a paucity of vegetables

it's completely unremarakable that upon returning from taipei and also from palermo, i had dinner with my family.  what is rather odd is the dinner itself - chinese takeout after taipei, and as it happens, italian after palermo.  sadly for palermo, i rather think that the italian i had last weekend in somerville beats out anything i had in sicily.  the sole notable exception would be that breakfast buffet in trapani, specifically the prosciutto and the cornmeal poundcake; even the best dinner in palermo didn't really hold a candle to what you can get stateside.  i was out at pescatore, and we had a salad (arugula and sundry other greens, grapes, caramelized pine nuts, fennel), seared sea bass (sauteed asparagus, saffron risotto), and chicken marsala (mushrooms, butternut squash agnolotti).  there are not many fresh vegetables in either taipei and palermo, so i am fairly certain that i've been craving fresh vegetables and that this is why i so enjoyed pescatore's vegetables.  i will say that objectively, i was surprised by just how fine the vegetables were, especially for winter in boston, land of cranberry bogs.  the sea bass was especially delicious, with good contrast in textures (the asparagus was perfectly tender-crisp), and the saffron risotto was notably not too heavy.  pescatore has certainly upped its game since i was last there, maybe a year ago - before it used to focus more on quantities of seafood, but now the non-seafood entrees have been upgraded.  

if you do go to palermo, check out santandrea for dinner.  i did find the pasta to be a little thick for my tastes, but that could easily be chalked up to a cultural difference.  i don't know, readers; i'm pretty sure that every time i've made pasta or that my roommates have made it, it was better - the pasta was more supple, less coarse in texture, and more pleasurable to eat.  

durian really does smell rotten

sometimes i wonder how we discovered that durians are a desirable food source: they're spiky and hard on the outside, smell rotten on the inside, and the little white pods are stringy on the outside and custardy on the inside.  i suppose that back whenever civilization discovered durians, the smell may not have been so off-putting because they may not have known what a rotten smell is in the first place.  and conceptually, durian is pretty awesome because it smells like one thing, but tastes like another, but since your olfactory and taste senses are interdependent, then the sweet taste is constantly fighting off the aroma of rottenness.  mmm.  appetizing.  in reality, seeing the squishy, wrinkly kernels inside the shell of the durian just makes me want to throw them at people - rather than tomatoes, right?  they seem like they would have really great splatter action.

you can get a couple of kernels (read: more than enough) of durian for NT$100 (about USD$3).  it's true that the inside inside - the custardy part rather than the stringy outer layer of the kernel - is much sweeter than the outside.  the whiff of rottenness that you get is subtle at first - just here and there - but as you carry it around for longer, the aroma seems to develop and mature.  (however, the increasingly strong smell may have been because the kernels got stuffed into somebody's pocket and smooshed about).  it's kind of like duck blood: i'm happy i tried it, and now i'm done with it unless i happen to be starving at some point in my life and there are only durians and duck blood to eat.  so there you go.

a bit of blood

i saw the brown gelatinous blocks coming out of the hot pot and into my bowl, and thought it might be either liver or blood.  it was blood.  duck's blood, to be precise, rather than the pig's blood that i'm used to seeing around super 88.  despite knowing of its existence, i've never eaten blood.  

it tastes okay - kind of like a sort of tofu.  it tastes a little like what i imagine cheese curds taste like before they're processed: a bit squeaky on your teeth, firm but not too firm, clean tasting.  except it's blood. 

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.

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.

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.

alinea : chef's tour list of courses

This is a list of what my sister and I could remember from our dinner at Alinea. I thought there were 28 courses but we could only remember 24. So maybe it was 24 courses. At any rate here they are, probably in the wrong order:

i / Amuse-bouche : zucchini, mango, saffron, and chamomile

ii / Kudos for not only room-temperature (ie spreadable) butter, but two kinds of butter - goat's milk and cow's milk (I liked the cow's milk better - it tasted like the cultured butter jessica and I made over IAP)

1 / Heart of Palm in five sections : vanilla pudding, fava bean with preserved lemon, garlic bulghur wheat with a garlic chip on top, prune puree, pumpernickel bread with black truffles (a note here: this was so much fun to eat! each piece was placed on a pedestal, and the way they tell you to eat the thing is to tip it back into your mouth as if you're taking a shot)

2 / Salmon : a dollop of frozen sour cream with microplaned salmon on top (this was resting on a charger and you picked it up by the sorrel leaf implanted in it to eat it)

