dinner with mr. eggplant

last week i was at star and saw an eggplant with a nose! perhaps this is old hat to you, dear readers, but for me it was a totally new experience. i thought briefly about buying it, but refrained. a couple days later i was back at star (i seem to go there a lot), and i saw another one! this time i decided i needed to purchase it, and let me tell you, it was three dollars well spent. and it was so noteworthy that i decided it was photo-worthy as well, hence the photo to the left.

mr. eggplant languished in my fridge for a few days as i ate my way through restaurant week and a lot of bread and cheese, including my first encounter with taleggio. (p.s. currently the cheapest butter in the city is at whole foods, for $3.49/lb.) oddly enough, the taleggio reminded me a lot of the caviar i had at both alinea and french laundry - where by "reminded me a lot" i mean it tasted exactly like the caviar. specifically, the caviar with the cauliflower panna cotta. isn't that weird? i feel like i was violating some sacred cheese trust, where i was supposed to taste x flavor in the cheese but didn't.

back to mr. eggplant. i wrapped him in a paper towel and stuck him in his plastic bag so he wouldn't get moldy before i wanted to use him ("eat him" sounds rather...violent). out of options today for dinner (cheese but no bread), i plucked mr. eggplant from the fridge with every intention of cooking him. and so it went: the demise of mr. eggplant.

having peeled mr. eggplant, i cut him up into thin strips. i also diced a bunch of plum tomatoes and a large clove of garlic. cooking was basic stuff: saute the garlic in olive oil, add the tomatoes, then the eggplant, then let it stew for a long time. i added chicken broth as a liquid to help the eggplant break down, which it did over the next hour. it took so long to cook down that i ended up eating hunks of brie drizzled with honey in the interim. when it was finally done, i just added it to castellane pasta and enjoyed a nice, leisurely dinner while watching the game.

new crush

i went to get a haircut today and on my way to the salon, i just happened to notice that kitchen arts was right across the street from the salon. ok, actually i was looking out for it, hoping it would be nearby. and it was! of course i couldn't resist not going inside after my haircut. my excuse was that i needed a pair of tongs. really, though, i wanted to look at the knives. i recently bought a wusthof chef's knife (8", i have small hands), but have been eyeing santoku knives of late. so i asked the guy about the santokus, and really it's a specialty knife. translation : i don't need it. (from love actually: "i don't want something i need, i want something i want.") i checked out the different ones and i wasn't really expecting to love any of them, but i absolutely loved the MAC santoku! i don't know how my brain always picks the most expensive things to like. but the main point is that this knife feels like it's an extension of my hand. i can't remember ever having held a knife that felt so perfectly balanced in my hand - it was as if it belonged there. the end result is that i now covet a MAC santoku knife - the one with the divots and the wonderfully balanced weight in the handle, not the cheaper one (stupid brain) that cook's illustrated likes. i think it's the MSK-65. here's the link so you can go and drool on your own.

update : so perhaps this was foolish but i went ahead and got it online - i found it for a pretty good price that was much lower than the original price. yay! now, if only the people upstairs would be a little quieter in their moving preparations...

review: pigalle two ways

pigalle / 75 charles street south (in the theater district, not in beacon hill) / 617-423-4944 /tue-thu 5:30-10pm, fri-sat 5:30-10:30pm, sun 5-9:30pm /reservations accepted (and recommended) / entrees expensive ($22-30)

for some reason, i had never noticed before that pigalle is a small restaurant. luis, nina, v and i got to the restaurant late, but they didn't blink an eye and seated us fairly quickly, given that the place was packed (on a wednesday!). the room is designed carefully with an eye to space - the columns divide the room into three spaces and somehow make it seem bigger, rather than cluttered; there's a mirror on one side of the room that makes the room seem bigger, but is set above eye level so that you don't have to stare at yourself all night if you're facing it.

we were seated on the side of the restaurant on the night i went with luis, nina, and v - it was an 8:30pm reservation on a wednesday, we got there twenty minutes late, and were seated about fifteen to twenty minutes after that. while ordering, i asked for a glass of wine, and was really kind of offended that i got carded. i mean, i guess i can understand the concern, but it's not like you can do anything stupid after you've had just one glass of wine. and, if you're ordering wine in the first place, you must know something about it. anyway, i actually didn't have my drivers license, but i did have my passport. i felt kind of stupid using my passport to prove my age - it seems like it's overdoing it.

anyway, the real reason we were there was the food, and i should talk more about that. the first thing i was struck by was the menu - they've expanded the menu! most restaurant week restaurants use the event as publicity, and recently the boston globe ran an article about how many of them use subpar ingredients because people don't know the difference (which is just a very, very cruel trick, in my opinion). but pigalle seems to have the best interests of the diner in mind - instead of doing a set menu with one or two options for each course (first, second, dessert) they have essentially designed a bistro menu, with four to six choices for each course. it seems like the chef viewed this as a way to experiment with things one wouldn't normally do. it's a good way to test out new dishes on the unwitting public, really.

my dinner was duck-heavy, and i realized that it probably wasn't the most optimal choice of courses, but i really wanted both the duck liver and the crispy duck so i decided to go for it. the duck liver was slightly better last year, i think - i remember the duck livers being smaller last year and i liked that much better. however, it's still an excellent first course. the duck itself was wonderful - very crispy skin, even better than the chinese restaurants do it. the portion was quite generous and the mushroom fricassee was excellent. it was the first time i've ever liked shiitake mushrooms - i guess i like them fresh but not dried? there weren't too many lychees but perhaps they melted into the fricassee, which was sweeter than i had expected (in a good way). the duck was excellent in combination with the lychees and mushrooms, and i'd never had maitake (hen of the woods) mushrooms before. i like them a lot - they have a nice, firm-but-not-chewy texture and a nice delicate flavor. the duck also came with mashed potatoes which wasn't really necessary (and i would have preferred a green vegetable) but which was nice. they gave so much mashed potatoes that i shared it with v and still couldn't finish it.

