egluttony

Brasserie Les Halles - New York City

2006-04-04T19:25:00.000-04:00

This restaurant is now well-known as a result of the efforts of Anthony Bourdain and his Les Halles Cookbook, which I have reviewed in a previous posting. Les Halles has two NYC locations. I visited the original one in Park Avenue twice in the last couple of weeks, preparing, I confess, to encounter something overexposed and oversold. I have to say it is neither.

For elegant décor, Les Halles is not the first place to look. The atmosphere is Stygian, and although it is now smoke-free, years of Gauloises are imprinted on the dark ceiling. The gloom is accentuated by wooden paneling and dim lighting. On my first visit the restaurant was not busy and seated us quickly. Next time we had to wait, despite a reservation, in the bustling foyer, beside the meat counter, dodging servers delivering meals to the glassed-in front area.

The menu is serious bistro fare – although broader in ambition than many Parisian brasseries. My first meal was with a group, which gave a good selection of appetizers to sample. The Foie Gras Poëlé aux Pommes featured foie gras from the Hudson Valley – a pairing of slightly tart apples balancing the rich liver. I had the Rilettes du Boucher – a generous helping of tasty pork and fat, on warm toast. My companions spoke well of the Escargots and the Terrine du Jour. My second visit I tried the Vol au Vent aux Champignons Sauvages - abundant mushrooms in a dark, woody sauce that had slightly too much salt.

The main courses showcase beef – although I was slightly disappointed by an absence of offal. Onglet or hanger steak is more frequent on menus now, and I was tempted to compare with my own. The steak was cut horizontally, as opposed to vertically across the section of the steak. This is the more traditionally correct approach used in France, but it yields a slightly tougher piece of meat to bite into. That said, this was cooked expertly and was accompanied by superb frites, dark and crunchy but soft-centered. If the light had been slightly better I could probably have seen the crystals of salt glistening on top.

On my second visit my wife had the Pieds de Cochon, and my son chose a Steak Tartare, experted put together at our table. The meat was tender without mushiness, and not overwhelmed by the accompanying raw egg, onion and brandy. The Paleron Béarnaise was also an opportunity to try a cut we don’t see in the US, and did not disappoint.

Les Halles makes a point of presenting American beef, which Anthony Bourdain rightly says is vastly superior to its French equivalent, as part of traditional French cuisine. Many bistros in France serve meat that is lamentably tough, so Les Halles offers a rare opportunity to occupy the two worlds at their best. The menu is packed with interesting choices, and selection is difficult. I would have liked to try the cassoulet, the choucroute and the duck.

The wine list is interesting and good value – fairly traditional in emphasis, with nods to both to less traveled regions such as Madiran, and to the expensive end of Bordeaux. We had two bottles of Pomerol one time and subsequently a bottle of Chateau Cardonne, a 2000 Médoc – an excellent wine at $45. The also have well-priced Sauternes by the half-bottle.

Les Halles is not a bank-breaker by any means – in fact for New York this is exceptional value. Three people can eat well for $140 plus tip. This kind of cooking owes more to craft than art and nothing to artifice. There is no solemn maitre d’ and a complete absence of bombast. Perhaps not an ideal first date place, particularly if one is trying to convey an impression of refined asceticism. People come here to eat, not to talk or be seen. In fact conversation is occasionally quite difficult and the tables are closely packed. Although brasserie cuisine is now common, even chic, it is not at all easy to do this kind of food well. Les Halles is probably not everyone’s idea of a great restaurant, but to me it is represents close to a perfect expression of a great tradition.

Kumquats and the propagation thereof

2006-02-27T13:59:00.000-05:00

Sundays’ New York Times has a good article by Amanda Hesser on kumquats with the following remarkable information on traditional methods of propagation:

Kumquats, which are not citrus fruits but belong to another genus, originated in China and have been cultivated across Asia for centuries. They inspired some unorthodox grafting techniques: in "The Oxford Companion to Food," Alan Davidson cites this bit of instruction from the "Book of Nabatean Agriculture," a 10th-century Iraqi text: "The branch which is to be grafted must be in the hand of a beautiful damsel, whilst a male person has disgraceful and unnatural sexual intercourse with her; during intercourse the woman grafts the branch into the tree."

The author then drily remarks:

Modern growers have streamlined the cultivation process somewhat.

The High-End Kitchen

2006-02-24T12:24:00.000-05:00

Are We Worthy of Our Kitchens is the title of an interesting article in The New Atlantis  by Christine Rosen about the seemingly-endless striving for the perfect kitchen by a population which increasingly spends very little time eating at home en famille.    She points to the vast outlays that some affluent people will make our their kitchen appliances, which aim to place the kind of equipment normally reserved for restaurants at the service of the middle-class household.   The sums involved are indeed impressive.   Some families will happily drop $100,000 on appliances alone.   Mind you for this you get quite a fancy set-up: six burner stovetops that can boil gallons of water is a minute or hold the most delicate sauce at a faint simmer.   Multiple electric ovens, dishwashers and refrigerators, exotic and expensive coffee makers – there is no apparent limit.   Is this is all quite pointless?  If, as Rosen suggests, the highest culinary peaks scaled in many expensive kitchens is the heating of TV dinners, then this might seem a little overboard.  However, I do think that there is something positive going on in general trend both in appliance design and in architecture but also is sociological terms.

Visiting a house of the 1960s, the role of the kitchen and its presumably female occupant, was quite clear.   The room was small, ill-appointed, and inconvenient, often very poorly lit.   In more modern or redesigned houses the kitchen itself tends to have a central place, where at the very least the statement is made that what goes on here is not a furtive process away from the eyes of family or guests.   Light has been shed on cooking, the preparation of food and the place that these activities hold in our social arrangements.   This has been accompanied by an interest in ingredients, preparation and authenticity in cooking.   People may eat out more than they did, but they tend, on the whole, to be much more discriminating about what they eat.

From a selfish point of view, this trend towards high-end kitchen consumption is not to be sneered at.  If appliance makers were truly to depend for their market on those people who can justify spending tens of thousands on their kitchens by the amount of time they spend cooking in them excellent food, then we would all be cooking over two-burner gas grills.

I should declare that we have a Francis Francis! coffee maker that cost the equivalent of hundreds of cups of Starbucks.   It does, however, make excellent coffee and gets used daily.   I would like to upgrade my Jenn-Aire cooktop though.   Christine Rosen has got me thinking about about a La Cornue, now there is a serious piece of equipment.

Hanger steak

2006-02-20T20:44:00.000-05:00

I located Hanger Steak at a butcher at the West Side Market in Cleveland. I had to place an order by Monday for Saturday pick-up as the restaurants usually get them all.

Hanger steak in the market is not expensive, around $16.50 for 3½ pounds of meat. They needed extensive trimming but the end cost was less than $5/lb. You can buy hanger steak online for around $16/lb from several mail order sites.

