huevos con vino

If I ever want to get my Chicago trip reviews written, I think I need to publish them in reverse order. So, I’ll start at the end with my dinner at Blackbird. By this time, the conference I was attending had started to wind down and it was my last night in the windy city.

Here’s a description of what I ate for dinner, all of which was absolutely amazing:

• Appetizer - Crispy confit of swan creek farm suckling pig with cavollo nero, shaved chiogga beets, horseradish and banylus vinegar
• Entree - Seared loin of venison with black mission figs, sugar snaps, bacon panisse and lime salt
• Dessert - Mission fig beignet with black raspberries, butterscotch and bacon ice cream

I had a couple of terrific wine pairings that bear mentioning, starting with the 1995 Domaine A. Mazurd & Fils “Cuvee Mazurka” Cote du Rhone (with my appetizer):

• Aroma: Smooth, tart black and red cherry, brown in color.
• Flavor: Blackberry, potent tannins, very nice and approaching its prime; smooth but with a strong acidic backbone and tannic activity; nice!
• General impression: A great Cote du Rhone that is nearly ready to drink.

With my main course, I continued with the 2005 Ridge “Three Valleys” Sonoma Coast Zinfandel:

• Aroma: Menthol, eucalyptus, and mint; very strong nose, very herbal and minty.
• Flavor: Vanilla and oak, rich black fruit, quite nice despite the young age.
• General impression: Wow! I liked this Zinfandel, especially with roast venison.

And, with dessert, I had a small snifter of the 1959 Cerbois Bas Armangac. This stuff was quite amazing too: lots of green and red pear on the nose, rich and soulful mouthfeel, much like a nice Scotch or a big Grappa. Very nice.

The place itself is very plain; apparently the same people who own Spring and Green Zebra also own Blackbird.  At least, I think that’s the case.  The decor and general ambiance do seem similar to Spring in terms of the minimalist, Asian influences on display.  Blackbird is a nice, simple, comfortable restaurant to which I intend to return someday.

I just got back from a business trip to Chicago, and I have some good restaurant tales to report.  But that will need to wait until after I get some sleep.  I do love Chicago from a cuisine perspective, and this trip outdid even the trip I took last year.  This time, though, it was more business oriented, as I was in town for a conference.
Here’s a quick list to whet your appetite for detailed reviews:

• Food:

• Good - Spring Restaurant

• Better - Blackbird

• Best - Avenues

• Good - Blackbird
• Better - Avenues
• Best - Spring

• Good - Spring
• Better - Blackbird
• Best (by far!) - Avenues

I’m going to write up some details about each of these places; I wound up getting the tasting menu at Spring and Avenues because of the people I dined with, so I have a lot to say.  More to come soon!

Ten months ago, the best man at my wedding gave me a $50 gift certificate to Salumi.  It took me ten months, for some reason, to make the trip to downtown Seattle for a taste of Salumi salami.

Actually, I know why it took me so long to make it down there.  Salumi has a reputation for limited open hours that rivals some of the shops I’ve been to in Europe.  You know the type of shop I mean: They are open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 11:45 AM until 2:15 PM unless they sell out of their stock or somebody says the magic word of the day, etc., etc.  Salumi is open Tuesday-Friday, 11AM to 4 PM.  If you are unemployed, it’s perfect!  However, once you make it to Salumi and you see how hard the people are working there, you begin to understand why they are only open 20 hours per week.  And once you realize they must spend many more hours preparing their insanely good meats, you’re ready to forgive them.

I went to Salumi on a Friday.  I parked a few blocks away in the International District, which is the smart thing to do and I suppose you’d probably need to be a Seattle native to think of parking over there.  Before noon on a Friday, that part of town is bustling with winos urinating on inanimate objects.  I think it’s the train station that drives these men to drink.  It’s hard to say.  Anyway, I walked over to Salumi at about 10:55 AM and there was a 10-person line outside the closed door.  I’ve heard stories about this place so I decided to show up early, and I’m glad I did.

Once inside, Salumi is quite an interesting place.  There is a tiny table at the front of the restaurant next to a large, windowed meat curing room where we can see a bunch of impressive delicacies resting on hooks.  The deli counter is next, which is where all the action happens.  Behind the attentive deli employees are the chalkboards listing the meats, cheeses, and sandwiches made to order, plus rows of huge flat rolls and baguettes for said sandwiches.  The deli counter and the south wall of the building are about 4 feet apart, and that’s where you stand: in a cramped space where 2 people must turn sideways to squeeze past one another.  It reminds me of Europe once again in that the people who founded Salumi have made the most of their small shop space.

Only when you try to order food does the entire experience swerve from Europe to New York City.  Your best bet is to simply ask for one of the premade salame sitting in the basket on the counter.  No written explanations are offered for the variety of salame available, so if you’re wondering what “finocchiona” might be, you better read up before you show up.  Meats are offered seasonally in some cases, so if you arrive in July expecting to buy some cotecchino you will be disappointed. 

I have some experience with Salumi salame: I have eaten their molé salami before.  This salami contains ancho and chipotle chiles, cinnamon, and chocolate, all traditional ingredients in molé sauce.  If you manage to try this molé salami and you live somewhere else in the world, you’ll be on a plane to Seattle in no time, standing in line at Salumi and waiting your turn to order.  It’s that good.  The flavor is somewhere between incredible salami and incredible molé sauce.  Wow.