dessert, as usual, was excellent. i don't know who the pastry chef is, but he or she is very consistently good. i had the vanilla tapioca pudding with granola (oats, sunflower seeds, and flax seeds, by my count) and maple ice cream. perhaps i've just been starved of ice cream all summer while i was in chicago, but the maple ice cream was quite heavenly. the tapioca pudding was excellent - very creamy - and the granola added another texture, tasting nutty but not too healthy. i had a taste of v's chocolate souffle tart, and the almond sorbet on it was...reminiscent of the way the chai ice cream i had at aujourd'hui with the honey cake - it was all cool and wonderful.

i found myself at pigalle again, three days later, with my parents, nora, and charles - i had made my reservation before nora made hers, but at any rate i certainly wouldn't complain about another evening at pigalle (hence the "two ways"). we had a bottle of red wine - i forget what it was, beyond it being a blend of red wine grapes from southern france - to go with the rest of dinner. i, of course, was determined to have completely different things than either of my previous visits, settling on the crispy tuna roll with pickled vegetables, the roasted salmon with beets three ways and a port reduction, and the chocolate souffle tart (i was a little disappointed with the third dessert available - summer fruit with rhubarb consomme - as the rhubarb consomme had already been done by no 9 park in may). all three were excellent.

the tuna roll was basically tuna tartare encased in crispy phyllo. the pickled vegetables were pretty good, if a little strong - in fact, though japanese in inspiration, it was more chinese in flavors, and it was a little overdone. i guess it seemed like it was a very american take on japanese food - it just wasn't quite delicate enough. but it was a wonderful idea, and the tuna and the crispy phyllo is really great. (the pickled vegetables were chinese turnip, julienned carrots and cucumbers, and ginger.)

the roasted salmon was really great - i was very happy that i ended up getting it over the steak. the skin was really crispy, the meat perfectly done, and the combination of flavors really fantastic. i've discovered that i do like beets. the skin of the salmon was salty, which was a nice contrast with the sweetness of the beets and port reduction.

and finally, i think the tapioca pudding was probably the best dessert. the chocolate souffle tart was good, but merely a good chocolate dessert, made better by the existence of the almond sorbet.

i'd like to go back to pigalle, not on restaurant week - though pigalle is undeniably a great deal for restaurant week, as normally some of the second courses cost as much as my entire meal did. i would also like to go to upstairs on the square for dinner - i opted not to go for restaurant week because it was so uninspired, menu-wise.

first food lust

from the april 2005 issue of food and wine, sandwich-pressed sugar doughnuts...mmm...

it may not look like it, but this is actually the inaugural food lust. i just transferred my previous food blog, mimblewim, to this blog. seeing as "foodlust" is an actual food-related blog name, i thought it was a fitting switch.

food daze

these days, i have been in a bit of a food daze. on my trip to california, i am still at a loss to explain how i was able to visit two legendary restaurants in the course of less than 24 hours. make sense to you? nope, doesn't make sense to me either. it was so much good food in such a short period of time that i sometimes think it was all a dream, except that i know it wasn't. but i do feel like i've been spoiled more than anyone should ever expect. i also know that i (and my sister, thanks nora) paid dearly for it, but of course that all melts away when you're actually eating. however, now i think i am ready for a period of normal eating. i think that the level of good food that i maintained during the school year was constant this summer, but came in the form of really low-level dinners sprinkled with a few really high-level dinners. given a choice, i prefer the former by a lot, though i'm happy to have had the wonderful experiences i had this summer.

blackbird : take two

i think nora's intention with the blackbird gift certificate she sent to me was that i use it on my scheduled trip there the first time i went, but it arrived just a day later than that. at any rate, i was very happy to have tried the restaurant again. upon returning, i found it much better than the first time, for a variety of reasons.

i was by myself again; i had made a reservation for 7pm on a tuesday night. blackbird is always full, it seems, and tuesday was no exception - i arrived in time to see the first seating leave and the second seating start eating. i was seated in a better place this time, just in terms of my preference - in the back half of the room, facing a bunch of other tables, and with a view of the kitchen. it was probably the ideal location, actually. dining solo gives one unprecedented license to stare - because it's "observing," in this case, not staring. i was slightly neglected while i looked at the menu, but the service besides that was great. the waitstaff was much less silent this time. i think that i have also settled into being a solo diner, in terms of being comfortable by myself, and my boldness in staring (because, after all, it really is staring).

this time, i went when i was hungry, and i think i chose a better selection of dishes than i did last time. i had:

i : tomato gazpacho with smoked crab - an amuse-bouche that was really great. the mug it was served in was too big, but it was really wonderfully tomato-y with scallions. unfortunately the tomatoes and scallions utterly consumed the smoked crab flavor, so it became a different texture more than anything else.

1 : salad of endives, crispy potatoes, basil, dijon, pancetta and poached egg - this would be great if it got mixed better. the crispy potatoes are formed into a cylinder that holds the rest of the salad, and when it's served the waiter cuts it up for you. i appreciate the creative gesture but i think it's a bit weird to have someone cutting your food for you. i'd rather do it myself. the potatoes were great, and everything together was good - basically it was a caesar salad, deconstructed - but it didn't mix together well enough to be consistently good.

2 : grilled california sturgeon and braised oxtail with sweet corn pancakes, chicories, and chanterelles - this was probably the high point of the meal. it was done really well, and sturgeon is a great firm white fish in general. it was perfect with the corn pancakes and the chicories. the chanterelles i could have done without. the fish was, in my opinion, perfectly done.

3 : selection of five cheeses (swan creek farm fresh goat cheese with sungold tomatoes, munster gerome cow's milk with roasted beets and hazelnuts, fiumorbu brebis sheep's milk with toasted onion bread and caperberries, comte raw cow's milk with dates, and berkshire blue cow's milk with dried cherries) - i wanted to have a cheese course so i did that instead of wine. i think it was good in terms of pacing of the meal, but i was disappointed with most of the pairings. the beets, tomatoes, and cherries were really good pairings, but i wasn't a fan of the dates, and especially of the caperberries. the caperberries were just too strong - think capers, with the flavor multiplied by a lot.