The hanger steak is defined as “the thick strip of meat that is located on the underside of the carcass and hangs between the last rib and the loin”. It is part of the diaphragm and like the tenderloin is not a load-bearing muscle. This means that it is not toughened by exercise. It looks like a shortened, rather untidy filet mignon, not as long or deep but about the same width. There are a few straggling ends to contend with – altogether this cut of meat is not built for looks.

Some authorities recommend marinade but we cooked these simply, following Anthony Bourdain’s recipe for Onglet Gascon. I seared each seasoned hanger steak in two portions in a very hot cast-iron skillet, carefully turning it so that all sides and the end got cooked. This took about three minutes. I finished it in the oven set at 350F, for five minutes – which was not enough – it needed another four minutes. This is a thick steak! Meanwhile my daughter cooked frites and green beans.

Before serving I let the meat rest for five minutes and cut the steaks into 1” slices, topping each slice with a reduction from the pan of white wine and demi-glace. The center of the steak was dark red, but warm. The benefit of slicing it like this is that the diner is cutting it with the grain, as opposed to across it.

The result was very tender, without the soft mushiness of filet mignon. The meat has a definite bite to it and a firm taste. It seems to straddle the border between taste and tenderness - the only rival being a rib steak roast. The small amount of sauce gave a little favor and moisture, but it would be fine on its own, whereas filet mignon served plain can be disappointing. Inside the hanger steak is a tough membrane running down the center – another time I would take this out, as it defied any steak knife and looked unappetizing. (Bourdain suggests removing this fiber and butterflying the steaks before grilling, but I would then be cautious about overcooking it). This is quite a lot of food for four people – leftovers went into a lunch salad and were just as good cold.

Chateau Peyre-Lebade

2006-02-16T19:01:00.000-05:00

New regulations adopted in summer 2003 established 247 Cru Bourgeois in the Médoc in three classifications: cru bourgeois exceptionnel, cru bourgeois supérieure, and cru bourgeois. This is an extension on the bottom end of the 1855 classification of five categories of grands cru classés which includes only 61 chateaux, and replaces a somewhat chaotic system of cru bourgeois classifications. This list of 308 chateaux is some indication of the extent of high-quality wine produced in the Médoc.

Many of the crus bourgeois are famous: Phélan-Ségur and Chasse-Spleen for example (both exceptionnel). Chateau Peyre-Lebade is a plain cru bourgeois. The chateau was bought by Baron Edmond de Rothschild in 1979, and has been the subject of major renovation and investment. The wine is a little obscure – it doesn’t seem to be very widely available – and certainly isn’t as famous as the other Rothschild wines. The label design adheres to the Rothschild family style of black and red text with an engraving, all on a cream background.

The wine is predominantly Merlot, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. It is quite tannic, a little unappealing initially, but became softer with time in a decanter. A smooth and imposing wine emerged after about an hour, very balanced and round. No enormous length, but nothing abrupt or harsh, and not overly alcoholic. I would guess that Peyre-Lebade will age very well, and it isn’t clear how much of what comes in this bottle is from the great year – 2000 – or intrinsic excellence at the chateau, but in either case this is a very pleasurable drink. Not cheap, but excellent value at $19.99

Sweetbreads!

2006-02-09T06:29:00.000-05:00

At dinner on Tuesday evening in Johnny’s Bistro in Cleveland I found Veal Sweetbreads on the menu. A generous but not overwhelming portion of three sweetbreads wrapped in bacon and sautéed was served with a small salad. One of my colleagues said that she had always believed sweetbreads to be brains and others who think of them as “Prairie Oysters” or ox testicles. If you explain that these are actually the thymus gland from a calf, the enthusiasm still doesn’t rise noticeably, but there you have it.

Sweetbreads, as I bemoaned in a previous posting, are very difficult to obtain where I live. Even the main market in Cleveland doesn’t seem to have them. What happens to sweetbreads? Where do they go? This is one of life’s mysteries.

Once I asked a supermarket butcher for lamb kidneys, and he replied that they don’t have them anymore. Of course he meant that the lamb carcasses delivered to his store didn’t come with kidneys, but I had an immediate vision of the New Zealand sheep farmer tenderly rounding up his sheep every three days for their dialysis sessions.

Et in Arborio Ego

2006-02-08T20:39:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday I cooked risotto - nothing remarkable there, this happens often. I made a chicken stock from basics, perhaps with a little more care than usual. I peeled carrots and onions, instead of just throwing them in as they are, and I roasted the vegetables separately from the chicken bones so they caramelized properly. If you cast your mind back you will recall that it was Superbowl Sunday - an event which does weird things to the chicken economy. The packs of wings that I often use for stock are astronomically expensive, so instead I bought packs of chicken legs, which were being almost given away. The resulting stock was very clear and flavorful, lacking the slightly unpleasant "stickiness" which comes when you use a lot of bones.

I made the risotto as usual, cooking shallot and garlic in butter then adding the rice, followed after some minutes by white wine, then the gradual ladles of stock…all very normal. I then found that I had no parmesan cheese – disaster! The thought of going out to the stores was unappealing. Toyed with adding a different cheese but in the end simply finished it without. Parmesan cheese is is a well-known source of glutamates – which add the taste that the Japanese call umami – an essential booster to many dishes. I expected this risotto to be very flat but on the contrary it was excellent. Without the dominant taste of cheese it seemed lighter and more delicate - not at all bland. In fact you can get glutamate from roasted vegetables, so this would probably not have worked as well without a stock that included these. I also compensated by adding olive oil and butter at the end. Texture was better than with cheese, and the color was pale creamy white as opposed to the usual glowing yellow.

I wouldn’t do this always – it is more of a risotto to eat with vegetables than one to have under osso bucco, but this was an interesting example of less being more.

Meals in Asia

2006-02-04T23:07:00.000-05:00

You would think that after a trip to Asia I would be able to post lots of exciting food thoughts, but this visit wasn't a particularly inspiring one from the food perspective. In Japan I tried unsuccessfully to distort my itinerary to allow a visit to my favorite sushi restaurant in Osaka. When I got to Kyoto my host was obviously not sure if the gaijin was up for Japanese food because I was given teppanyaki for lunch, which is the Japanese food everyone eats, followed by a visit to an Italian restaurant for dinner. (This was in fact very good, but not what I was hoping for). I dropped heavy hints about how I much I enjoyed Japanese cuisine in case there is a return visit.

In Korea earlier in the week I ate bimbimbap for lunch out of a traditional dolsot or stone pot. This comes to the table at a temperature of around four million degrees Kelvin. Everything continues to cook as you stir the raw egg in, and the rice at the bottom of the pot has developed a satisfying crunchy texture by the time you get to it. Long after I was finished, the pot was still too hot to touch. As with all meals in Korea, this came with kimchee, a kind of fermented cabbage dish that many people have difficulty with. The first taste, slimy cabbage with a definite gasoline afterburn, is pretty horrifying. "Can people really enjoy this?" you think. After a week of it at every meal you begin vaguely to enjoy it and feel a slight sense of betrayal if it doesn't appear.