So, I bought a pre-formed molé salami, plus a Salumi house special salami, which is made with garlic and ginger.  Nice!  I also got a prosciutto, fig paste, and goat cheese sandwich that probably weighed as much as one of Rocky Balboa’s biceps.  Insane.  I ate 95% of it and then spent several hours not eating.  They spread such a thick layer of goat cheese onto the bread, I now require coronary bypass surgery.  It was so worth it, though.

If you find yourself in downtown Seattle (near the train station), on a weekday (but not Monday), at about 10:50 AM (any later and you’ll wait a really long time), and you like pork products (or the odd lamb product), you should stop by Salumi.  I guarantee you’ll enjoy the experience, particularly if you taste the molé salami.  Avoid the lardo, though, unless you know what you’re doing with it.

I took my wife to Canlis in Seattle for her birthday quite recently.  At dinner, I heard the sexiest thing anyone has ever told me:

“Are you in the industry?”

The sommelier asked me this question when I asked him whether they had the new Riedel Oregon Pinot Noir stemware yet.  I spotted a few Oregon Pinot glasses on another table, so I was a bit taken aback when he asked me, with complete sincerity, whether I was a wine professional.  I was tempted to say yes.  But I didn’t, and so we started talking about the merits of the glasses, why they’re indicative of how Oregon has arrived internationally, and so forth.  Yes, this was my wife’s birthday dinner, but hey: Anything for this blog, right?

Actually, we had a great time.  Sort of.  It was a really bizarre place to eat dinner, to be honest, but not because of the staff or the food.  More on that in a minute.

I got excited when, earlier that day, I read the Canlis wine list online and saw something interesting: a half-bottle of 2000 Domaine Drouhin Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.  Now, this is my wife’s favorite wine, from quite possibly her favorite vintage (1998 and 1999 are hard to ignore, though).  We had a bottle of 2000 Laurène once before with my wife’s family, which went over quite well with them (my wife’s mother described it as the third red wine she had ever enjoyed in her life).  I usually prefer to drink the Laurène Pinot Noir rather than the Willamette Valley (or Classique, as it is also called), but a 2000 is a 2000.  It’s hard to object when you know it’s going to be worthwhile, and it’s also a rare vintage at this point.  I had to look for a while to find a reasonably priced 2000 Laurène a couple of years ago; now, it’s all but gone from the gray market.

At $60 for a half-bottle, I was more than willing to place my order with the terrific sommelier.  Here are my notes on this wine:

• Aroma: Rich and dense yet straightforward and accessible; a tapestry of red and black cherry, black berries, dried hay, vanilla, and a hint of barnyard but in a good way.  Very, very enticing.
• Flavor: A beautifully restrained array of black cherry, oak and vanilla, smooth acidity and tannins, and a bit of smokiness and underbrush creep across your tongue.  Delicious.
• General impression: This wine is drinking quite well after several years in a half-bottle.  Truly a great wine from a wonderful vintage; I was excited to try this one and I’m glad I did!  Clearly I need to keep aging my younger Domaine Drouhin bottles.

The wine showed brilliantly; the sommelier was excited by my selection as he was an Oregon fan, so to speak.  Clearly, the wine was a winner.

Speaking of winners, Canlis was full of them.  The woman on the mobile phone who seemed genuinely shocked when the staff came and asked her to retire to the bar to complete her call.  The man wrestling with his friend over the check.  The entire family of late-middle-aged folks dutifully ignoring their father, sitting his wheelchair and trying to enjoy his ice cream.  And all the while, the Canlis waitstaff did a superlative job of remaining impenetrably professional as they flitted from one rich jackass to another.  Very amusing to watch.  Now I know why my father used to grumble about the “old codgers in that place” whenever, as a child with my parents, we’d drive by the restaurant.

Here’s a photo that will give you some idea of what I experienced last night:

You can’t tell the vintage from the photo, but that’s a bottle of 1997 Fay from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars.  The 2004 Sea Smoke Ten went down easy, and we kept the 2000 Silver Oak Napa Valley for another night.  Here’s what I ate with my wine:

Chateaubriand, medium rare, served tableside.  As the waiter put it, “It’s the best thing in the restaurant.”  I heartily agree.  But of course, if you’re going to eat such nice food and drink such nice wine, you need something equally impressive for dessert:

Apple pie, also served tableside.  Very nice!  A bit of closing advice, though: Reconsider capping off your evening with a glass of Macallan cask-strength single malt scotch.  Whoa.

Anyway, it was an exceptional evening.  It also turned out to be a smart time to visit The Met: We were nearly the last people in the restaurant even before 10 PM rolled around.  Nice.  Actually, given the number of people at the restaurant last night it’s a bit odd how many mistakes the kitchen and waitstaff made.  Nothing major…in reality, I felt the minor mistakes made added something amusing to the entire evening.  I mean, the worst thing that happened was when the kitchen covered my wife’s piece of salmon with black pepper.  No big deal.  We all had a great time, and I think I’m unable to eat food again until a few days from now, much like a python that just ate its own body weight in gophers.

One last note: The average market prices for the two wines we drank are $135.60 for the Fay and $240 for the Sea Smoke Ten.  Wow!  I’m glad we got them before they cost so much money, particularly the Sea Smoke.  My next blog entries will go into the tasting details for each of these terrific wines.