4 : avocado panna cotta with blackberry coulis, blackberries, peaches, and doughnut holes - this was pretty good. i liked that it was an interesting pairing - it's a modification of what this used to be, which is a dessert of three doughnuts. the doughnut holes were really excellent - they used a yeasted dough - but the panna cotta was more like key lime pie than anything else. the blackberries went with the dessert really well, but not so much the peaches, which tasted a little unripe.

so you might think that i didn't enjoy my meal. well, it was good, but not great - i much prefer craigie street bistrot. however, the atmosphere here is great for solo dining - there's a lot to watch. across the room there was a couple that, at the end of their meal/date, were holding hands. to my left there was a european couple (eastern european?); the girl was wearing purple zebra-print tight pants, with a sparkly waistband - they could only have been european. in a show of bad taste the guy started talking on his cellphone while his date was sitting there in front of him; she gave up after a while and went to the bathroom. the couple at the table to my right was on a date, and he was one of those crochety, stodgy old fellows who must say everything loudly and thinks he knows everything, and wants to be seen as worldly and sophisticated. his progression of comments about the bread pudding they shared: "this is so big for two people!", then "well, actually, i think this is just right for two people", then "this is really good." i believe that the man would have said anything was good, just to appear to be well-bred. people in this restaurant are always so...self-conscious, i guess - the self-consciousness that comes with going to a hip restaurant, where one is always wondering "am i hip enough? i'll just pretend i am as i walk by everyone else."

in short, i think i like solo dining a lot. i've yet to find a place where the waitstaff will pause to talk to me, but it's a lot of fun to people-watch - and restaurants are really a great place to people-watch. i think my next quest, once i can afford it, is to become a regular somewhere.

wine notes

while in napa, we also hit a couple of vineyards for tastings - robert sinskey and cardinale. incidentally, while at the bookstore a couple days ago, i came upon a cookbook by robert sinskey's wife - the vineyard cookbook. i think i've finally developed some opinions about wine i do and don't like. i think my favorite really is cabernet sauvignon, and i'm not really a fan of merlot, though sometimes it can be okay. i really don't like pinot noir, however, and i'm not a fan of chardonnay. for whites, i do like white bordeaux and gewurtztraminer, but not much else. i can't remember what we had at alinea, but i liked the malbec a lot. i liked the gewurtztraminer that jessica's parents had at french laundry better than the one nora and i had at alinea.

"satisfies like meat"

i just came upon this article in today's nyt which, among other things, sports this phrase: "Alda Fuortes de Nitto...cooks eggplant that satisfies like meat." as i thought about that, i wonder what it is that meat means to us (us meat-a-tarians, that is), and how we view it. should eggplant satisfy like meat? why would you want to liken eggplant to meat, anyway? it's an entirely different thing - should it then be treated completely differently?

since i'm not vegetarian i can't say, but i wonder if they think of certain things as replacing meat - like the vaunted portobello mushroom cap, for example. i would hope that they don't - that it's just a different way to eat. the way that phrase is worded implies that meat is a necessary component of one's diet, or possibly the most important one, while it really isn't. or maybe it's trying to say that there are things in general that satisfy like meat, using the word "meat" to signify the important part of a meal. but is any one part of a meal "better" or more "significant" than the "meat"?

for me, meat has become an increasingly optional part of a meal. i certainly do like it - a lot - but it's no longer the mainstay of dinner. i suppose i think of meat more as a flavor now, rather than a necessity. sometimes i want it, sometimes i don't, and a lot of the time i'm too lazy to cook it or too cheap to buy it.

review: napa + the french laundry

the french laundry / 6640 washington street / yountville ca / 707-944-2380 / dinner 5:30-9pm daily, lunch f-sun 11-1pm / reservations accepted up to 2 months in advance (recommended, and be prepared to call continuously exactly at the moment when you can call for a reservation) / tasting menu extremely expensive ($240)

i wonder if yountville became what it is after the french laundry opened (i think it was 1993 or 1994 according to what i overheard from the waiter as he told the table next to us), or if the french laundry opened when yountville was already what it is. i think it was the former. at any rate, the french laundry is located safely away from the so-touristy-it's-surreal area of the town. across from the restaurant there's a vegetable and herb patch for the restaurant, where there are beets, zucchini, watermelon, various herbs, etc. it's a strange place for an herb garden - right next to all of the cars! - but it's cool to see it there. there was even a little patch of corn growing there.

the restaurant - like alinea (grant achatz used to work at the french laundry) - is located in a house, rather than a space on the first floor of a larger building. it's more home-like than alinea, partly because it's in california, i think. we were seated on the second floor, up a staircase that the waitstaff ascended and descended with such smoothness that i wondered how long it took them to master the movement. basically, sitting in the restaurant is like sitting in someone's nice sitting room or parlor - the decor was vaguely french, with the bathrooms contained behind a mirror and wood paneled wall. the chairs were really comfortable, which is good for those who spend four hours eating lunch (i've never understood plastic chairs in restaurants). upon sitting down, i immediately recognized the way the napkin was folded and pinned with a clothespin from the french laundry cookbook (this clothespin wasn't blank, but was basically a business card in the form of a clothespin). incidentally, i still haven't mastered the art of having my chair pushed in for me - i always sit down too soon! if you have pointers on the etiquette of gracefully doing this, please tell me.

i'll say this now (and post the vegetarian menu later) - the vegetable tasting at french laundry is the only vegetarian menu i've ever seen in my life that was actually competitive with other menu offerings. i very much almost got that instead of the chef's tasting. i had tastes every now and then from jessica, and let me tell you, it was really fantastic. when i first started hearing about french laundry, i pretty much just brushed it off as overpriced good ingredients. admittedly, i never really bothered to find out exactly what was going on here, but i'll happily recant my former opinion. i think i've also become much more attuned to the quality of produce, so i probably couldn't have eaten at french laundry before now and appreciated it.