My wife was spending a week in Korea a few years ago and I bought a big jar of kimchee beforehand. She religiously tried it every day the week before she left and acquired the taste quite quickly. The beauty about buying a huge jar of kimchee is that it can't really go off. Maybe that would be a good project - making your own kimchee.

Meanwhile since I returned I have been posting my pictures from Kyoto – the results of my photography have improved thanks to Picasa – terrific and free photo handling software from Google. The image editing tools are excellently intuitive and allow for a huge range of effective adjustments.

This week I was again running around, a dinner in a restaurant in New Jersey that I will not name, on the grounds that one visit isn’t really a fair evaluation. Truthfully a second visit is not very inviting - flock wallpaper, red lighting and a caricature Italian-Jersey maitre d’. A sashimi appetizer (my own fault, of course, why order sashimi in a place like this?) consisted of four huge rolls of thawed tuna – completely tasteless – wrapped around cooked tuna under a very balsamic salad. Lobster on ribbon pasta – which I had thought would be small chunks, arrived in the shell. The meat was tough and the sauce was rich and gooey. Not what I wanted to tackle when jet-lagged. Excellent bread, though, which always cheers me up.

Yesterday I had hanger steak for lunch – which is a splendid cut of meat that you find only occasionally. It is somewhat the shape of a small tenderloin, but much more texture and taste, a bit like a large and tender flank steak. This cut seems impossible to find at the butchery counter anywhere. I will try the market – as I have a strong ambition to cook this next weekend – perhaps with authentic frites and a sauce with veal demi-glace I have in the freezer. This on reflection is a much more appealing prospect than tackling kimchee.

Kyoto and Tokyo

2006-02-03T16:58:00.000-05:00

After many visits to Japan that involved either Tokyo or Osaka I had an opportunity to spend a short time in Kyoto last week. The former capital of Japan, Kyoto has some oustanding buildings and gardens. We took a short drive through the city – past the old imperial palace and a temple that was described to me as the largest entirely wooden building in the world. I visited three remarkable temples sites: Ryouanji, Kiyomizu-dera and Rokuon-ji. I have heard the story – and don’t know how true it is – that Kyoto was spared the bombing at the end of the Second World War because Truman wanted to preserve the old city. True or not, it was not bombed. Seventeen historic sites in Kyoto are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This cultural richness is in sharp contrast to Tokyo where almost nothing other than the Imperial Palace is from before the war. Historically, the prevailing building construction was wood – so basically everything burned during the bombing in 1945. One could see this as an opportunity to create a modern architectural display-case, but this is scarcely what happened. Tokyo doesn’t enjoy a unique location on the coast, like New York or Hong Kong, and the city is burdened with buildings from uninspiring to ugly. I can’t think of a single iconic building in Tokyo other than the post office tower.

So, if you want to visit Japan go to Kyoto…

The Ryouanji Rock Garden in Kyoto

2006-02-01T05:29:00.000-05:00

Ryouanji Rock Garden - The Lake

The Rock Garden

...more
Unfortunately the ROck Garden is being restored and it is surrounded by white tarpaulin, so an effective shot of the whole garden was impossible.

....

The Calligrapher writes "Rock Garden" in our book
At the temple sites you can buy a blank calligraphy book which you can present to be signed by the calligrapher at each site.

Persimmon tree in Winter
The Persimmin is widely admired in Asia because it retains it fruit throughout the winter. Unfortunately it cannot tolerate any frost.

The Golden Pavilion Rokuon-Ji Temple, Kyoto

2006-01-30T02:06:00.000-05:00

The Golden Pavilion - Rukuon-Ji Temple

Kiyomizu-dera Temple - Kyoto

2006-01-30T01:10:00.000-05:00

The Kiyomizu Temple outside Kyoto is one of Japan's oldest holy sites. The temple dates from 798 but like many Western religious buildings it has been extensively restored, in this case in the 17th century, and it isn't clear what remains from the original. The sprawling complex is a vivid contrast with compact, modern Japan. It attracts many visitors - even on a cold January evening the crowds were out.

Main Gate

Second Gate

Main Building

View from Main Building

Statue

Across the Valley

Steamed crab dumplings

2006-01-29T14:12:00.000-05:00

Steamed Crab Dumplings are a well-known Shanghai delicacy. The dough is quite different from the lighter dumpling wraps you see in Guangzhou or Japan - it is quite heavy and would serve usefully as a building construction material with insulation value of about R25. I asked for a serving of 6 dumplings and was told that this was impossible - the twelve arrived almost instantly. As they cooled an ominous purple froth erupted from the one on the far left. After what I thought a sensible interval I tried one to find that its contents still retained a magma-like temperature. Sticky Rice parcels came elegantly wrapped in lotus leaf bound with string.

Kitsch for Chinese New Year

2006-01-24T15:17:00.000-05:00

The Chinese New Year is approaching and the streets are full of decorations, which is an opportunity for the Chinese both to indulge in kitsch and to turn the occasion into an advertising opportunity. The traditional Chinese lanterns are in the right color, close enough, for Coke.

I spotted these strange dioramas – this one is obviously familiar - and is greeted with happy cries of “Ali Baba!”:

I have no idea what this one is meant to represent:

Yuyuan Garden Shanghai

2006-01-22T03:26:00.000-05:00

Shanghai is a huge building site. Although there has been increased taxation of short-term capital gains from real estate, this hasn’t has any obvious effect on the boom. The old city - a small area more or less surrounded by skyscrapers – is presumably in the developers’ crosshairs. Inside the old city is the Yuyuan Garden, which dates from the 16th century and has been carefully restored and maintained. The garden is divided into separate spaces connected by winding stone paths that give the illusion of being cut from rock. The result is disorienting and gives the sense of being in a much larger area.

The stone work on the pathways is remarkable:
Each distinct area has a feature - a lake, a bridge or a building, some from Ming dynasty.

Today was cold but sunny and there weren't many visitors - which was perfect for pictures. The care being lavished on the Yuyuan Garden suggest that it is safe from development - but I would guess that the old city itself is threatened and when that is built over the garden will be shadowed and diminished. Already the buildings close in:

China

2006-01-21T06:45:00.000-05:00

This blog is meant to be also about travel – but I haven’t had much raw material recently. A day-trip to Minneapolis and an aborted visit to Des Moines have been all the recent grist. I am now on my way to Asia. I have a guidebook from a previous visit, The Best of China, published by China International Press, which obviously received the government imprimatur. It adheres to the party line, in splendidly overheated prose:

“By night, away from the brothels and opium dens lining the Bund’s auxiliary streets, Shanghai’s richest met in the British and French Clubs to quaff whiskey sours while Shanghai’s endless night burnt to its wick”

This deplorable state of affairs was rectified by you-know-who:

“The 1949 liberation of the city by the CCP marked the beginning of a new era for Shanghai. The brothels and opium dens were shut down with the addicts receiving rehabilitation and the prostitutes retraining. Child labor was banned, slums were eliminated and inflation slowed.”

