review: wind, rain, and almost hail... (craigie street bistrot)

craigie street bistrot / 5 craigie circle / cambridge ma / 617-497-5511 / tu-thur 6-10pm, fri-sat 5:30-10:30pm, sun 5:30-10pm / reservations recommended / entrees expensive (dinner will run you $35-70)

goodness! not that i really care, but i can assure you that after having been out in the rain on the way to and from dinner, my hair has lost everything from the post-haircut blowout except for that intoxicating stuff they spray on it at the salon i go to.

today was probably the last stop on jessica's and my restaurant tour (the money has run out, sadly - must pay my rent), and it was craigie street bistrot. craigie street bistrot had been my favorite restaurant in cambridge, and i'm happy to report that it remains my favorite restaurant.

what i had liked the first time i went to craigie street bistrot (it was sometime last fall or the one before that, with a bunch of french house people) was the simplicity of the food and the flawless preparation (a point to which our waitress at no 9 park agreed, having previously worked there). when i was last there, i had the pork rillettes (a kind of pate-confit type thing) and the roast chicken, and then we split a bunch of desserts. i remember the chicken as being the best chicken that i'd ever had; the desserts were also memorable for this reason - good ingredients.

i wasn't disappointed this time, either. jessica was a bit put off by the way our waiter and the menu were in our faces about fresh local produce; i suppose i'm just used to it now. i'm afraid i've been spoiled on good food since i last went to craigie street bistrot, so that i am getting accustomed to really good chicken. i started with the "crispy pork confit," a sort of country pate that's reminiscent of the appetizer i had at aujourd'hui. it was crispy by virtue of being pan-seared, and came with a poached egg on top, and in a shallow pool of french lentil (lentilles de puy) puree. oh, and morels - it came with morels. i love morels to death; they are my favorite mushrooms. i suppose there was a bit more pretention than usual at the restaurant - the girl who brought me my first course told me that i would maximize my utility if i broke the egg over the whole thing. as if i would have done anything else. and seeing as the egg was on top of everything, it wasn't possible to take any other course of action.

as a second course, i had the chicken. it still had fennel with it, but it was much more of a background thing; the previous time i had had it, fennel was the main vegetable with it. this chicken was roasted with tarragon (and it must have been a lot of tarragon! i had roasted chickens with tarragon about a month ago, and it was nowhere as tarragon-y). this chicken came with roasted potatoes and more mushrooms, and had a relish-type thing of golden raisins, capers, and pine nuts. it was quite good, especially the combination of golden raisins and capers - i'll have to remember that one.

and finally, for dessert, jessica had dessert grits (i forget exactly how it went) and i had the chocolate tart with white chocolate ice cream. as i had ascertained from my previous visit, the ice cream at craigie street is the best ice cream i've ever had, if not the most imaginative (the best ice cream flavor i've ever had was blueberry at tosci's when i was in eighth grade). the chocolate tart was fantastic - very, very chocolaty, and no weird floral or fruity notes. the crust was also the most delicate, thinnest crust i've ever seen on a tart - that perfect shade of golden. it was basically crispy butter, with a dab or two of flour. but it was great with the chocolate. and add the white chocolate and you have the butter, the bitter-smoky, and the softly sweet.

i would say that nothing could beat the magical experience that was my first visit to craigie street, as that visit was probably the first time i really spent a lot of money on dinner at a restaurant. but this second time was great (oh, i also had a kir royale, which was pretty good). jessica had this sweet red dessert wine with her dessert, which wasn't as good as the one we had in our wine tasting class, but which was still quite good. looking at craigie street's wine list on their website, i believe it was the 2001 domaine du traginer banyuls "rimage" (roussillon). i think i also just like the three-course dining experience in general; to me it seems to be the right way to have dinner. the american in me takes hold when i am in studio and unable to devote real time to food other than semi-palatable subs and other prepared foods from star market, but the francophile in me always aspires towards three courses.

oh, so the wind, rain, and almost hail...i had been intending to get a new umbrella and after this visit i definitely need one. i set my umbrella down on the floor in the house 5 elevator lounge, and it looks like it's some sort of sculpture - "destroyed umbrella rising out of ground." it was so windy that my umbrella finally kicked the bucket; we got totally soaked on our walk from the kendall T stop, but caught saferide back, luckily. we intended to stop by betsy's room-warming party, but got to the area too late, and it was raining so hard we conceded defeat and went home.