there was a table next to us with a largish group that included a woman with 80s-era style and melodrama who had just graduated from business school. she was very...american, we might say. ok, she was kind of loud and a food novice. i wouldn't normally harp on food novices because you have to start somewhere, but honestly, people who go to a restaurant just because they hear it's famous really annoy me. wouldn't you look up reviews and web stuff about a famous restaurant you're going to, instead of sweeping in, ordering champagne, and grandly telling the waiter that you just want whatever the chef's best dishes are? (fyi: thomas keller was not in the restaurant when we were there, but he was slated to arrive in the afternoon.) sigh. the rest of us prefer to concentrate on the food. i mean, i know she was celebrating...but must one celebrate so vocally?

ok, so this is a breakdown of what we had, plus my comments (a la alinea). to drink: water and various grape juices (a gewurtztraminer and a pinot noir) - basically the liquid before they ferment it into wine. french laundry only gets a few cases of these a year, from the navarro vineyard. the pinot noir was a bit too sweet and one-dimensional (fittingly, it needed to be fermented) but the gewurtztraminer was wonderfully fruity and floral at the same time. mmm.... one can always hope that the future will hold navarro gewurtztraminer juice.

i : gougeres - best gougeres i've ever had in my life, hands down

ii : salmon "puree" in a sesame cone with chives and creme fraiche: there's something strange about eating salmon in a cone as if it were ice cream, but it was extremely good anyway. it reminded me of the microplaned salmon at alinea, but there was, of course, more salmon and it had this wonderful texture to it.

1 : cauliflower "panna cotta" with beau soleil oyster glaze and russian sevruga caviar - the caviar was very, very, very good

2 : "peach melba" - poached moulard duck "foie gras au torchon", masomoto family farm peach jelly, pickled peaches, marinated red onion, "melba toast" and crisped carolina rice - this was an the choice i took over a pluot and heart-of-peach-palm salad. it was pretty good. i think this was a bit too delicate for my tastes, though it was excellent - i prefer the pork rillettes at craigie street bistrot. it was a very satisfyingly whimsical presentation, though.

3 : extra virgin olive oil poached fillet of gulf coast red snapper, oven roasted roma tomatoes, jacobsen's farm summer squash, nicoise olives and garden basil "pistou" - we all got annoyed with the skin of the snapper, which was kind of tough to cut through with the fish utensils one uses in good company, but the snapper itself was really, really wonderful. it was really flavorful, perfectly cooked, perfect firmness...mmm... this tops the black bass i had at no 9 park in terms of ingredients, easily. the combination of all of the flavors in this - especially the pesto ("pistou" is the provencal word for pesto) - was really great, but it was really the fish that stood out.

4 : "fricassee" of maine lobster mitts "cuit sous vide", golden corn pudding, summer truffle "coulis" and summer truffle "filaments" - i was slightly disappointed with the lobster, which seemed a tad overdone, or stringy or something, to me. however, the combination of flavors in this dish was transcendent. the truffles at french laundry are many times better than the truffles i had at alinea - full-flavored and earthy. jessica had truffles grated onto something she had, and they came over with a laquered black box on a silver tray, extracted the truffle from the box, microplaned truffle onto her dish, and replaced the truffle in the box (which then brings into question - how many people end up touching that thing???). ok, back to the lobster. "cuit sous vide" means that they cooked the stuff slowly while it was vacuum-packed (see this past sunday's nyt for an article on it, featuring thomas keller and a bit of the dude at el bulli). but man, the combination of the lobster, corn, and truffle...i can't get over it. by the way, there was a point to having both the truffle coulis and filaments - the difference in textures was actually significant. the lobster i had at alinea, however, was more perfectly cooked, i think.

5 : "aiguillette" of liberty valley duck breast, wilted mizuna, slow baked black mission figs, port wine and young ginger "vinaigrette" - well, "aiguille" means needle in french if i'm not mistaken, but i don't know how that applies to the duck breast. i was surprised that they didn't give us sharper knives for the duck breast, which had some stringy element one one side between the skin and the meat that was difficult to cut in general. this was good, but necessarily fantastic.

6 : snake river farm "calotte de boeuf grillee" (cap of the rib eye), grey morel mushrooms, roasted jacobsen's farm young leeks, yukon gold potato "parisienne" and "sauce bordelaise" - jessica's dad thought that this was the best of all of the dishes. i think i was more impressed with the lobster, but it's true that this beef is the best i've ever had in my life (i have to admit that i wasn't really impressed with the flavor of the bison at alinea). the morels - well, i love morels. these were great - a little salty, but they went so well with the beef, i couldn't really complain. i do think that the morels that i had at craigie street bistrot and no 9 park were better, though. the man at the farmers market in hyde park told me that the season for morels was over about a month ago, so i don't know where they're getting them from at french laundry. then again, it is california, land of ever-growing produce... ok, the beef. the leeks were great, though as jessica's dad commented, i wouldn't have minded a few more... the potatoes were similarly excellent. but the centerpiece of the thing was the beef - everything was really there to glorify the beef.

7 : "meadow creek grayson" with caramel apples, toasted walnuts, baby arugula and pomegranate reduction - all i can say about the caramel apple is "wow." i don't think i've ever had an apple that tasted like that! it was unbelievably sweet, crisp, flavorful...maybe i'll have to go and try apples again when i'm back home - i don't really believe that good apples are hard to find in boston. i was, however, more allergic to this apple (it was raw) than i usually am. hm. anyway, the whole thing was good, though i prefer sharper cheeses.

8 : lychee sorbet, "yuzu scented genoise", goma "nougatine" and black sesame "coulis" - this was amazing. the lychee sorbet was like a good chinese watercolor, if you can imagine the juxtaposition of those two images. it was wonderfully cool and...well, i can't really describe it. it was just amazing. and especially with the black sesame stuff everywhere - it was just the right thing to go with it. it reminded me a lot of the black sesame candy my sister and i used to eat when we were kids.