Well, that was a relief, although there is the lingering sense that the pre-Mao days might just have been more fun.

Some of the food writing doesn’t always hit the right note:

“Just off the central pond this [fried dumpling] vendor is hard to miss, just look for the long line of salivating people”

Just don’t step in the drool.

Ricard

2006-01-16T21:50:00.000-05:00

Evelyn Waugh was described by his college tutor as having "an inferiority complex and no palate - drinks Pernod after meals!" Pernod may be viewed as slightly more plebian than other pastis by Oxford dons, but anise aperitifs are generally a bit looked down on. (Maybe after meals was the problem). Pastis has not come full circle and become chic, like cassoulet or rillettes. I side firmly with Waugh in enjoying pastis, although I prefer Ricard to Pernod as it is less sweet.

A few years ago I stayed in a hotel in Alpe d’Huez, and drank Ricard every evening (before dinner, please note). It was always served with a small pitcher and elegant glasses with the Ricard logo. On leaving I asked Jeanette, the proprietor, where I could get them and she wrapped up a set for me as a gift.

The reason that pastis goes cloudy is not cold water, as I used to think, but because aneth is soluble in alcohol but not water. If you leave Ricard and water overnight it will settle into a bicolored solution.

By the way – a great article on rillettes in Becks and Posh.

Beringer Alluvium 1998 $31

2006-01-16T20:06:00.000-05:00

If you are a California wine-maker how do you market Bordeaux-like red wine blends?

For people who like Bordeaux the California wine industry has always posed a problem. Good Californian reds are mostly cabernet sauvignon – chewy, tannic and unapproachable when young. These age well, although slowly, but are usually available on wine lists or stores young – and already expensive. An alternative is merlot, – a softer, more fruity, usually less complex wine. Merlot is “attractive”, meaning “wine for the undiscerning”, and on its own it can come across as uninteresting. In contrast, pinot noir is totally self-sufficient, but it fares best in cooler areas of the state so has never approached the production levels of cabernet sauvignon. A fallback position is zinfandel but anything poured into zinfandel is wasted anyway.

For many years California faced a marketing problem: the American consumer bought by grape variety. If a winery produced a blend, this might be a better wine than a varietal, but how to market it?

Two ideas emerged. One was to invent the word Meritage – the other was to try to go it alone on the name of the winery with a specific tag to indicate a blend. Some of these names are more successful than others.

Alluvium from Beringer is a terrific wine – structured to age well, but drinkable young. It is a little tannic, but not harsh – obviously quite a lot of cabernet – and it unclenches quite rapidly. This is a much better wine than the equivalent cabernet varietal. It has balance and length, along with the characteristic strong berry and oak.

The name Alluvium is unfortunate – overtones of effluvium and opprobrium, and the soil reference is a little heavy-handed.

The phrase “Napa Valley Red Wine” is becoming wine-speak for “interesting and probably expensive blend.” I will start to look out for the most bizarre solution to the naming problem. Presumably someone thought of and rejected Napeaux.

Wine

Zonker and the 1500

2006-01-15T08:53:00.000-05:00

Zonker and the 1500 calorie dessert

Doonesbury today is a reprint from last year – well worth a rerun.

Downtown 140 Hudson - restaurant review

2006-01-14T09:58:00.000-05:00

In late 2004 Downtown 140 opened in a small downstairs dining room on the main street in Hudson, Ohio. Basement conversions are something of a challenge for a restaurant owner – the space is seldom ideal. The dining room here is long and narrow, with attractive stone walls and a low, beamed ceiling. I have eaten here with family, friends and colleagues five or six times in the last year, and have roamed around their interesting menu and wine list. The cooking is inventive and modern with little pretension and no drama. The dishes are divided into Smallest Plates, Small Plates and Not So Small Plates, so diners can mix and match. Downtown 140 avoids the pitfalls of intrusive service and huge portions - either detracts from even the best food. The servings are generally small, and one can certainly tackle an offering from each category without undue strain. Among the smallest are elegant truffled mushroom risotto cakes, oysters, a tuna taco and “artisan” American cheeses, which I suppose one could return to after the not so small plates before finishing with a dessert. The small plates also have a range of less usual salads – the small pear poached in red wine was perfectly ripe, with a small, not overpowering, portion of blue cheese in the center. A field green salad with apple slivers, spanish cheese and almonds was fresh and tart.

The duck cassoulet comes in a small metal pot with a lid – a precisely sufficient helping with small pieces of duck served on the side. Three large sea scallops were firmly seared and moist inside – it came with crawfish ravioli. A small piece of Hudson valley foie gras on toast was superb. Sauces are fashionably sparse but not reduced to stickiness. Downtown 140 seems content to serve small portions on large plates without apology – pointing up the “less is more” theme.

The Executive Chef, Shawn Monday, is a veteran of the grey lady of Hudson, Turner’s Mill, but his menu is vastly more adventurous and inventive. His chief difficulty here must be space, but it obviously allows for much more personal oversight. Courses came out precisely together and nothing appeared to have sat under a lamp. One group of three seats at a bar overlooks the kitchen, which allowed an evening punctuated by casual discussion with the kitchen staff, and an insight into running a 55-seat restaurant out of a tiny galley space.

The wine list is very strong – mainly emphasizing American wines, with a host of possibilities by the glass, ranging up to exotics such as Caymus. On one occasions we had two bottles of Oracle from the Miner Winery – more because my host was in the middle of an Oracle implementation than anything else! This is a Bordeaux-type blend – merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc – and seemed much more aged than its year would suggest. It was smooth, full of character without harshness, and had an even balance. Sadly, on a later visit it had disappeared from the list. A Grgich Hills cabernet reminded me (once more) to avoid young cabernet varietals, and I stuck to a clear, clean Chalone chardonnay.

The service throughout was present, helpful and discreet, and I have never had a sense of being hurried. I suspect that people linger here and Mr. Monday’s throughput is not as rapid as he would like. One colleague told me that he was offered a reservation at 5pm or 9pm on one recent attempt, suggesting a conscious plan to turn more tables. Prices are not elevated for the quality of food and preparation, and Downtown 140 seems to be busy most evenings.

The dining room is loud – a combination of low ceilings, stone walls and, certainly in the front space, being close to a small bar, cranks up the noise to discomfort when the dining room is full. I would put some softer fabrics on the walls – certainly in place of some of the uninspiring paintings. This is not always the place for serious conversation, although it is noticeably quieter at the back.