3 / Soy : eggplant semifreddo, wax beans, and octopus with the most wonderful soy froth (and I usually don't go for froths and foams, but here it was wonderful)

4 / Striped bass : striped bass cooked in a custard (that was basically like the most wonderful chowder you've ever had, taste-wise) with water chesnuts and mussels, served in a bowl that was set into a larger bowl filled with rose petals - when they served it they poured hot water in the outer bowl and you smelled roses as you ate

5 / A1 : all the flavors/ingredients of A1 steak sauce, dissected and separated out, served on little mounds of mashed potatoes and connected by a paper-thin ribbon of potato, which was fried at the end and rested on slices of perfectly-cooked rib-eye (interestingly, you don't have any say in how well-done you want the meat, although i think you could send it back if you really wanted to)

6 / Chanterelle soup : chanterelle soup with, um...ok, I can't remember. Sorry.

7 / Zucchini cake : served on a wire and you leaned forward to eat it, no hands allowed; it had a bit of angelica root confit on top (do any of my Carlisle friends remember our superhero dinner party and the kryptonite cake? that's what color it was...)

8 / Lobster ravioli : lobster puffs (like cheese puffs - actually they were like those shrimp chips you get with the crispy chicken in a chinese banquet) on top of bright orange coconut milk ravioli, on top of chunks of lobster and "young coconut," in a lobster lemongrass consomme (say that five times fast!)

9 / Tobacco : a spoon with a little rectangle of tobacco custard on it, and a blackberry resting on top of the custard (strange to have my first taste of tobacco in a custard - it was foreign but not bad)

10 / Lamb : lamb pop (this phrase brings to mind josh's lamburger menu) - lamb coated with a mild mustard and preserved lemon, deep fried and served on the "squid" piece of food servery that the pb + j used to be served on - it's a circular base with a bunch of wires poking out from the middle point on the base, and then they umbrella out and hold the food

11 / Eucalpytus : eucalyptus yogurt, apricot puree, lemon thyme, and a milk custard all encased in a glass tube with open ends and you suck the whole thing out like a jello shot

12 / Sunflower seeds : sunflower seed soup (or was this part of the chanterelle soup?) with little capsules filled with sunflower juice and a slice of plaintain

13 / Cherry : served in a trumpet-shaped aperitif glass, a little cylinder of cherry sorbet with a stem sticking out of it as a handle

14 / Snap peas : snap peas, ham, fresh tofu, and crispy yuba, all served in a bowl set on a pillow of lavender air, so it surrounded you with provence while you ate

15 / Squab : squab breast and its foie gras (oh my god...so good....) in a cream-based sauce and caramelized onions, with a garnish of watermelon and fennel gelee, with grated licorice on top, served in a bowl that was shaped like an angular hourglass so you kept on finding more food

16 / Oysters : oyster cream and sevruga caviar with "chervil broth" on top (i'd never had oysters or caviar before, and wow, the caviar tastes like the ocean, concentrated...)

17 / Bison : bison topped with frizzled onions and shaved black truffle (crunchy!), with new potatoes and pistachios (ok, not really a fan of pistachios in any form)

18 / Bacon : wonderfully crisp bacon with micro-thin apple streamers attached to the end with a bit of fresh thyme, hanging from a wire seesaw - it looked like a bow and arrow, rocking back and forth on the curved part

19 / Maytag blue : maytag blue cheese (please, stop with the "bleu cheese"! we're in america, not ameriance!)...read the earlier entry for the complete description, but it looked like a smaller, rounder version of those chinese pastries that have the ground peanuts and sugar on the inside (the outside is a chewy type of skin made from rice flour and they're dipped in coconut flakes)

20 / beignet : served on a spoon, a single large bite of beignet filled with buttermilk that was flavored with lemon verbena (this was possibly the best doughnut type thing i've ever had, beyond that first krispy kreme that is...)