9 : "tentation au chocolat noisette et lait", milk chocolate "cremeux", hazelnut "streusel" with madagascar vanilla ice cream and sweetened salty hazelnuts - perhaps not as transcendent as the lychee sorbet, but that's probably because i'm more used to chocolate desserts. this one, though it wasn't as transcendent as the sorbet, was not lacking by any means. what i liked best was the layer of stuff underneath the milk chocolate "cremeux" - basically a cross between mousse and panna cotta. it was amazing, the chocolate with the stuff underneath. the sweetened salty hazelnuts were also really good - the salt was perfect with them.

and post-menu: "mignardises" - these have to be the best post-menu, tiered-silver-tray tidbits i've ever had. first, they brought us tiny creme brulees and pots de creme (each of us had one or the other). i had the creme brulee and it was great. and, they certainly recognized that people always love eating tiny things. whenever i have creme brulee, i always think of amelie, and unwittingly start to tap at the sugar the way she does. after the tiny cream-based stuff, they brought us the tiered silver tray, which has a number of tempting things on it: a shortbread cookie, a financier with raspberry jam on it, two little cakes with sultanas in them, a tiny chocolate tart with a flake of gold leaf on it, two chocolate-pistachio candies wrapped in plastic, and a plate of coconut french macaroons. the macaroons were fantastic. i ate the financier. i don't think i've ever had a better financier. i do love almonds... ooh, so much. ok, and finally, they came around with a silver tray with rows of truffles on it. i had an earl grey truffle. very good, but still nothing on burdick's, which is still tops in my book for chocolates. (p.s. the bill came on a laundry ticket.)

the service was great - our server was very attentive and as they do with tasting menus, they tell you what's in each dish. they were attentive without being pretentious. i wonder if they're happy working there. it seems like it. they also gave us a copy of the menu upon request. a word about the menu: what's up with all of the quotation marks? let's take, for example, the "cauliflower 'panna cotta'" - obviously the chef thinks of it as a panna cotta, so the menu should just call the thing a panna cotta. maybe it's not how other people might think of panna cotta, but the menu is the announcement of the chef's intentions, not a list of things that the diner is used to hearing.

so i think this whole rambling account probably deserves some sort of summary. well, i have to admit that i'm still kind of in a daze, having gone to so many good - ok, not just good, legendary - restaurants in such a short period of time. as it is, i wanted to go to a few other places in chicago (everest, avenues, spring, and green zebra come to mind) but my funds ran out, sadly. or rather, they didn't run out, but i decided that i'd rather have food for days than one evening. ok, back to french laundry. i can't really judge whether it's the best i've ever had. i think that it ties with alinea on my list - alinea because it's so wonderfully experimental, and french laundry because it finds such wonderful ways to showcase fabulous ingredients. i wouldn't have thought that there was such an art in creating culinary vehicles for really good ingredients, but there is, and when it's done well, you get french laundry. i liked the service a little better here than at alinea - perhaps slightly less unctuously smooth, but still great and much more personable. somehow at alinea they're a little...well, i felt like i was being patronized a little bit when i asked questions. it was really lovely to have a nice, leisurely lunch - i can't remember when i last had lunch like i did at french laundry. ok, not in the four-hours-of-leisure way, but a leisurely lunch in general. usually i go grab a teriyaki bowl from tokyo lunch box and eat at my desk. who wants to eat outside when it's gross and humid?

anyway, that's enough rambling. hopefully i'll post more coherent summary thoughts when they finally cohese.

review: chez panisse

chez panisse / 1517 shattuck avenue / berkeley ca / 510-548-5525 / reservations recommended (see reservation policy for hours) / 3-course prix fixe menu varies from $50-100

jessica wrote me in a letter that we were going to go out to chez panisse on youngsun's last day in the city. chez panisse is jessica's restaurant mecca, as alinea was my ultimate dining experience. anyway, since i received the letter after i left for california, our 8:30 reservation at chez panisse was a total surprise for me. a pleasant one, of course!

we headed over to berkeley after walking around golden gate park for a while. it gets quite cold in san francisco in the evening, which was a welcome change to me after the sweltering humidity of chicago (note to self - never return to any disgustingly humid place unless it's called boston). chez panisse is located on the outskirts of berkeley's central area near the university. there is one menu that is changed daily, and it's a three-course meal in the regular downstairs dining room unless you opt to add a cheese course. there's a vegetarian option, though the night we went, it was either lamb or a stuffed tomato - you can probably guess what we all chose (jessica is only vegetarian in boston).

points off for the snobby maitre d', who, upon looking at us, asked if we were dining in the cafe. sigh. i hate it when people assume such things. the way one is dressed is not a fail-safe indicator of how much one will tip. european (he was half-french and half-italian - the people behind us asked him if he was french, in french - i expect that he didn't think we understood him, either) doesn't mean class.

however, we were duly seated, and the dining room is all warm light and slightly frank lloyd wright-ish lighting fixtures. the tables are great - just the right size. our amuse-bouche type thing was prosecco with blackberry syrup, and a little dish of olives (the night's menu was mediterranean-inspired). the olives were great - concentrated, soft olive flavor without an edge to it - mellow would be a good word.

the first course was field greens with ricotta cheese and roasted figs (and toasted almonds, but i didn't eat them). i can safely say that this is the first time i've ever had field greens that i've liked - they were obviously chosen and combined with care. they were probably just really good field greens, too. the figs were good, but really, the best thing was the ricotta. it was, by far, and i mean by far, the best ricotta i've ever had. i could eat just that for days! i guess that's what fresh ricotta is supposed to taste like.

the second course was roasted lamb with eggplant puree, green beans, cucumber-yogurt stuff, and...um...crap, i forget the last thing that was on the plate. oh! purslane! purslane is pretty good. anyway, the lamb was great, if not totally remarkable. it was really good in combination with the eggplant and the green beans. i think there were maybe too many things on the plate. but it was good.