Dining in Hudson thanks to Downtown 140 and Vue (see my review) is now vastly improved – the two experiences are very different. Both deserve to prosper.

Salmon with Soy Orange Glaze

2006-01-13T20:13:00.000-05:00

Here is salmon recipe that I created. The sauce is clear and light. You can thicken it with flour but I think you lose the sharp combination of orange ginger and soy, which goes well with salmon.

2 tablespoons of sugar
1 cup water
1 16oz fillet of salmon
3 oranges
2 cloves garlic
1 1” piece of garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil plus half tablespoon
2 tablespoons soy sauce
½ cup chicken stock

Using a potato peeler cut the outer rind off one of the oranges taking care not to cut into the pith. Slice the rind into very thin strips. Mix orange rind, sugar and water in a small saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain and reserve the strips of orange peel. Meanwhile juice the three oranges, strain and reserve the juice.

Finely chop the ginger and garlic. Heat half a tablespoon of olive oil in a small saucepan and fry ginger and garlic for three minutes. Add the orange juice, soy sauce and remaining olive oil. Bring to the boil and simmer until reduced by half. Rinse and dry the salmon and place in foil-lined baking tray. Pour three tablespoons of the orange juice mixture evenly on the salmon and broil for eight minutes under a hot broiler. Add another two tablespoons of the juice and broil for another two to four minutes. Do not overcook!

In the final cooking for the salmon add the chicken stock to the orange mixture and bring to the boil.

Pour the sauce over each serving of the salmon and serve. Serves four.

Susanna Foo's Dumplings

2006-01-08T16:01:00.000-05:00

After the excesses of the holiday period we turned to pork dumplings yesterday. I use a recipe from Susanna Foo's excellent Chinese Cuisine. Her method uses gyoza wraps, pork, napa cabbage, scallions, ginger, soy and sesame oil. She calls for a light dipping sauce made of soy sauce, balsamic and water with ginger floating in it. There is an amount of labor involved in making dumplings - I usually make a double quantity as they freeze so well, which turns the manufacture into an assembly line involving several family members. (You need to freeze the dumplings separated on a baking sheet before bagging them, as in the picture). This recipe produces extremely light dumplings, thanks to the gyozas instead of the usual leathery wonton wraps. The crunch of the napa cabbage and ginger mixes elegantly with the moist pork. A far cry from the doughy slabs you meet so often.

My copy of her book is dog-eared from use. Although not at all slavish in her adherence to tradition, Susanna Foo has an abundance of authentic dishes including Braised Beef Shin with Five Spices, a banquet staple in China. There is much influence from other cuisines, especially Thai and French, and she unapolegetically uses Western ingredients. However, the results are not the kind of westernized bastard Chinese cooking that you see almost everywhere. This is a genuine fusion cuisine from the other perspective - she adds French ingredients and techniques into Chinese dishes - a refreshing change from the insinuations made by wasabi and sesame oil in the other direction. Susanna Foo operates an eponymous restaurant in Philadelphia, which I haven't visited. It gets very positive reviews.

National Cuisines - why the differences?

2006-01-08T14:40:00.000-05:00

The real reason for different countries having national cuisines of vastly different standards is not obvious, so I am happy to reveal this for the first time:

A country either developed a great national cuisine or it accumulated colonial possessions. No country has ever managed to do both.

The obvious example is Britain, which by the end of the 19th century (and this does seem to have been the crucial time), had huge territories all over the globe and execrable food. By contrast the French, Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Italians stayed at home and developed an outstanding national cuisine. Of course, the Japanese became a colonial power in the 20th century, but this doesn't seem to have been the important period, and even the Italians tried to colonize Ethiopia in the 1930s. Spain had shed most of its colonies by 1850, and so prospered on the culinary front, unlike Belgium and Portugal and to a lesser extent the Netherlands, which retained colonies until in the 20th century to their gastronomic cost.

A possible flaw in this theory is that there are many countries what did not have colonies that still failed to develop a strong national culture of eating. Switzerland and Russia spring to mind. This is undoubtedly true and there are probably many examples of countries that did not have the means, economic system or mercantile structure to permit this to happen. The Swiss may have been surrounded by other countries providing excellent food so decided not to compete. However, in every case the acquisition of colonies proved fatal to the culinary ambition.

If this theory is true, one might ask why. A colonial power has to regularly produce a fresh crop of adminstrators, steeped in the mother culture but willing to devote their lives to holding onto farflung possessions. These people had to separate themselves completely from the comforts of home, in particular the pleasures of the table. For British would-be imperialists this would clearly have been no sacrifice - a posting to India would be a significant step up on the food scale. This, I submit, competely explains both the Empire and British cooking.

National cuisines - the ranking

2006-01-07T11:12:00.000-05:00

Before we can explain why some countries produce better cooks than others we need to quantify the differences. I carried out a Google search on pair combinations of the words, France, French, cooking and cuisine, and recorded the number of hits I got:

	France	French
Cooking	11,900,000	15,100,000
Cuisine	10,400,000	12,000,000

The total of these four searches is 49,400,000 hits which we will consider to be an indication of the importance of the French national cuisine. The idea is that the more that is written about something the more important and culturally relevant it is.

I repeated this for several countries and put the results in a graph:

This is pretty much what you would expect, although there are a few odd results. Despite what I said about Britain and Germany having emerged from the culinary Stone Age, these countries actually fare reasonably well. One might need to correct for size of the country and some index of accessibility to the Internet, but we will go with these crude data. As you might expect, France comes out ahead of everyone else. Portugal, I suspect, earns its place at the bottom due to its reliance on reconstituted dried cod.

Why is food good in some countries and not in others?

2006-01-06T20:16:00.000-05:00

Why did some cultures develop a characteristic highly developed cuisine and others didn’t? The heavyweights of France and China have a history of cooking and eating going back hundreds or thousands of years, whereas Germany and Britain, to name just two, have more or less emerged from the culinary Stone Age.

Some circumstances count against developing a national cuisine. If you lived north of the Arctic Circle, life historically was a struggle to survive. It is hardly surprising that an elaborate range of dishes did not develop there. Real grinding poverty is also an opponent of gastronomy. If you are perpetually hungry, you don’t care how the food tastes.

However, poverty at a certain level was not an obstacle – think of thrifty French country cooking – but the development of a middle class is important. The rich would eat food prepared by their own cooks and the poor would eat what they could. Only the middle class went to restaurants, inns and hotels.

An early written culture obviously assisted documentation and travel clearly spreads good regional food. A mercantile economy where farmers would sell a variety of goods in a local market would be helpful, as would long periods of political stability.

Beyond those relatively simple factors it seems hard to know why certain countries were successful and why some were not. I think that none of these factors is decisive, although some may contribute. The real reason lies elsewhere.