21 / corn cake : also described already in the original post, but i'll just reiterate here that this was absolutely amazing

22 / raspberries : served on this bowl/platter that was really a large platter with a small shallow bowl-like indentation in the middle, rather like a classy chip-n-dip type deal, but much nicer than the stuff people would churn out in ceramics classes at my high school

23 / chocolate : served on a long plate with the "cake" on one side and the semifreddo on the other, with sauce and candied dandelion bits in between - now i know what to do with all of those dandelions in the lawn at home

24 / vanilla : um, this was also described fairly descriptively in the previous post; it was served in a double-type glass

review: alinea : the intersection between food + architecture

alinea / 1723 north halsted / chicago il / 312-867-0110 / dinner wed-sun / reservations required / chef's tour $195 or 12-course tasting menu $135

So now that the hottest day I have ever experienced in my life is over (104 degrees, felt like 110, though thankfully not as humid as other days have been), I can think again. It has been two days since Nora and I had dinner at Alinea, and I am relieved and somewhat amazed that I can still eat “normal”/”regular” food. Dinner - or our experience, cliche as that may sound - was nothing short of stunning, from the food, to the service, to the perfectly plumped pillows on the banquette across from our table, to the guy speaking to a couple at the table next over from ours who handed off an empty water carafe behind his back to the guy on the way to the kitchen, without even looking, to the guy who passed our table when Nora was in the bathroom, frowned at the napkin folded in quarters (ok, he didn’t actually frown, but his entire movement towards the table was a frown), and refolded it into a rectangle. I am not a novice to fine dining, but never have I experienced such good service. It was a bit pretentious sometimes, which was particularly apparent to me as the one who really hates any kind of bullshit (yes, even when Leo made me cry in studio), but that was just the speaking bit, rather than the actual action-oriented part of the service. Of all of our servers, the one who wasn't in a suit was the one I liked best. I am just amazed, though, that the restaurant is able to coordinate service for so many tasting menus.

My general impression of the food is that it reminds me of the way I like my architecture (Celina, if you are reading this, stop laughing, I do not have architecture on the brain - I swear). You can’t innovate without knowing what already exists - in the way that Picasso’s early work is technically very good, but his later work is a complete departure - you cannot innovate without knowing what you’re innovating from. A genius doesn’t suddenly come up with an idea out of nowhere; rather, past experience is the basis for genius. Picasso wouldn’t have been Picasso if he hadn’t learned good technique first. Anyway, I digress. The food at Alinea is like Picasso, if you will - you can tell that technically it is quite flawless, but they have gone much further than just technical perfection. It’s really fun for the adventurous, not in the sense that you will be eating eel guts (gross), but in the sense that you will be experiencing all kinds of different ways to eat food, whether it is the combination of flavors, the juxtaposition of savory and sweet, or the combination of the actual food and its surrounding environment (aha! architecture again!). To say that Alinea’s food is like architecture is a surprise to me, because I hadn’t imagined food being able to create that kind of experience. Food for me has always been a social thing, influenced by the fact that I lived at LMF, and never ate a dinner not with my family during my eighteen years at home, and thus I was somewhat (pleasantly) surprised to find that it could be such an intellectual thing.

A word about the entrance: a bit theatrical, but of course I loved it. Architecturally it’s a bit ambiguous (one might say that the entryway's intentions were a bit ambiguous): I loved the entry hallway very much, with that moment of apprehension when you’re not sure why the inner door is shut and there’s no sign on it, until it opens, but once you do enter that door, there’s the staircase in front of you and the maitre d’ off to the right, and thus it’s a somewhat awkward way to circulate. Presumably the maitre d’ is off to the right to prevent people from walking into what looked to be a test kitchen at the end of the short hallway, but there are many other things that could also prevent circulation but still provide a glimpse of what’s there.

I will not go into every single course that we had, since I’m at work and supposedly I’m working, but here are some thoughts about some of my favorites. I thought that the mango overpowered the zucchini in the amuse bouche, but it’s probably the first time I’ve ever liked saffron. I loved the hearts of palm - or rather, the different fillings, since I now know that I’m kind of indifferent to hearts of palm in general. I liked the vanilla pudding and fava bean versions the best.

My other favorites: the frozen sour cream with the microplaned salmon, the striped bass, the eggplant semifreddo with soy froth, the squab, and the oyster cream.

A brief explanation why these were my favorites: I liked the sour cream/salmon because it was so fun to eat, and it worked so well even though it was totally unconventional. Who would have thought that microplaned salmon could be so good? I really loved the striped bass, which, in addition to having the world’s best water chestnuts in it, was surrounded by this wonderful floral aroma from the hot water poured over rose petals.

The eggplant semifreddo was mostly soy in flavor, but the soy was fantastic (and the maitre d’ was even kind enough to print out what soy sauce it was on the restaurant’s letterhead, though I admit that I preferred the sous chef’s handwritten version). The thing that made the squab so good was the grated licorice over it - in general I don’t like licorice, but at that point I was convinced that in any given course I would like things I don’t usually like, and in fact, the licorice gave the squab the perfect balancing note between the richness of the squab and the smooth coolness of the licorice. And lastly, the oyster cream just tasted so much of the ocean. Everything else, even if it wasn’t my cup of tea because of my food tastes, was still fabulous, and fun to eat - the breadth of new ways in which one can eat food was great. I rather had the sense that I was a visitor in the culinary version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (without the disasters, the Ooompa-Loompas, and the scary children).

