Lily and I are in Atlanta now, cooking (and freezing) up a storm for my sister, who is just about ready to pop out my second niece. We haven't eaten anywhere special in Atlanta other than my own cooking, which is very very special...just kidding. We drove here from Washington D.C., with a stopover at my grandmother's house in Rockingham, NC.
In D.C. we had the pleasure of dining at Jaleo with our friend Allison. Jaleo is the flagship Spanish tapas restaurant owned by Jose Andres, who owns multiple restaurants in the D.C. area. I've been anticipating eating there for a while, after hearing about how authentically spot-on their food is compared to the food you would eat in Madrid. Lily and I went to Spain a couple years ago, where our night time activity usually involved tapas-bar hopping. We fell in love with the food there, and we've been craving some really excellent tapas ever since. So, Jaleo seemed the obvious place to get our fix.
My 92 year old grandmother's southern fried chicken was better.
Here's some highs and lows from what we chose at Jaleo:
Sangria - the best part of the meal. Theirs was on par with or better than most of what we drank in Madrid and Barcelona. It's pretty much the same as what you fin in most bars in Spain - wine, brandy, citrus, and a bit of sugar - except they add diced apples which I enjoyed to eat and crunch on.
Pan con tomate - toasted bread with pureed tomatos spread on top - the tomato spread was too wet and too plentiful, so the bread was soggy by the time you ate two bites. We ordered this in Spain a lot, and remember that most of the tapas bars were much more sparing with the tomato spread on top so the bread didn't get soggy.
Selection of all their cheeses - all the cheeses were very good, but curiously and annoyingly were served with breadsticks instead of bread. My favorite was the cana de cabra - a harder goat cheese washed in red wine. The preserved apricots accompanying the cheeses were nice.
Jamon Iberico - only in the past couple of years has this stuff been allowed on American soil by the USDA. I love this stuff, but the jamon they served us was from the lower, less fatty part of the leg, and it was sliced thicker than my liking. It was still good, but I really hoping for fatty jamon Iberico sliced thin so that the fat melts the second it hits your tongue.
Patatas bravas - in Spain this is chunks of fried potatos covered in aioli and spicy (hence bravas = brave) tomato sauce. For some reason Jaleo decided to do it differently and use thinly sliced fried potatoes (like potato chips) instead of whole chunks of potato. The aioli was nice, but the dish missed the mark. They advertised it on the menu as "a modern twist on a classic", but I'd prefer to call it "a classic done wrong".
Salt cod fritters with honey aioli for dipping - my favorite tapas of the night - salty, sweet, slightly fishy, and fried...perfect hangover food which I was left craving next morning.
Croquetas de pollo - these were uninspired - batter is mixed with not enough boiled chicken and then fried not enough - the inside was oozing with raw batter...not for me.
Don't get me wrong...Jaleo was okay, but not great. And I will give them the benefit of the doubt - we came on a Friday night during restaurant week and it was packed. But still, it's the little things that left me slightly disappointed...the annoying rendition of patatas bravas, the too-quiet server, the soggy pan con tomate, the not-fatty-enough jamon iberico.
My grandma taught me how to make her fried chicken, which is as simple as can be (like most tapas actually), and it is her attention to detail - the little things - that makes it great. It's all in the amount she seasons her chicken, the thickness of the egg-milk mixture she uses, the amount of flour she packs on, the gentle bubbling heat of the oil she fries it in, and the patting dry of excess grease when it's done. Her chicken is close to the P-word...(perfect...I dare say).
That's the story of how my 92 year old grandma cooks better than a kitchen full of celebrity-chef-trained cooks in a nationally well-known restaurant.
-Wax
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Craft - simple and delicious
Last night we had the pleasure of dining at Craft in Manhattan. Lily and I went with by brother Aaron, sister-in-law Diana, and Diana's cousins Glen and Anelle. I got to pick the restaurant, and while I was considering going to a place well known for an excellent tasting menu and eating that way, I decided that we could really enjoy some very well-prepared, simple food presented family style so we can all share. The six of us ordered the perfect amount of food, which met my high expectations.