we declined the cheese course because it didn't sound that interesting to us (the next night jessica and i had a blue cheese and a sheep's milk camembert that tasted like cheese-y butter - good, but so rich).

the dessert was by far the most stunning thing on the menu. it was a perfect ten : a terrine consisting of a pistachio cake, wildflower honey ice cream, and peach ice cream. i thought that the first bite - of peach ice cream - was good, but the wildflower honey ice cream was even better. even better than a bite of the whole thing, which was not at all shabby. that ice cream was the best ice cream i'd had since the white chocolate ice cream i had at craigie street bistrot. it tasted so wonderfully fresh, too... and on the plus side, i didn't get an allergic reaction to the peaches on the side of the dessert (unnecessary but good).

we stopped by the kitchen afterwards and talked briefly to the sous-chef and the pastry chef. the sous-chef told us that one shouldn't buy anything but japanese knives, and that they should all be $60 or less, but conceded that, after all, it's what feels comfortable. i covet a santoku knife, but they're rather expensive. i wonder where he got his. the pastry chef told us that the peaches had just been "marinated" in a sugar syrup. the one thing i would have liked was to have seen alice waters in the kitchen. i mean, i know that she's a busy woman, but if somebody is the chef of their restaurant, i like to see them in the kitchen.

bottom line : this is an excellent restaurant, if not the best ever. it's wonderful in its simplicity. there were several things that were really fantastic, but some of it was merely very good. there were three people we were walking behind on the way to the restaurant - we passed them, then they passed us and stopped at the menu of the restaurant (full for the evening, i think). i'm sure they gave us either surprised or baleful glances as we passed them on our way into the restaurant.

produce heaven

if you guessed that i am referring to california, you would be right! i had always scoffed at the idea that california is a mecca for fresh produce, but it turns out that i was in the wrong. i was also wrong in my assumption that the entire state looks like LA. northern california is really quite beautiful - partly settled, partly wild. and i love the fog. it makes golden gate park seem even wilder - with that edge of the slightly savage. anyway, the produce. well, perhaps it's because i was staying with jessica's family, but the way that people value produce is wonderful. and maybe it's just me, but people just look happier on the street than they do in chicago. the air in san francisco and environs is great. air quality rank: (1) san francisco, (2) boston, (3) chicago.

so the produce actually does taste better in california. i would absolutely love to have fruit trees in my backyard - the lemons from jessica's lemon tree are so pretty! other people have orange trees, too. mmm... we also went to berkeley bowl, a supermarket in berkeley that is like whole foods, but with a lot more things in bulk, and a lot more produce. i've never seen such beautiful strawberries in my life! and there were so many mushrooms you just can't get on the east coast (that i know of).

we went to the ferry building in san francisco as well, which is more of a museum of gourmet food than a "i can afford to buy stuff here" type of place, but it's not touristy yet (though it is very yuppie). the mushroom place had huitlacoche - sorry if the spelling is wrong - which i'd never seen before. i bought some truffle oil (at $34.95/gram, or was it oz?, the summer truffles were far too dear) to take back to the east coast with me. i like beautiful artisan foods, but i also like affordable food - i have no idea who could afford the lifestyle that the ferry building represents. for all that i like minimally processed foods, i'm still a big fan of white flour and sugar.

i think i ate better at jessica's house than i did all summer. we were never huge on produce at home - as chinese people seem to be more concerned with meat, and vegetables to go along with the meat - and so being in a produce-oriented household was a welcome change for me. especially given my horrible diet during the summer. i don't know where people get the idea that fresh produce in chicago is good. i guess i just don't know where to go. at any rate, i think i have a better idea of how i want to eat during the school year, when i have to start cooking for myself. bread and cheese, here i come....oh, i do love cheese.

tarragon and triscuits

I am bored, bored, bored. My life – I mean my laptop – is sitting in my apartment lazing around, doing nothing. At least I have my chocolate chip cookies with me. When one is in a boring job, it’s surprising how much more interesting food becomes. Free time becomes inexplicably tied to food: lunch is time to yourself where you don’t have to do work (and I don’t get paid for my lunch hour here anyway), celebrations like birthdays always revolve around cake rather than the person whose birthday it is, people gather around a box of cookies someone has brought in. I look forward to my lunch breaks because I can write email with nobody looking over my shoulder making sure I’m working 100% of the day (who works 100% of the day? Your mind can only really concentrate in 20-minute blocks anyway). Of course, that says something about the quality of the job if lunch is the high point of the day.

I have been successful thus far in my quest to bring my lunch all the time. Yesterday I had dinner with two other interns in Hyde Park, at this Thai restaurant called Snail. It was pretty good, and pretty cheap, although (sorry Jazmin) I’ve had far better Thai food in Boston. I had some pork shumai that were good – I really want to have dim sum soon, it’s been far too long – and drunken noodles. Thai basil has to be my favorite herb. This is probably a result of stereotypes, but to me, it’s the ultimate Asian herb in that I smell it and think of Asia. Its flavor profile is just “Asia” – exotic in a way that’s distinctly un-European. Now that I think of it, one of my favorite “regular” herbs is tarragon. But I hate licorice. Go figure.

I just finished The Making of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman last week. I have such trouble finding good food books (Salt by Mark Kurlansky comes to mind in the realm of extra-dry writing) and I was thrilled to find that this one was superb. It made me want to go to culinary school, despite the masochistic class schedule. However, I’m convinced that nothing is more masochistic than MIT, or at least architecture studios. I figure I’d be set on the masochism, but probably not the talent sector. I think I’d be content to tinker around with food at home, or run a bakery-café-that’s-open-late. Perhaps it’s just that my ambition has currently been diverted towards architecture. I suppose we’ll know in ten years.