Dessert, of course, gets its own paragraph(s). My sister got her second wind at the moment that dessert was served, and I was amazed to see the rapidity with which her plate emptied. I suspect that the pastry chef here, who came from Clio in Boston, finds himself able to do much more experimental things here than he did at Clio, and every single dessert was a perfect ten (there’s an earlier post somewhere about perfect-ten desserts, I think in my review of Aujourd’hui). In fact, some of those were probably somewhere in the stratosphere.

The first thing we had was a cheese course, “maytag blue,” which was blue cheese somehow formed into a ball filled with walnut milk, on top of celery and red wine jelly. Our server noted that the addition of celery was unusual (I have no idea if that’s true or not), and that it was actually quite good. Of course, we were beyond thinking that anything unusual wouldn’t be good, but it defied our expectations. I don’t know how the blue cheese got the light, airy, smooth consistency it had - it was how you would expect a marshmallow to taste, texture-wise, if you had never actually eaten one and just had the image of a marshmallow in your mind. The walnut milk was amazing - as I write more, I keep wishing that my friend Jessica had been with us, because she is the one other person I know besides my sister who would fully appreciate the food at Alinea.

The second dessert we had was a beignet filled with lemon verbena-infused buttermilk, which, while not as creative as the other desserts, perhaps, was still outstanding. It reminded me of the time I made ginger doughnuts last summer, except that the beignet was worlds better than my doughnuts were (note to anyone trying to make doughnuts: don’t make them when it’s really humid).
The third was a corn custard filled with honey, with vanilla ice, cornbread crumbs, and tonka bean crème anglaise. I don’t think I really have words to describe this combination, beyond “I absolutely loved it.” I especially liked the cornbread crumbs, which were almost unbelievably crispy.

The next dessert was a red pepper sorbet and foam with raspberries that were filled with rosewater gelee, on top of milk curd. This was the most unusual of the desserts, I think, and our server told us that there is a huge difference between red bell pepper with skin, and without. I am now in dire need of a red bell pepper so that I can taste this difference in a normal bell pepper. The dessert itself was amazing. (I think I’ve used that word too much already.) The kicker for me was that I was wondering what these little crunchy things were - they had a really familiar taste, but I couldn’t place what exactly they were. I looked at them, and I realized that they were bell pepper seeds - maybe fried? I was absolutely delighted.

The fifth dessert was the molten chocolate cake that is now quite famous - the one that consists of ganache sprayed with a thin layer of chocolate. That thing is incredible. The best thing about it, beyond the fact that the chocolate they used was wonderful, was the inclusion of fresh tarragon, and the candied dandelion root. The last thing I used tarragon for was roasting a chicken… When you ate the candied dandelion root, it was more of a texture initially, and as you chewed it longer, you got this wonderful grassy, wild flavor in your mouth.

The last dessert was the vanilla pod-sponge cake spoon, with the vanilla sauce/pudding and foam. It was really difficult not to eat the sponge cake before finishing the pudding.

The thing that makes Alinea so special for me is that it’s different for a reason, not different for the sake of being different. I have always hated anyone or anything that was different just to be different. Being different just to be different is a hallmark of bad architecture. Good architecture always has intentions and it should be clear from the architecture what those intentions are. That said, I think that the intentions of some of the food is a little unclear, although the vast majority of it was particularly wonderful. For example, there was that course with the zucchini cake speared on a wire, which you’re supposed to lean forward and eat. I like the idea of the specific way of eating (no-hands), but I wasn’t sure that the zucchini cake needed to be eaten in that way.

