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