(Sorry, no triscuits. I needed the alliteration.)

review: blackbird : take one

i went to blackbird last wednesday, and i have to say that i have mixed feelings about the visit. i had heard that it was really good midwestern-tinged fare from various sources (people on egullet also seem to like it), which typically would bode well. perhaps i just made the wrong choices.

i think i did make one mistake - going there when i wasn't particularly hungry. i think i had a late lunch due to being busy at work, which just meant that i wasn't hungry come dinnertime. as i had a reservation, it wasn't really possible to change it to accommodate my mealtime idiosyncrasies. i tend to eat dinner fairly late now, anyway, as i spend so much time dithering about in the city. despite my reputation as a food snob (i swear i'm not - or at least, most of me is not a food snob), if it's not convenient to eat, i just won't. good examples of this are when i am in studio, or when i go to a concert in the park straight after work. i might get hungry, but i'm just doing something where food can wait.

back to the restaurant. i was a little apprehensive because i was eating out by myself and this place had looked a little too hip to be particularly nice to single diners. but it turned out to be fine - and in fact, though i found the waitstaff to be a little pretentious and too silent (i was hoping they'd talk to me), they totally ignored the fact that i was by myself. i didn't feel pressured to leave at all, to make way for another seating at my table. i wasn't totally thrilled with where i was sitting, but i think it was just me rather than any failing on their part - i was seated at a table across from the bar, close to but not too close to the door. it was a great place to watch people from, but i felt a little like i was being watched too, since i was one of the first few people that would be seen by those entering for their dinners. i think that if i were to go there again, i would request a table farther away from the door.

the people : the people around me were an interesting mix. to my left, a group of four, two of whom were visiting and two of whom were natives, or had at least visited the city before. they were slightly loud about their gourmandism, which is something i never advertise (because if it's really natural to you, why would you need to say that you are going to charlie trotter's the next day, loud enough for everyone around you to hear?). well, i suppose you have to start somewhere.

there was a table between me and the foursome, and it was eventually occupied by a european couple, one of whom lived in chicago. i think the girl was visiting. it seemed like the couple had been together for a while, but that the girl was visiting for the first time, because the guy definitely tried hard to please her, and kept on checking if she was enjoying her food as a way to find out if he had chosen correctly - exactly the wrong thing to do if one wants to enjoy a nice dinner.

the couple to my right was equally at ease. they were maybe on their third date, and the guy - who looks a bit like the stunt guy in that billy bob thornton/bruce willis movie, bandits - was definitely trying to impress the girl. they ordered the most typical things off the menu - scallop appetizer and steak for the entree. the conversation between the two was pretty interesting - the girl kept on saying "but i don't want to go into that right now" and the guy would try to pry more out of her, totally oblivious to her own desire to change the subject. ie, she once worked in a factory and didn't really want to talk about it, but he wanted to know why. i guess maybe he was nervous and didn't realize he was being insensitive. anyway, this was definitely their night out on the town, and i hope they enjoyed it more than it seemed like they were enjoying it.

so i think that blackbird is seen as a cool, hip place to go, and thus it gets a fair mix of people who are there for the food and people who are there to pretend that they're cool. the restaurant is an interesting clash of ideas, with its really modern, minimalist design and its midwestern-influenced food. (ok, i really don't know where the midwestern influence was. it seemed like normal hip food to me.)

as for the food, i started off with my water and bread, which came with butter that had been sliced from a cylinder of butter rolled in spices (cumin among them, i believe). that is a wonderful idea. i wish i'd thought of it. it went really well with the bread. my appetizer - as i have become addicted to 3+ course meals - was a cold corn bisque with olive oil-poached rock shrimp (from maine - you know, i think the shrimp are best off left in and consumed in maine). it was really good - not too rich, and very corn-y. and the rock shrimp were, i believe, the best, most perfectly-cooked shrimp i've ever had.

all of this made my entree kind of disappointing. i had elk with sour cherries and fava beans, and while the flavor combination was great, the elk was really kind of stringy. chewy i can deal with, though i wasn't thrilled about that - it could have been due to the game meat. however, stringy means they shouldn't be serving it. i think i do like elk, though. and i really like fava beans! they're everywhere nowadays - i had them at no 9 park in two dishes, and at alinea, in addition to at blackbird. i think the restaurant was also a bit cold, so that the food cooled off too quickly. i'm not a terribly slow eater, but i'm not terribly fast either, and i wish the food had been warm a little longer. i found alinea to be far too cold too, but the fact that there were 28 courses meant that they were smaller, and consequently consumed faster, so they were less likely to get cold.

despite their silence - maybe my waiter was shy or something - i give kudos to the waitstaff for accommodating me and my habits. i was totally full by the time i had finished my elk, but still wanted dessert - no meal is complete without dessert! - and they kindly took my request to delay dessert by about 10 minutes with nary a raised eyebrow. when i did get dessert, i was slightly disappointed - it was a carrot cake with a blueberry and frozen yogurt terrine on the side. it just tasted...too healthy, i think. the terrine was kind of icy - more ice crystals than frozen yogurt.

overall, i was pleased with the service but displeased with the food. it was somehow off, and i was really expecting more, especially for the price. i am pretty displeased with the restaurant scene in chicago - really, the entire food scene. people are obsessed with fine dining - and there is a lot of fine dining, where by fine dining i mean the top tier - and i wish i could afford to have done more of it. but i haven't found any cheap food that was really worth it, which worries me a lot. i haven't found a lot of ethnic food worth having - where is the ethiopian place, the moroccan place, the cape verdean place? there are also too many brunch places in chicago - the restaurant world seems to cater to the yuppies. the thing i miss most is the $30 nice dinner, which is plentiful in boston. boston may not have the plethora of really top tier dining that chicago has, but at least it has good cheap food, and good middle range food. there is no $30 nice dinner in chicago. (and there's no good ice cream!!!) it's either $15 and mediocre or $100+ and great. to me, this is really a reflection of chicago's obsession with its image. it has to be the best in everything, the first to do this and that, and thus its restaurant industry is image driven. this is evident to me by the value that people place on regular food. in a city where food was really treated well, and valued, there would be a lot of supermarkets and produce markets. people would cook a lot, with good produce. my experience with chicago is that there are not enough supermarkets within walking distance of anyone's home - in cambridge i can walk to any of five supermarkets, and take the bus to several more - and the supermarkets aren't really any good, anyway. i haven't figured out where the supermarkets are in the Loop, which is distressing because the Loop is the only place where i could see myself living if i had to return to chicago. anyway, the existence and frequency of supermarkets is, i guess, my barometer of how food is valued in a given city.

