating a bagel or a slice of pizza while you’re at it…at least, I am.

I had almost forgotten how different NYC is from Seattle, at least culturally and psychologically.  For example, what is it with people who don’t know how to use the word “actually?”  I had this problem a long time ago; I think I said “actually” in nearly every sentence for a while until I realized I was doing it and I also realized how pompous it made me sound.  I wonder if the woman at the next table tonight at Petrossian understood that you should really only use “actually” to contradict someone else’s request or suggestion.  She kept saying “actually” as she ordered, as if she were contradicting herself…very strange.

Yes, we dined at Petrossian, home of expensive caviar, delicious seafood, and Russian clientele who enjoy bringing escorts with them to dinner.  And why not?  If you want to spend $600 on caviar for a callgirl, you’re welcome to do that in NYC.  Anything goes in the city that never sleeps, or never got any sleep until they made honking a $350 offense.  Seriously.

Anyway, Petrossian is a freaking awesome restaurant in NYC.  We got in from Islip via Southwest and a crazy car ride, checked into our hotel, got cleaned up and dressed up, and then enacted one of my favorite big city rituals: We got a taxi.  I really enjoy hailing and taking taxis to points within a city.  I only enjoy this process in proper cities, such as NYC or London, because in smaller towns it always feels a little too personal, amost as if the driver has had about three fares in his life before you showed up.  That’s not quite as professional and enjoyable.  I suppose much the same argument can be made for callgirls, but I’m beginning to stray from the purpose of this blog entry.

So, Petrossian is an interesting place.  They have amazing fine china, fine silverware, a terrific bar with Erte engravings in the mirrors, and a wonderful waitstaff who know what you need before you do.  Now that’s classy.  The waitstaff wear suits and ties, or tuxedos, and they are exceedingly gracious and open to your needs as a diner.  They also make suggestions, should you need one or two as I did.  I asked which meal the waiter would recommend, the sea bass or the tuna.  I got the sea bass at his suggestion.

Our meals were stunning.  Here’s what we had to eat; I had two Kir Royale long drinks with my food:

• We split the Selection of Salmons to start; we live in Seattle, so we had unnaturally high expectations with regard to this salmon.  The Selection of Salmons exceeded my expectations.  We received 4 cuts of salmon, all prepared in different ways, with salmon roe and tiny triangles of toast.  Exquisite.
• I had the Savoy cabbage-wrapped Chilean sea bass, with leek fondue, roasted fingerling potatoes, and a truffle/lobster sauce.  Wow.  Now that’s some good sea bass!  It was almost like delicate lobster meat because of the manner of preparation.
• My wife had the seared halibut, which blew her mind.  As she put it, she wanted to lick the plate clean, in part because of the wild chanterelle mushrooms that garnished the plate under the halibut.  I tasted a bit and loved it.
• For dessert, I tried one of the house specialties: chocolate terrine with armangac.  Not bad; I thought the flavors were a bit confused overall, but how can you argue with such good, thick chocolate?
• My wife had the assorted homemade cookies; the lemon shortbread cookies won her over for sure, although the rest of the cookies were also delicious.

Overall, Petrossian gave us a terrific anniversary experience.  I also enjoyed myself because, as I looked at the other couples dining that night, I was particularly proud of my own relationship decision.  Not that having a Russian callgirl is a bad long-term choice.  It’s just a little too expensive on my salary….

Doumar’s is awesome.  The menu is awesome.  The prices are awesome.  The food is awesome.  Even the service is fairly awesome.  I had a minced pork sandwich, double meat, hold the coleslaw.  Sandwiches come wrapped in plastic, mostly to keep all of the meat and sauce inside the sandwich. 

Doumar’s is famous for inventing the ice cream cone, a dubious claim that several others also make.  Nevertheless, they do have a really old ice cream cone machine that looks more like a medieval munchkin torture device, of which I assume there were many during the Middle Ages (munchkins and torture devices, I mean). 

The tradition at Doumar’s is to order from and eat in your car.  It’s amusing to see a fat woman pull up in a new Jaguar, flash her high beams, and order a handful of pork laced with mayonnaise.  Makes me patriotic just thinking about it.  We decided to eat inside the restaurant since there were five of us, and five people eating messy food in one car seemed like a bad idea.  But we passed many, many cars parked in front of the joint stuffed with people trying to eat as much BBQ as possible.