After much research I am happy to announce that I have finally solved this important question. The answer will be revealed in subsequent posts.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

2006-01-06T19:55:00.000-05:00

"This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to"

"I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else"

"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn"

"A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out."

"Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others."

Château Palmer

2006-01-03T13:08:00.000-05:00

The site for Château Palmer asks that you register with a logon and a password to get full access. It is an excellent site, well designed, with some fine photography and interesting historical information, so this is worth doing, and in return they send you this cheerful message.

Revamp

2006-01-02T17:07:00.000-05:00

Looking over the blog I got a feeling of dull sepia tones and a gloomy, overcast atmosphere. The photos taken under natural light seem to have the color balance of an Old Master awaiting restoration - which was explained by my having the camera set to flourescent while actually using tungsten light. The rest of the ambiance came from the somewhat sepulchral template. As a New Year's attempt to make a fresh start I have corrected my camera setting and selected a different, brighter template.

I spent the last week cooking the kind of food that a bear would select before hibernating for the winter, as a result of which we are all feeling torpid and inactive. I think that I need to strike a brighter more springlike note, although in the Midwest we are certainly nowhere near spring yet. One challenge I would like to attempt is to reproduce the perfect tarte tatin. A project that might help us through the remaining winter months.

Useful kitchen equipment

2006-01-02T16:41:00.000-05:00

The kitchen equipment industry produces many devices to make cooking more convenient, productive or pleasant. Few directly affect the quality of the food produced. One such item is a fine-mesh, shallow strainer I bought last year. I don't remember how much it cost - I know it wasn't much - and I don't know who made it. It is an ideal tool for skimming and removing solids from sauces, stocks and soups. Due to its shallow bowl you can use it effectively in small saucepans and skillets. Although a bit fragile, this one seems to have withstood hard usage, and its wire frame means that the handle doesn't get too hot. A good gift for someone who serves lumpy sauce.

Hopes for eating out in 2006

2006-01-01T09:58:00.000-05:00

Offal - please let us have more restaurants serving kidney, liver, sweetbreads and gizzards. After that we can go on to andouillettes, trotters, tête and joue de veau, and, for the truly daring, brains. People are happy to eat foie gras, so why not all the other adventurous options. Peasant food is fashionable! While we are at it, let's have all of the scallop, served on the shell, not just the muscle.

Slow cooking - more braised dishes appear on menus than before, but there is plenty of room for improvement. Coq au vin is almost unheard of, for example.

Appetizers - let's ban the dreaded shrimp cocktail. Pallid, defrosted, overpriced shrimp with a vinegary sauce is a crime not an appetizer.

Desserts - a bit more imagination, please! The same tired favorites have outworn their welcome. Crème brûlée, sorbet, tiramisu and (god help us) New York cheescake have earned their retirement or at least a less demanding performance schedule.

Prix fixe - how about a shorter menu, with a few combinations that are good value? It must be much easier to run a restaurant that had a shorter menu. Quality would be better, and because there would be less waste of food, eating out could be made less expensive. We might all do it more often.

Smaller portions - My spirits often sink at the quantity of food put in front of me. Laden plates are not appealing, and you face the choice of leaving the food on the plate, taking it home or eating it - each option unsatisfactory.

Tipping - I would strongly prefer service compris, say at 12.5%, and I bet the public would respond positively. It might even make service better.

Real Chinese food - could we have something that a bit more closely resembles the food that Chinese people eat in China? Indian food in the US is vastly more authentic that its Chinese counterpart, albeit less vegetarian. So is sushi, Thai and even French. Chinese food is the only holdout. Outside a few places in NYC and California, what we are served in Chinese restaurants in the US is a parody of a great cuisine.

Better and older Bordeaux - Nobody wants to buy young, expensive top-shelf Bordeaux, yet wine lists regularly feature costly wines that are not ready to drink. This makes no sense at all. Yet, in wine stores you can find reasonable older wines, not perhaps from such elevated chateaux as Lafite or Latour, but which are drinking well and don't cost a fortune. We just don't see them very often in restaurants. Which is why, although I love Bordeaux, I almost always pick something else.

OK, I'll stop now.

Cassoulet Day III

2005-12-30T18:42:00.000-05:00

The cassoulet is now reheating and I am thinking of how best to photograph it. Cassoulet is traditionally served in a small earthenware or metal dish, but any dish that fills a bowl to the top makes for a difficult photograph. The result tends to look either like a soup or a dog's dinner. These are not attractive presentations for much the same reason. Food presentation is now veering away a little from the idea of the vertical - which can be attractive and impressive, but is often tedious and difficult to tackle. Trends are more towards interesting horizontal presentations with plenty of color and texture variation, often served on whimsical or unusual plates. One way to serve cassoulet would be to use a four compartment plate, with a piece of duck in one section, a sausage in another, some pork in a third and a small bowl of beans in the fourth. A bit contrary to the spirit of French country cuisine. In the end the cassoulet was eaten enthusiastically, with some (positive) comments that it was not as rich as the one from last year that featured the andouillettes. The presentation was not too radical, but I did strive to avoid the dog's dinner look.

This method means you don't serve as much of the beans as in the dish approach, but people came back for more beans. It didn't really form much of a crust, but this tends not to happen unless you use breadcrumbs, which the purists deem incorrect. The Tarbais beans have a better texture than Great Northern, but they taste fairly similar. After the extended cooking the beans end up tasting mostly like the rest of the cassoulet. One person said that she thought they could have been a bit mushier. The confit did not dry out and all of the meat was very tender. As always at this point, we have a fair amount left over, mostly beans and liquid. Overall, I would give Mr Bourdain's cassoulet an 8/10.

Food for dogs

2005-12-30T17:28:00.000-05:00

We have two dogs in our house, who clearly enjoy their food. They get up in the morning very ready for breakfast. Their dinner is at six thirty and the two of them get pretty anxious about an hour beforehand. They get the same food every mealtime, some sort of brown chunks. This would not just drive me mad with boredom but would cut out a vitally interesting portion of the day. Are we right to assume that dogs wouldn't enjoy variety in their diet? Jeffrey Steingarten writes well about cooking for his dog and the enjoyment they both got out of the process. Yesterday the dogs each got a portion of gravy from the bottom of the bowl of goose fat when I was making the confit. This was greeted with much enthusiasm, but frankly they will both eat pretty much anything, and seem to display almost the same level of interest in whatever is served. I often come across recipes for dog treats and they all seem a bit of a waste of time.

Cats seem to be different. We had one who went into a frenzy if there was smoked salmon being served. Incidentally, note how our labrador is apparently embarrassed by the camera. Part of the attraction of dogs is how they appear to have emotions that are like ours. If this is really true, maybe we should think about giving them a more varied diet.