My only regret is whether or not I tipped correctly. Rather, I tipped correctly in the technical sense, but theoretically your tip is supposed to reflect how much you liked the restaurant. Then again, if I were to tip according to how much I liked the restaurant, I would probably be very broke right now. Ah, internal struggles. In the end I went with 20%, but if I had been a little more flush I probably would have gone at least a little higher than that. At any rate, I'm sure they get enough high rollers to make up for some of the slack that we poor people impose on them. ;)

Last comment in what is probably my longest post ever - the restaurant really made me feel at home. I don’t mean this in the service-was-friendly way (although it was), but rather, the creativity at Alinea is the same kind that I was surrounded by at home - that kind of zany, no-holds-barred type of environment I left behind when I came to Chicago for the summer. The intensity of everyone who works at the restaurant reminds of me of the intensity of my architecture studio last spring, which I miss desperately (I gave planning one last chance and I’ve determined that yes, it really isn’t for me). When I leave in August to go back to school, I will most certainly miss having the opportunity to go there. If you are in Chicago, and you can afford it, you must go here - it's just a joy to eat there. (Also, the chairs are actually comfortable to sit in - it really feels like you're sitting in somebody's very nice, minimalist living room.)

yet again, a bakery saves the day

i'm going to do a quick rundown of restaurants i've been to in chicago. none of them have been particularly memorable, though thai food has a way of pushing all of the right buttons (pad thai and pad see eiw in particular) with regards to food cravings. the reason why you haven’t seen better food experiences this summer is because first i was getting oriented in the city, then i ran out of money because the government couldn’t get their act together to pay us, and now i am trying to save up so i can afford dinner with my sister when she comes to visit me this week. although it’s not really about taking my sister out (sorry, nora) as much as it is feeling guilty about booking such expensive restaurants that i happened to want to go to – not everyone is as willing as i am to be a spendthrift at really good restaurants.

so i have been to reza’s in the northern part of the loop, in the middle of nowhere seemingly (the inconsistency of density in the downtown is baffling to me). as the name suggests it’s lebanese, or i think it was technically iranian but everything on the menu was either persian or lebanese. it was a lot of food, but merely standard in quality - i have had better at lmf (notably that chicken thing with the pita bits that waseem makes every year). nina and george, your hummous/hummus/chickpea-and-tahini-paste is better.

last thursday i went to dunlay’s on clark, which is just a regular upscale bar/american eatery type place in lincoln park (owned by the uncle of one of the other interns). it was pretty good, and a welcome change from the lame stuff i’ve been eating at home because i don’t like to cook in the heat. perfectly serviceable stuff, nothing out of the ordinary, but it was my first time having blue cheese (or bleu cheese if you’re pretending to be well bred) on a burger so it was also a sufficiently horizon-expanding eating experience, in conjunction with my first manhattan. a few days later, i am not quite sure if i enjoy manhattans more than martinis (real martinis - anything that contains more than vodka/gin, vermouth, and olives is not a real martini), but i am excited to have found another cocktail that i actually like.

finally, on sunday i went to TAC quick, which is this tiny thai place outside the sheridan stop on the red line that features white walls, blue glass crate and barrel candle votives, and lots of pulsing electronica. it was pretty good thai food, although i have had better in cambridge (brighton, to be specific, at bamboo, which is my favorite thai restaurant). i think the thing i've missed at thai restaurants in chicago is thai basil, which is one of my favorite herbs. regardless, TAC quick is a fun place, in an area that has a bunch of small restaurants - so it seemed out of the ordinary that more people weren’t around. on the other hand, it was sunday evening and the area, while it has nice restaurants, is a little rundown. (a quick commentary on the el: i appreciate that it exists, and the fact that it’s elevated is akin to riding a bus facing backwards - you get a view you wouldn’t normally get - but it’s slow, and ugly. i generally prefer the T, which has wider platforms, and occasional art in the stations - something that the el seriously lacks. the nicest light rail system i've seen is the one in lisbon, although new york city definitely wins for system coverage.)

there is also a thai restaurant - or, more specifically, a pan-asian restaurant that runs the gamut - a block from my apartment that’s pretty good. one can’t actually call its pad thai “pad thai” because they added a very peanut-y sauce to the noodles, but it’s darn good anyway. i must say that i was put off by the view of the guy in the kitchen who was cutting up chicken - he was sitting on a plastic pickle barrel, cutting it up on a huuuuge plastic cutting board, and pushing it into a bowl that was on the floor in between his legs. but the “pad thai” is so good that i'm willing to overlook that; besides, i've never gotten sick…

on the way to TAC quick, we discovered a mexican bakery. this is how it went down (to use a lauren-ism) : jazmin, mimi and i walk to the pizza place to check out the menu. we pass a bakery on the way. we decide to go to the thai place so we pass the bakery again, and if you’ve seen the way that i look at bakeries, well, this was no exception. i don’t think it’s in me to pass up a bakery, wherever i am. most of the time i don’t even want anything; i just like bakeries. i would like to live above a bakery…anyway, this bakery turned out to be mexican, which thrilled mimi, who is cuban. it was charming in its spareness - or, not quite charming, but somehow it felt like home even though the bakery part was a bunch of tall wooden cabinets with glass doors, and behind the cabinets was the actual bakery area, and the floors were concrete. maybe it was just because i have been so starved for things that will make this city seem like home to me - a bakery was exactly the right thing. chicago still doesn’t feel like home, but i feel a lot better having been inside a bakery for the first time since i got here. i will most certainly have to check out the scandinavian bakery i saw on my way to dunlay’s.