Here's what we ordered for the first course (enjoyed with a nice but slightly-too-sweet Sauvignon Blanc):
-Mizuna salad with walnuts, peaches, and truffle vinaigrette, Arugula salad with preserved lemon: these salads were both simple and excellent - especially the mizuna salad with its aromatic truffle vin
-Ragout of escargots with garlic and herb purees, topped with a poached farm egg - I only got one bite of this, but wow - probably my favorite preparation of escargots I've ever had (although I haven't had it more than a handful of times)
-Porchetta with pickled chantarelles and radishes - the head of the pig braised for a long time and then rolled and set in a terrine, then sliced thin. Porky, fatty - a winner for me.
First courses were all close to perfect, but it wasn't a lot of food for the six of us so we were a bit worried about the entree sizes. However, we ordered just enough to leave room for dessert, and ate our second course accompanied by a Super Tuscan red (delicious):
-Whole roasted milk fed poulard with currants and currant gravy: I was worried when they presented this to the table bringing it back to slice it that the skin wasn't very brown (which I like), but in fact the skin was perfectly crispy, every part was juicy and tender, and the gravy was nicely sweet-tart.
-Braised shortribs: everyone liked these for how fall-apart tender they were (probably braised for a long, long time), but I do like a bit of structural integrity when eating braised meats - so it melts in your mouth before it melts off your fork. Still, very good.
-A two pound one month dry aged bone-in cote du boeuf (ribeye), served with two roasted marrow bones: I ate the bone peice, and it was excellent - salty, fatty, and aged very nicely. They were accommodating in cooking half of this medium rare for some of us and medium for the rest. My one complaint for the whole meal - the one single item that I was annoyed by - was that the marrow bones weren't roasted long enough, and the marrow coated your mouth with a fatty residue instead of melting in your mouth.
-Sides - Gnocchi, roasted hen of the woods mushrooms (maitaki), braised swiss chard, squid ink risotto: The gnocchi were very simply prepared (tossed with butter and herbs) but they were so good that 1) we ordered another order and 2) I became jealous and angry because they were better than the gnocchi I make. The mushrooms were perfect - nice and simple like everything else. The swiss chard was nice and earthy, and the squid ink risotto (with peices of squid) was also very good.
After we practically licked every plate clean from our entree course, we ordered dessert. We each had different beverages which I cannot report on, but I had a wonderful not-too-sweet '89 Vouvrais that was perfect. They offered four composed desserts, and then had a section of "create your own dessert", which is just pick a pastry and a flavor of ice cream or sorbet (served in separate dishes). We ordered this course individually, but ended up sharing everything:
-Two of us ordered sorbet/ice cream samplers, highlights were: yogurt, cantaloupe, and plum sorbets, honey ice cream: all ranging from good to I'm-eating-this-don't-touch-it. We got to try pretty much very sorbet and ice cream they had on the menu
-I ordered the sweet polenta cake with blueberries and blueberry sorbet - it was basically a warm blueberry muffin, only one of the best muffins you've ever had. Good, but not great.
-Someone ordered some warm doughnuts, and I was happy for it
-Diana ordered the winner - a "make your own" pairing of bananas roasted in caramel sauce and brown butter ice cream. I got one bite of this, and I'm not a huge banana fan, but wow this was delicious. Simple, too (you see the theme?)
That's pretty much everything we ate last night. Afterwards I asked to see the kitchen because I was curious, so Lily and I checked it out. The chef de cuisine (James) gave me a tour, and he seemed like a really nice guy. I asked him if he'd consider taking me on for a couple weeks sometime next year, and he said sure. So yeah - I might work at Craft at the tail end of our trip!
It was really an amazing meal - definitely one of the top 20 of my life. It got me thinking about the factors that go into a great meal, a subject that I'll write about on my next blog post (this one is long enough). One of the top factors of really good meal is the company you share it with. We had a great time, and for some reason that makes everything taste a little bit better.