selfish baking and a supermarket rant

i should note that i began the day today with three chocolate chip cookies and a piece of carrot cake. mmm. good for my stomach, maybe not so much for my heart.

i realized that i never really bake just for myself - i either want to try something new out and then share it, or i am making something specifically for someone. so yesterday i changed courses from my original intent to make a carrot cake for the office and some chocolate chip cookies to mail to various people. i kept the cookies for myself.

granted, i am sharing the cookies with people who sit around me, but for all intents and purposes i made them for myself. selfish, maybe, but very satisfying. and there is the cake sitting out on one of the tables for people to partake. making something just for yourself (i made them to have as a snack and with my lunch at work) is a very different pleasure from making something for other people, but just as good, in a different way - in a way such that you know, hopefully, that you shouldn't indulge yourself too often.

so actually, the cake is pretty good. it's a typical carrot cake except that it uses fresh ginger instead of ground ginger, which i think i'd do again. i would have liked to have put currants in it or something (expressly because they're smaller than raisins) but i forgot to buy them, and even though the supermarket is only 2 blocks away there was no way i was going to go back when i'd just gone that morning. part of the reason why i made carrot cake was because i don't have an electric mixer, and thus don't want to attempt any kind of butter cake that needs the air from the butter being beaten. i was a little worried about the frosting, but it turned out fine since it was a warm night (or maybe it was just warm in the kitchen) and everything had been softened properly. ok, it's not totally smooth, but it's smooth enough for people not to notice.

we also don't have a grater, which ran me into more problems when i was making pesto (without a 100%-working blender) with parmesan cheese that needed to be grated. i just ended up mincing the carrots really finely with my wonderful new knife - not the ideal scenario but the one i had. upon putting the pan in the oven, i discovered that the rack is designed really oddly with a horizontal bar on top of the vertical ones (bird's eye view) so that nothing can rest on it flat and level. odd. i even checked and the rack was in the right way. i guess it's just because it's old. so anyway, the cake was kind of lopsided, but nobody noticed anyway.

i also made chicken and rice for lunch during the week (and i bought bacon on sale so i can have bacon and blueberry jam sandwiches!). i seem to gravitate towards chicken and rice any time i cook. in fact, every time i've really cooked anything for lunch, with the exception of the last time when i made pasta with chicken and red peppers, i've made chicken and rice: risotto with chicken, asparagus, and mushrooms, chicken and rice with morels, and yesterday chicken and rice with capers. hey, chicken is cheap. i think the best was the chicken and rice with morels - i omitted the garlic and ginger and it was just onions, wine, rice, chicken, and morels. it had a wonderfully clean taste... mmm.... the one i made yesterday was good, especially with the capers, which i wasn't sure were going to work. just not as good as the other one, which had the distinction of having chicken drumsticks and thighs rather than chicken breast (which was on sale when i last went to the supermarket).

i still haven't found a supermarket i like in chicago. maybe it's because i live in hyde park. but there is only one whole foods and one trader joe's for the entire city! hmph. i find boston to be a better food town than chicago because it's more consistent : you can get a nice dinner for $30 in boston, but not in chicago, where it's either $15 or $90. and there are more supermarkets! who ever heard of a downtown without a good supermarket? i haven't seen any supermarkets in the loop... people around here pretend that their produce is the best and that it's cheaper than other places since it's grown around here, but i'm just not convinced.

i did like the indian supermarkets in devon, though. devon is in the northern part of the city (and is really the name of the street). devon street is very built up and it's basically all storefronts, but step off onto a sidestreet and you are surrounded by small single-family homes. it has a somewhat foreign feel to it, i guess because all of the signs protrude out into the space above your head. there are four kinds of stores: restaurants, supermarkets, sari stores, and jewelry stores. all of the jewelry stores display their wedding jewelry in the front window, which is elaborate with all of the colorful beads and very yellow gold. makes you kind of want to be an indian bride (kind of being the important part here). i wonder where the indian supermarkets are around boston - there being so much indian food, there must be supermarkets somewhere.

ok, i need another cookie.

notes: this is a very moist cake, and it's pretty good, although i think i'd switch out some of the sugar the next time i made it for dark brown sugar, just to give it a bit more of a molasses taste to it. i liked the fresh ginger and would add more the next time i make it - make sure you mince it really fine.

carrot cake
cake
2c flour
2t baking soda
1t salt
1t cinnamon
2c sugar
1 1/4c canola oil
4 eggs
3c grated carrots
1 1/4c chopped walnuts
3T minced peeled ginger

icing
16 oz cream cheese
1/2c butter
1 1/2c powdered sugar
1/4c - 1/2c maple syrup (do NOT, i repeat, do NOT use pancake syrup)

[1] preheat the oven to 350F. butter a 9"x13" pan or two 9" cake pans.

[2] in a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

[3] in a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and oil. whisk in the eggs, one at a time.

[4] stir in the dry ingredients, then the carrots, ginger, and walnuts.

[5] pour the batter into the pan and bake 45-50 minutes for a 9"x13" cake, less for a 9" cake.

[6] for the icing, beat the butter until smooth and creamy, then beat in the cream cheese. beat in the powdered sugar, then add 1/4c maple syrup and beat that in. taste it, and add more maple syrup according to your taste. be careful not to let the icing get too runny - i added about 3/8c.

[presumably this makes 1 2-layer 9" cake, but i made a 1-layer 9"x13" cake]