recent exploits (or lack thereof)

as i am still somewhat recovering from the food exploits of the week after finals, i have not really done anything culinarily interesting lately; i suppose there are only a few interesting points. i also have just settled into my apartment and internship in chicago.

the second night diana (my roommate) was here, we went out to dinner at a local place about a block away. i forget what it's called, but i think the name has "noodle" in it. basically, it's a mix of chinese and thai food. i had the pad thai (someone keep reminding me that i don't like fried wontons, so i stop ordering them because they're cheaper than the dumplings), and it was really fantastic. the noodles were sauced more heavily than i'm used to, but it didn't detract from them, and of course the magic ingredient (as thai basil is with drunken noodles) was the lime wedge squeezed over the noodles. pad thai is not pad thai without the lime wedge. anyway, the chicken was perfectly cooked, and now i'm hungry just thinking about it... i adore thai food, cold, for breakfast the next day.

last wednesday we went to the press preview of taste of chicago. i must say, i'm not particularly impressed with the food. it's a little like the new york times article on restaurant week, where chefs use lower-grade ingredients. i mean, at the taste of chicago you're not getting really high-end cuisine, but i was hoping it would be a bit more varied than it was. i don't really see pizza as a food i want to have that often, but it seems to be popular here. the cheesecake was frozen, which is always a bad sign, and even the cheesecake factory makes better cheesecake. in other cost-cutting measures, the people who had the chocolate-covered strawberries used milk chocolate, not dark chocolate, which is just an insult to the strawberry. i'm not even arguing really about the quality, which isn't something you're expecting from the taste of chicago. what i was hoping for was more variety - more ethnic foods, more things i'd never tried. very few people have never had pizza.

this past week i discovered (a) tokyo lunch box and (b) jamba juice. we don't have jamba juice in cambridge, though i believe BU has one. well, diana and i walked around a block just to take a walk, and discovered the "hidden" lunch corridor, with jamba juice at the closer corner. "lunch corridor" even seems like it's slightly hidden because it's on a street (wells, i believe) with el tracks in the middle of it, so the space to walk in seems really narrow - el tracks on one side of the sidewalk, buildings on the other. there are a bunch of places, from falafel to a regular deli, to tokyo lunch box. tokyo lunch box is basically fast food, but japanese. it's a little expensive - my teriyaki chicken bowl was $6 (hey, when you can get a six-inch sub at subway for $2.49, life is good) - but it was really, really, really good. i'm not sure how it hit the spot so well. but the chicken was perfectly cooked, the teriyaki sauce was phenomenal, and the rice was wonderful - i really like japanese rice. maybe i was just really hungry. ok, the vegetables that came with it were a little crunchy and there weren't enough of them (though i wasn't expecting them anyway). but the two large pieces of fried tofu that came with them were a pleasant surprise. i think it was also a vague memory of bento boxes - ie, lunch for anal people.

as for jamba juice, the first day i went in, i encountered the most perky person i have ever met in my life. this guy could have been a cartoon character, that was how over-the-top perky he was. it was a little frightening. i'm not a fan of the smell in jamba juice - the combination of the smells of all of the smoothies is a little off-kilter - but the peach pleasure i got was great. and, it had nothing in it that i'm allergic to, so no itchy throat for me! i am also jealous of the industrial blenders they have. diana and i had a bit of a grass drink (wheatgrass and orange juice, i think) and it was the consistency of water. that is a darn good blender they've got there.

at the beginning of the past week (or actually, it was the saturday before this past saturday), diana and i went grocery shopping. i had bought some chicken, and seeing as the chicken at the co-op generally looks really scary, and oddly dark/bright, i wanted to cook it as soon as possible. this wasn't even the supermarket brand - it was bell and evans. i didn't get around to cooking it until wednesday night, and even then the chicken smelled just a tad off. i cooked it anyway - for over an hour. i started by browning the chicken, then taking it out (it was drumsticks) and cooking some onions. i added some tomatoes, then added broth and the chicken back in. the liquid, 45 minutes later, still wasn't quite cooking off enough, so i added some japanese rice. it promptly turned into risotto, and i added the mushrooms and asparagus that i had as well. i'm happy to say that this combination is a great one. and the chicken is fantastic - just the way bell and evans should be. ha! this proves i'm slowly getting back into my cooking groove. cooking is always slow to start up in a new place, especially when you're living in someone else's furnishings. you're never quite sure what they have, and what they don't have. oh, also, i made pancakes on saturday morning. nothing better than pancakes with your cold maple syrup.