The menu is simple, and the prices are low.  The most expensive single item of food is a banana split, and I saw a military man at the next table get one.  It looked quite good.  Because of the ice cream cone connection, Doumar’s also has rightfully famous ice cream: I tried some with fudge and it was outstanding.  The BBQ sandwich was decent, very simple, with hot sauce that was fairly hot but not offensively so.  I think my sandwich cost $3.80 or thereabouts.  The quart of limeade that I ordered, and that arrived in a huge styrofoam cup, cost about $1.85.  The limeade is mostly soda water, sugar, crushed ice, and lime syrup, with some fresh lime squeezed in and a chunk of lime dropped on top of the ice.  It’s pretty good; it sort of sneaks up on you.  It reminded me of the fresh lime sodas they served me in India last November.

The service at Doumar’s is good in an efficient sort of way.  The portions aren’t all that large, so the beefy waitresses are able to tote several things at once.  They take orders quickly and ruthlessly, but with some patience that must be a Southern thing.  Waitresses in New York do not act this patient.  It also takes less than 3 minutes to receive whatever you ordered (usually), so the waitresses bust their respective butts at Doumar’s.  Many of them must run outside, back and forth between cars, to deliver food.  That has to be thirsty work in the summertime.

I ended up regretting the fact that I ordered just enough food.  I should have ordered about 4 other things to see what they’d taste like and look like.  I didn’t even get dessert, which was a huge mistake once I tasted someone else’s hot fudge sundae.  So I suppose I need to return to Doumar’s one day.  Perhaps I’ll get the souvenir jar of ice cream cones.  Only $8.  I think I’ll have it delivered to my car.

It’s time to bring my trip report for Chicago to a close. And I can’t think of a better way to do it than to talk about my dinner at Avenues.

In the few spare minutes I had while I was in Chicago for a conference recently, I was talked into going to one of the premiere restaurants in Chicago. Avenues is located in the Peninsula Hotel, which is like the Ritz or the Pierre but it’s in Chicago. I wound up being quite happy that I bought my first suit the other day as Avenues was a strictly jacket and tie type of place. In the end, my suit cost less than the meal, in part because I paid for a colleague as well as myself. Long story.

Anyway, Avenues is absurdly good. The current master chef (or chef de cuisine if you prefer) is Graham Elliot Bowles, and the man is indeed a culinary master. From what I understand about his work, he takes a deconstructionist approach to food. For example, as you’ll see below, you may still be hungry if you ask him for a BLT and a Caesar salad.
Avenues had three different tasting menus on the night I was there, and I had what might be considered the middle tier:

• An amuse bouche of fennel seed custard with cracked fennel on top - Absolutely delicious and somehow creamy and delightful without any thick cream in it.
• Sevruga caviar atop salmon with cucumber - Wow! I didn’t realize that I liked caviar this much. The flavor combination was absolutely ideal.
• Caesar salad, with a sliver of Romaine lettuce and melting Parmesan Reggiano inside a square brioche - Again, wow! How the heck did the chef make an entire Caesar salad in one bite? Amazing.
• White gazpacho with Meyer lemon and basil - The only thing that was less than flawless was this course…it was a little too sharply acidic, although I think a good wine pairing would have made this soup perfect.
• A “BLT” with sole steamed in a lettuce leaf plus crisp bacon and juicy tomato - Much like the Caesar “salad,” this BLT was astoundingly good.  The sole wrapped in steamed lettuce seemed quite French; you certainly don’t find steamed lettuce in many American restaurants.  Very, very tasty with the bacon and tomato.
• Seared tuna with olive and artichoke - Delicious fish, prepared as lightly as possible, well paired with the olive and artichoke flavors.
• Bison steak with a sweet corn and BBQ sauce finish plus a watermelon square - Wild, delectable flavors here, mainly a sarsaparilla or root beer essence to the sauce when combined with the watermelon.  Crazy, but it all worked perfectly.
• Chocolate, three ways, with a vanilla shake - Very cute and tasty.  The shake was the size of my thumb, in a properly-shaped malted milk glass, with tiny straw for effect.