Pasta with tarragon and basil

2005-12-29T20:54:00.000-05:00

Recipe books are full of pasta recipes with a sauce composed of "what is in the cupboard." Here is another that is also extremely quick. Tarragon and basil are excellent when lightly cooked. With fresh pasta you could produce this meal in less than ten minutes.

Handful of fresh tarragon
Handful of fresh basil
I clove of garlic
1/4 cup of good olive oil
Parmesan cheese
I pound of fresh pasta
salt and pepper

Chop the herbs into strips and the garlic into very small pieces. Heat the olive oil in a small pan until hot but not smoking and add the garlic. Immediately take the pan off the heat. Garlic cut into very small pieces will cook almost instantly, and burns very easily. Cook the pasta in rapidly boiling salted water, drain and place in a large pre-warmed bowl. Toss the pasta in half of the garlic oil, and add the herbs and ground pepper. Add enough of the remaining oil slowly while tossing the pasta, until it is lightly coated, but no more. You don't want the pasta sitting in a pool of oil.

Serve in warmed bowls with grated cheese on top.

Cassoulet Day II

2005-12-29T20:10:00.000-05:00

Second day with the cassoulet. The Tarbais beans get much larger after the soaking process. Some of them didn't seem to expand at all and resembled a .22 bullet in size and texture, so I sorted through and picked these ones out. The next step involves dumping everything - beans, pork belly, rind, onions and a bouquet garni - into a pot and simmering until the beans are tender. The pale chunk in the middle is a big piece of pork rind. Anthony Bourdain's recipe is a bit confusing. After I took the picture I reread the recipe. It says later to brown the squares of rind, but it never says to cut it up at any stage. Anyway I took the pork rind out at this point and cut it up. The beans took a little longer than one hour to cook. I stopped when they still had a bite to them, and when cool the beans were tender without being mushy. The pot I used is an All-Clad - a Christmas present - with a heavy base, which makes it a lot easier to keep a very slow simmer going. I have found from previous cassoulets that this is the crucial step. If the beans are over-cooked you are going to have a disaster on your hands. Great Northern beans may be slightly more prone to going to a mush than Tarbais.

The next step is browning the sausages in goose fat and then onions, garlic and the pieces of pork rind. This is all blended up together with some more goose fat into a gooey puree.

Now, assembly. I seemed not to have enough beans. I started off with a bottom layer that was too thick and ran out of beans for the top. Undaunted, I disassembled everything and started again, which given that everything was now covered with the puree added between layers, was quite messy. The kitchen at this point started to resemble an emergency room - miscellaneous unidentifiable chunks everywhere and a mounting tension in the air. Eventually I got it all together. In fact, if I had more beans I would have had nowhere to put them. Bourdain's assembly method is a little unusual in that he has the duck confit on the top, instead of the sausage. I am a little concerned that they will dry out, as there weren't enough beans to cover the duck entirely. The final result is shown in the picture. Again, equipment is important. I have a huge Le Creuset pot that is really ideal for this kind of project. I was a bit tempted to reverse the order and put sausage on top, but I always try to make a recipe exactly as described on the first occasion, because if you make a change on the first try you don't really know if it is an improvement or not. I love reading the recipe comments on epicurious.com, where people post their variations: "This worked great!!! My husband really liked it. I used red cranberry juice instead of burgundy, and substituted eggplant for the filet mignon. Four stars ****!!". You wonder what the family really thought.
Finally I cooked the cassoulet for one hour at 350F and another hour at 250F. Refrigerated overnight in our chilly garage, it awaits the morrow.

Confit de gésiers II

2005-12-29T16:12:00.000-05:00

This morning I finished the gizzard confit broadly following Paula Wolfert. After you rinse off the marinade you cook them very slowly in the goose fat, keeping them completely immersed. She advocates taking an hour to raise the temperature to 190F and then holding it there for another hour. The garlic bulb in the picture is halved and placed under the fat. It is a little difficult to make sure that you have even heat. If you stir them around they tend to come to the surface and then have to be carefully redistributed so that the gizzards are all immersed. The top half of the garlic bulb completely disintegrated into individual cloves (all cut in half). After the cooking the gizzards are removed and you have to purify the fat at a higher temperature to drive off the water. Then the gizzards are stored immersed in the fat. For this I used three spring-closure glass jars, with "Le Parfait" on the lid, one large and two small. They are the kind that foie gras is packed in, although I think one of them came with some kind of jam. They should give an air-tight seal. Wolfert adds a layer of lard to the top for long-term storage, but these should be a good substitute. I saved all of the garlic to use as a spread. It is very smooth and almost nutty, with a mild garlic flavor.
This whole process was easy but time-consuming. I managed to get a thin layer of goose fat all over the kitchen counter-tops. The net result is a rather small amount of confit. When I started I thought I had far too much gizzrds, but they seem to reduce down in the process. I tried one and it was quite firm with a pleasant mellow taste, but quite mild. I want to wait to try them for at least a month.

Confit de gésiers

2005-12-28T18:16:00.000-05:00

Lunch menus in France often feature a salade composée of confit de gésiers. The gizzards are alone or with duck confit and sometimes cured ham. Alternatively this is labeled salade périgord. (I am not clear what defines a salade périgord but it seems to require walnuts and walnut oil.) I have often bought confit de gésiers in a can at the duty-free on the way home, and they are always good. Last week I saw huge bags of gizzards in the market and this started me thinking. After cooking a goose I have a lot of the fat, so this seems like an opportunity to try making confit de gésiers myself.

None of my cookbooks has a specific recipe for gizzard confit. Google hits are almost all for the salads, and list gésiers as an ingredient. I found a very few recipes for making gizzard confit, but these seemed to aim for a dish to be eaten immediately or a short time afterwards. I want something I can put in my fridge for several months. I then thought of using a standard confit recipe, and turned to Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of South-West France, which has authoritative recipes for duck and goose confit. Wolfert simply includes gizzards among a list of duck parts suitable for the confit treatment. Her method is definitely aimed at longer storage.

At the market this morning I asked for duck gizzards, and found out that only chicken ones were available, so bought a pound and a half. They don't look hugely appetizing at this stage, I have to admit. Paula Wolfert calls for a dry marinade of herbs, lots of salt, crushed peppercorns, shallots and herbs. This sits in the fridge until tomorrow, then the action begins.

On a slightly different topic: another dish I never see on US menus is veal sweetbreads. I asked the butcher at the veal stand in the market, and he says they have great difficulty getting them. He had one small one, about three ounces, that he offered to give me. He promised to call around and find out if anyone carries them in any quantity. I don't see why they are common on French menus and practically unobtainable here. I also tried and failed to to find a mail order store advertising veal sweetbreads.