and finally, last night we went to the signature lounge. we didn't get anything to eat there - we had a quick bite at navy pier, which was quite satisfying (chicken burger with onions, pickles, and lots of mustard and ketchup). i did, however, have an outstanding martini - the michigan avenue: belvedere vodka, vermouth, and olives. mmmm...that was really, really good. unsurprisingly, much better than the one i had at crossroads on betsy's birthday. the signature lounge is basically top of the hub, but higher - they're even similar in decor. there is a dining room downstairs on the 95th floor, which jan (another intern) tells me has a fantastic buffet.

oh, and yesterday afternoon diana and i stopped by the puerto rican festival. for the food, naturally. it was really good - i wouldn't have thought before the past couple of years that rice and beans could be so wonderful. our next question (maybe for this week) is to find really good indian food.

review : stelllaaah (stella)

i wonder how many people get the urge to say "stelllllaaaaaaaaaah!" when they come to this restaurant. of course when they do get this urge, they squash it because they're young and hip, and besides, stella, in the south end on washington street, hasn't been open for that long. stella is a scant five minutes from my sister's apartment, and despite the service missteps and a few food mishaps, it's still a place i'd go back to (when they're a little older and have ironed out all their little problems. overall, it's a great place that's not too expensive (a little expensive for college students - entrees are 16-22).

entering the restaurant makes me feel like i should be on cape cod or martha's vineyard. the restaurant is white inside, and the waiters are all wearing white - i felt like there should be sand on the floor. the restaurant has a slightly odd layout because it spans doorways on a corner, so we walked through a passageway, past the kitchen, to get to our table.

one of the things that my sister remarked later in the meal was that she didn't know how the restaurant was going to be able to maintain its prices. i have no idea either. the tables are granite-topped, the silverware is villeroy and boch...let's not even ask where the plates are from (not quite tactless enough to pick up the plate and peer at the label on the underside). even our seating arrangement was awkward - far too much space for a party of five.

we started with the mussels and the caesar salad. the mussels were pretty good - i'm starting to actually like them again - but there was no serving spoon. every time someone took a mussel, they would look longingly at the rich, delicious-looking broth at the bottom of the bowl, and wish they had a spoon. but we didn't have one, and the waitstaff didn't notice, either. on the bright side, the caesar salad is probably the best one i've ever had in my life; the dressing was fantastic, the greens were crunchy and tasted clean, and they were perfectly dressed. my one beef - who serves croutons as a huge thing? the thing i like about salads is the bite-sized aspect of them - for me, a salad includes only pieces that can be stabbed by a fork and easily deposited in my mouth. i have no desire to look like the clumsy oaf who can't help but get salad dressing everywhere. so the crouton was in one piece - how does one cut a crouton that's one piece? how can anyone think that's convenient? food that is beautiful but illogical really bothers me; perhaps it's the engineer in me. the quality of the rest of the salad, though, definitely made up for the crouton blunder. and the crouton, while difficult to eat (and a bit too toasted for my taste), tasted fantastic.

i had a similar mixed reaction to the main course. i had the truffled fettuccine, which had an asparagus cream sauce and a poached egg. i realize now that i should have sent the thing back. i loved the fettuccine, the truffled aspect of it, and the asparagus cream sauce - these were all absolutely outstanding, bold, heady, and perfectly balanced. but the egg was not poached. i don't know who ok'ed sending that thing out with an egregiously over-poached egg on it, but i hope they either fixed their problems or got fired. my mother's pork chop milanese, however, was fantastic, although i don't think it was what she was expecting (it's basically like wienerspaetzle) - the pork chop was great with the tomato sauce, which tasted really fresh. likewise, my sister's mushroom pizza was really good - crust crispier and thinner than an emma's pizza, but not too trendily thin, and the mushrooms were great. it was oversalted - as food often is nowadays, oddly enough - but the mushrooms were very adequately earthy.