-Wax
Here's what we ordered for the first course (enjoyed with a nice but slightly-too-sweet Sauvignon Blanc):
-Mizuna salad with walnuts, peaches, and truffle vinaigrette, Arugula salad with preserved lemon: these salads were both simple and excellent - especially the mizuna salad with its aromatic truffle vin
-Ragout of escargots with garlic and herb purees, topped with a poached farm egg - I only got one bite of this, but wow - probably my favorite preparation of escargots I've ever had (although I haven't had it more than a handful of times)
-Porchetta with pickled chantarelles and radishes - the head of the pig braised for a long time and then rolled and set in a terrine, then sliced thin. Porky, fatty - a winner for me.
First courses were all close to perfect, but it wasn't a lot of food for the six of us so we were a bit worried about the entree sizes. However, we ordered just enough to leave room for dessert, and ate our second course accompanied by a Super Tuscan red (delicious):
-Whole roasted milk fed poulard with currants and currant gravy: I was worried when they presented this to the table bringing it back to slice it that the skin wasn't very brown (which I like), but in fact the skin was perfectly crispy, every part was juicy and tender, and the gravy was nicely sweet-tart.
-Braised shortribs: everyone liked these for how fall-apart tender they were (probably braised for a long, long time), but I do like a bit of structural integrity when eating braised meats - so it melts in your mouth before it melts off your fork. Still, very good.
-A two pound one month dry aged bone-in cote du boeuf (ribeye), served with two roasted marrow bones: I ate the bone peice, and it was excellent - salty, fatty, and aged very nicely. They were accommodating in cooking half of this medium rare for some of us and medium for the rest. My one complaint for the whole meal - the one single item that I was annoyed by - was that the marrow bones weren't roasted long enough, and the marrow coated your mouth with a fatty residue instead of melting in your mouth.
-Sides - Gnocchi, roasted hen of the woods mushrooms (maitaki), braised swiss chard, squid ink risotto: The gnocchi were very simply prepared (tossed with butter and herbs) but they were so good that 1) we ordered another order and 2) I became jealous and angry because they were better than the gnocchi I make. The mushrooms were perfect - nice and simple like everything else. The swiss chard was nice and earthy, and the squid ink risotto (with peices of squid) was also very good.
After we practically licked every plate clean from our entree course, we ordered dessert. We each had different beverages which I cannot report on, but I had a wonderful not-too-sweet '89 Vouvrais that was perfect. They offered four composed desserts, and then had a section of "create your own dessert", which is just pick a pastry and a flavor of ice cream or sorbet (served in separate dishes). We ordered this course individually, but ended up sharing everything:
-Two of us ordered sorbet/ice cream samplers, highlights were: yogurt, cantaloupe, and plum sorbets, honey ice cream: all ranging from good to I'm-eating-this-don't-touch-it. We got to try pretty much very sorbet and ice cream they had on the menu
-I ordered the sweet polenta cake with blueberries and blueberry sorbet - it was basically a warm blueberry muffin, only one of the best muffins you've ever had. Good, but not great.
-Someone ordered some warm doughnuts, and I was happy for it
-Diana ordered the winner - a "make your own" pairing of bananas roasted in caramel sauce and brown butter ice cream. I got one bite of this, and I'm not a huge banana fan, but wow this was delicious. Simple, too (you see the theme?)
That's pretty much everything we ate last night. Afterwards I asked to see the kitchen because I was curious, so Lily and I checked it out. The chef de cuisine (James) gave me a tour, and he seemed like a really nice guy. I asked him if he'd consider taking me on for a couple weeks sometime next year, and he said sure. So yeah - I might work at Craft at the tail end of our trip!
It was really an amazing meal - definitely one of the top 20 of my life. It got me thinking about the factors that go into a great meal, a subject that I'll write about on my next blog post (this one is long enough). One of the top factors of really good meal is the company you share it with. We had a great time, and for some reason that makes everything taste a little bit better.