Of course, you must never eat a meal this good without appropriate wine:

• 2000 Pommard - too acidic after 45-60 minutes, sent back.
• 2002 Volnay - amazing, ripe raspberry at first, eventually evolved into a settled blend of vanilla, hay, strawberry, and black cherry; very complex and absolutely delicious.
• 2002 Far Niente “Dolce” - phenomenally rich, sweet, swirling array of honey, almond, and golden raspberry; seductive and lovely, but never cloying. Amazing.

The wine deserves some explanation. First, I don’t recall exactly which 2000 Pommard we tried, but it doesn’t really matter because it turned after 45 minutes or so. It started out nice, but tightly wound, and then it unwound all over itself. The exceptional sommelier, Michael, allowed us to choose a different wine, and we went with his perfect suggestion. The 2002 Volnay was outstanding! Again, though, I don’t recall which Volnay we drank. It was simply called “Volnay.” I swear.

Second, the sommelier and I had some things in common. For example, when I asked for his suggestion from the wine list, he immediately flipped to the California Pinot Noir section and pointed to two wines: the 2004 Radio-Coteau Savoy and the 2005 Radio-Coteau Alberigi. I was stunned! I have both of these wines and I was excited to see they had Radio-Coteau wines at all. The prices were decent, too: around $150/bottle. Their 2004 Williams Selyem Westside Road Neighbors was $350/bottle as a point of comparison.  Ouch.

The sommelier also knew Shayn Bjornholm, the distinguished master sommelier who was formerly at Canlis.  I mentioned that I had been to Canlis only a week or two earlier and that I had tried a half-bottle of 2000 Domaine Drouhin Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.  So that put me in good stead with Michael very quickly, despite a few naive questions from me.  I was very excited to hear about his taste for Radio-Coteau; not too many restaurants are so familiar with Eric Sussman’s work.  Then again, Radio-Coteau has quite a contingent of Chicagoland restaurants on their list.

In the end, this dinner may be the best I have ever enjoyed from a food perspective.  I mean, yes, I have had some fabulous dinners with friends where the food didn’t come close to Avenues, but the company made the dinner great.  At Avenues, the food makes the dinner great.  I’d go back anytime!

On my second of three nights in Chicago recently, I went to Spring. This restaurant receives great reviews, has wonderful decor, and is generally regarded as a smart place to visit in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago.

That said, something was lacking at Spring. Granted, I was there on a Sunday evening, so the place was about as festive as a mortuary. That’s not very festive. Also, the elite of the service staff were at odds with the rest of the service staff, which made things a tad uncomfortable. I don’t even know what I ate for my third or fourth courses from the tasting menu that I ordered. But I did hear a waiter taking other people to task over serving me too quickly. Strange.

Yes, I ordered the tasting menu, and because of some food allergy issues I asked for a more seafood-centric menu. The waiter and chef were more than happy to oblige, which was nice. Here’s an abbreviated list of the delicious food:

• Amuse bouche - Buckwheat soba noodles in an aged soy glaze
• First course - Raw maguro (tuna)
• Second course - Seared hamachi
• Third course - Maine diver scallops
• Fourth course - Raspberry/blackberry melange of sorbet with a red/black raspberry drink thing

I also had the suggested wine pairings with the meal; I never saw a bottle nor a description of anything I drank, so I have no idea who made these wines, how old they were, etc. Now that’s annoying:

• Sparkling rosé - a nice start!
• Sake - tasty, but a little strange after the rosé
• Riesling - delicious, wine of the night for me
• Viognier - absolutely one of the worst pairings I have ever had, and not a great Viognier either

After the meal, I asked the waiter for a copy of the menu listing what I had, or at least the wines that I had. He said that was not possible because the computer was down, or some such strangeness. Huh? Just write me a list? Nobody else was eating at this point! Oh well. The decor was nice.
In the end, I wanted to like Spring, but I doubt I’d go back, even on a Friday or Saturday. They need to sort out a few quirks before they can justifiably consider themselves in the same league as Blackbird, one of their sister restaurants. Apparently in Chicago, many places prepare great food, but it’s really the service that can make or break the dining experience.