for dessert, we split a couple of cannoli and a piece of tiramisu. the tiramisu, i'm happy to note, was real tiramisu, down to the mascarpone cream. it was also pretty well balanced in terms of coffee and rum. the cannoli were a letdown; the cannoli cream was a little runny and too vanilla-y - they just didn't taste italian (whatever that means).

i don't know how this happened - the service was adequate, if spotty, until we wanted the check. all of us were falling asleep and my parents were heading home that night, so we asked for the check. we got it the second time we asked, and we got our server to pick up the check when we finally asked. and then, finally, we left.

all in all, i would go back to stella - the memory of the fettuccine is that good - but by the time i go back, i hope that all of their service problems will have been resolved.

favorites : restaurants

favorite restaurant of all time
cyclops in the belltown neighborhood of seattle. $15-20. a neighborhood restaurant that changes its menu frequently, which i like to view as a desire to experiment with new kinds of food. in the summer of 2002 i had the most exquisite chocolate pot de creme: intensely chocolate, just sweet enough with no sour aftertaste, dense, flavored with grand marnier, with a curl of candied orange peel on top. oh, and did i mention that it was baked in a teacup? one small teacup - about a third of a cup in volume - was enough for two people. nothing i've had since has even compared.

favorite restaurant in boston/cambridge
pigalle. $36 (3-course prix fixe). i went there with two friends during restaurant week, and fell in love. a smallish restaurant with a great waitstaff. impeccable pacing of the meal, and the food was simple, but absolutely wonderful.

french
craigie street bistrot, harvard square area. $60 (appetizer, main course, and dessert). on the more traditional side, with very simple preparations and exquisite ingredients. the result is absolute food heaven. on the downside, it's also exquisitely expensive.
pigalle, theater district. see above. more modern than craigie street bistrot.
aquitaine, south end. $20-30 (appetizer + main course; desserts $8). more affordable, but very good. always busy, especially for sunday brunch, which is excellent.

the hamburger
joe sent me, between alewife and porter square. $6-10 (burger + drink). unfortunately more accessible by car than by anything else, but it has burgers as good as bartley's (if not better). it's also cheaper, although you may spend the saved cash on transportation. joe sent me is dominated by the bar - think massive plasma screens all over the place, showing football, basketball, baseball - and law and order. really good chicken wings. go here to escape the collegiate types.
bartley's burger cottage, harvard square. $10-14 (burger + milkshake). closer than joe sent me, with a longer menu (joe sent me has about 10 burgers). really good milkshakes.
pour house, boylston street near the pru. $5-8 (burger + milkshake, or appetizers + milkshake). go here more for the "collegiate atmosphere," milkshakes, and appetizers, not the cheap, prefab, cardboard burgers (half-price on saturdays).
aquitaine, south end. $10 (burger). sunday brunch burger is absolutely fabulous. the yuppie burger, too: on a toasted brioche bun with gruyere cheese. worth it, though.

indian
a taste of india on huntington ave near symphony hall. $20 (naan, appetizer, main dish). i think it's changed names, but it's still owned by the same people. best indian food i've had in boston, plus great decor. tiny, too, so it has a great, intimate feel (yes, i went there on a date).
bindhi bazaar, mass ave. good, serviceable indian food. some people say it's authentic, some people say it's not. at any rate, it tastes good.

fast food
wendy's, boylston street across from copley square. $3-5. i always get the same thing: a junior bacon cheeseburger, chicken nuggets with honey mustard sauce, and a frosty. cheaper, better fast food can't be found anywhere else. the added plus of the boylston street location is the second floor window area, where you can watch people go by on the street.

chinese
peach farm, chinatown. $7-13. for real chinese food. really cheap if you go with lots of friends and eat family-style.
mary chung, central square. $7-16. for american chinese food. i always have the peking ravioli (fried) with its exquisite, spicy ginger soy sauce, and the suan la chow show.

best decor and lighting
lumiere, in newton. $20-30. the whole room is white - but it's an off-white, and it glows rather than dazzling and blinding you. somehow it makes you feel happier.

pizza
picco, south end. $7-10 (just pizza). fabulously chewy-but-not-too-chewy, cracklingly-crisp-just-on-the-very-bottom crust. in short, the perfect pizza crust. good toppings, with specials every night, and great decor (including an upscale diner-like bar counter).
emma's pizza, kendall square. $7-10. great pizzas, but sometimes a little too thin crust for my liking. has a traditional, floury pizza crust, rather than the picco crust, which has a closer resemblance to foccacia.

note: all prices include tax and tip.