-Wax
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Done at Primo, wish I wasn't
On Thursday Lily and I sadly left our temporary home that was the employee parking lot at Primo. We'll miss the pigs, and plants, and of course the people the most. I learned so much in the kitchen, Lily learned a lot in the garden, and we ate so much great food during our stay. I can see myself working in that kind of restaurant for a long time, and I have a feeling we'll be back at Primo at some point, possibly to work and if not, definitely to eat.
After a couple days back home, I've been thinking a bit about my experience in Rockland and why Primo is so different than any other restaurant I have worked at before. I came to a realization that can be explained by some of the things the employees do when they are not at work:
One server named Evan is a mushroom foraging junky. Every nice-weather day before work, he heads to his spots in the forest and picks beautiful (and safe) wild mushrooms for the restaurant, which for the past couple weeks have been mostly big, red, beautifugly lobster mushrooms. Evan shows his daily catch to a couple of people every day, who in turn inquire about any recent mushroom turf-wars, prod him for his secret spots, and ask when chantarelles are coming up.
One day on a mutual day off, a couple of cooks headed to the ocean to pick sea beans, a sort of small sea-weed like plant that tastes like the salty sea grass. They brought in a bag full of sea beans to show Chef, with "look at what we got" expressions on their faces. Chef tasted one and nodded approvingly and thanked them. They went up to eat dinner at the bar and were taken care of as a reward.
We ate five wonderful meals at the bar during our stay. Each time we went up to the bar, there were at least two or three other Primo employees on their day off who came to eat dinner at the bar. One night, the whole bar was filled with Primo employees drinking good drink and eating great grub. These people love the food they cook or serve so much that they eat at their own restaurant regularly, at a frequency far beyond any other restaurant I have encountered. One night I grilled the grill cook (sorry) Jason about why he doesn't get "desensitized" from the food he cooks and sees all the time. He defends by saying the food at Primo is simply way better than any other options in the area, and instead of ordering something off the grill which he handles, cooks, smells, and sees every day, he just orders off the saute station.
I have come to the conclusion that most of the people at Primo share a common passion for food that extends beyond their hours at work. True, for a handful of people Primo is just a job to them like at any restaurant, but many employees are in Rockland, ME, or have stayed in Rockland, because of Primo.
-Wax
After a couple days back home, I've been thinking a bit about my experience in Rockland and why Primo is so different than any other restaurant I have worked at before. I came to a realization that can be explained by some of the things the employees do when they are not at work:
One server named Evan is a mushroom foraging junky. Every nice-weather day before work, he heads to his spots in the forest and picks beautiful (and safe) wild mushrooms for the restaurant, which for the past couple weeks have been mostly big, red, beautifugly lobster mushrooms. Evan shows his daily catch to a couple of people every day, who in turn inquire about any recent mushroom turf-wars, prod him for his secret spots, and ask when chantarelles are coming up.
One day on a mutual day off, a couple of cooks headed to the ocean to pick sea beans, a sort of small sea-weed like plant that tastes like the salty sea grass. They brought in a bag full of sea beans to show Chef, with "look at what we got" expressions on their faces. Chef tasted one and nodded approvingly and thanked them. They went up to eat dinner at the bar and were taken care of as a reward.
We ate five wonderful meals at the bar during our stay. Each time we went up to the bar, there were at least two or three other Primo employees on their day off who came to eat dinner at the bar. One night, the whole bar was filled with Primo employees drinking good drink and eating great grub. These people love the food they cook or serve so much that they eat at their own restaurant regularly, at a frequency far beyond any other restaurant I have encountered. One night I grilled the grill cook (sorry) Jason about why he doesn't get "desensitized" from the food he cooks and sees all the time. He defends by saying the food at Primo is simply way better than any other options in the area, and instead of ordering something off the grill which he handles, cooks, smells, and sees every day, he just orders off the saute station.
I have come to the conclusion that most of the people at Primo share a common passion for food that extends beyond their hours at work. True, for a handful of people Primo is just a job to them like at any restaurant, but many employees are in Rockland, ME, or have stayed in Rockland, because of Primo.
-Wax
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