Cassoulet - Day I

2005-12-28T14:12:00.000-05:00

A trip to the market this morning to get the rest of what I need for a cassoulet - assembled on the left. At the back of the picture you can see the haricots tarbais, under the herbs is a package of duck confit. Beside the beans is a bowl of goose fat, much more than I will need. Some cassoulet recipes call for mutton as well as pork, but this one uses only pork belly and pork rind. At the market they sell pork belly with the rind attached, which at least guarantees that they are of the same freshness. It takes a bit of time to remove the rind without cutting into the skin or taking lots of pork belly with it. The only task for today is to put the beans to soak under cold water. Not too difficult. Working with pork belly reminds me of that terrific Chinese braised aromoatic pork belly recipe. It is very easy to make and is something that you don't usually find on the American Chinese menu. Not to everyone's taste because of the fat in the pork belly.

Tarbais beans are different from Great Northern beans - larger, flatter and almost rectangular in shape.

The Cafe Paradiso Cookbook

2005-12-27T16:20:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I plan to cook risotto for vegetarian friends. I ate a memorable vegetarian risotto two years ago at the Café Paradiso in Cork, in the south of Ireland. It was cooked exactly the right amount, with a proper bite. The rice concealed small, crisp, asparagus heads and sugar snap peas, and had a full rounded flavor that I had thought impossible without chicken stock. As I left I bought The Café Paradiso Cookbook by Denis Cotter, the founder and chef, which sets out his and his partner Bridget’s ideas about risotto. He discusses in depth the recommended broth, the exact cooking speed and stirring technique, and the desired final consistency. His recipe calls for olive oil and butter in addition to the parmesan cheese at the end, and he garnishes the risotto with basil oil before serving. The recipe isn’t difficult but, like the others in the book, it demands attention to detail. The photography in the book is compelling and attractive, and has some arresting tinted black-and-white restaurant-action shots, as well as high-quality food photographs. Cotter doesn't preach about vegetarianism and he sets out to attract the general, mostly omnivorous, population. His is quite serious cuisine and some of the recipes in the book are involved and time-consuming.

The Café Paradiso has a casual atmosphere but it is has been described as “the best vegetarian restaurant in Europe”. This book shows why.

Denis Cotter has written three more books – all available in the US at Amazon, but you seem to have to go to the Amazon UK site for his original Paradiso Cookbook.

Christmas Wine

2005-12-26T08:35:00.000-05:00

A sobering number of wine bottles went out for recycling this morning. The highlights (all consumed on Christmas Day):

Veuve Cliquot, 2001, half
Chablis premier cru, Vaillons, Moreau, 2001
Chateau Palmer, Margaux, 1994
Chateau Les Roches de Ferrand, Fronsac, 1985
Chateau Lafaurie-Peyraguey, Sauternes, 1996, half

The Palmer had a splendid, full nose but was more reserved on the palate, with not much tannin evident, and a long, balanced finish. This is a lovely, refined and undramatic wine in excellent condition, with none of the thin shortness you sometimes see during a weak year for lesser wines. It will continue to improve. I was a little concerned because I bought this recently for $49.99 Prices elsewhere for the same year range from $56 at WineZap to a steep €113 at the duty-free in Charles de Gaulle airport. On web sites the prices vary substantially.

The Fronsac was feeling tired and old, but so were we when we opened it, and we only had a small amount of the bottle. Today it was a little tawny in color, and showing some acid. Little nose, but smooth and rounded. An obscure wine I have only seen in one store near us, but very good value, selling for around $12.

Le Meurice and L’Ardoise

2005-12-25T16:03:00.000-05:00

I have a link to Chez Pim on the right, because this year she pointed me towards two excellent restaurants in Paris, Le Meurice, and L’Ardoise. The first is the 2-star restaurant in the Hotel Meurice, serious French cuisine at its best. The dining-room is spectacular and the service is faultless, but both are over-shadowed by the food. The nine-course menu dégustation (€170) is a virtuoso display by the 35-year old chef Yannick Alléno. It carefully takes you through a series of exquisitely prepared dishes that were each surprising but seemed exactly right at that point in the meal. A single foie gras poached in red wine was the only dish that our daughter passed to her brother. The three-course dessert selection was gorgeously presented and delicious. (Le Meurice has an entertaining web site.)

L’Ardoise comes from the opposite spectrum in cost but is also outstanding in its category. The restaurant is in two stories of an unfancy dining-room, and is somewhat on the tourist track in the 1eme. (The location on rue du Mont-Thabor is just behind the Hotel Meurice). The food is considerably beyond regular bistro fare both in the choices available and the quality. The first time there I ate a starter of marinaded Mediterranean sardines followed by sweetbreads and a potato galette. I have returned several times and have never been disappointed. The prix-fixe menu is €33 which is a complete steal for food of this variety and quality.

Cassoulet

2005-12-25T11:02:00.000-05:00

For no obvious reason I have got into the habit of making an annual cassoulet between Christmas and New Year. It takes a bit of time and some diligent shopping, so it fits into the slot when I have some time off work. Cassoulet suits cold weather, although the south-west of France isn’t exactly Bismarck, North Dakota. I would like to say that this annual ritual is greeted with enthusiasm by my family, but it is usually met with “Oh God! Cassoulet again!” I have got progressively more adventurous and maybe I am starting to try everyone’s patience.

For several years I used Julia Child’s recipe, which is innocuous enough, and produces a good result, but doesn’t use duck confit. Last year I tried a recipe from Paula Wolfert’s The Cooking of South-West France, which has an excellent chapter devoted to cassoulet. Her Cassoulet in the Style of Toulouse uses andouillettes, which impart a very gamey accent to an already rich dish. The result was too much for some, and those that did eat it did so slowly and thoughtfully, firmly refusing second helpings .

This year I will go for something less cutting-edge. I still favor duck confit, although Paula Wolfert quotes Michel Guérard describing this as “a sophistication of dubious value”. Duck confit is getting much easier to obtain and is now behind the butcher’s counter in our local supermarket. I plan to use Anthony Bourdain’s recipe, which is authentic without being over-elaborate. He doesn’t resort to bread crumbs for the crust and he specifies the correct Tarbais beans. His version calls for making your own confit. I have never done this, mostly because it is now easy to buy it and I never seem to have enough duck fat – you need about two cups.

Julia Child makes her own sausages to replace Saucisse de Toulouse. I got these and the Tarbais beans from Joie de Vivre, who also distribute cassoulet produced by a Canadian company.

This is next week’s project. I will post photos and the consumer reviews. Photographing cassoulet may be a challenge - the picture of the front of Joie de Vivre's latest catalog features a dish of cassoulet in an unappetizing series of browns.

Vue Restaurant, Hudson, Ohio – Review

2005-12-24T09:48:00.000-05:00

I wonder how often a professional reviewer visits a restaurant before writing it up. Several times would be ideal. Otherwise you might judge a restaurant on an off-day. Against that, the same face appearing often might lead to the better service accorded to a regular.

I have eaten at Vue in Hudson six times in the last two months, a combination of business and personal, lunch and dinner, as a guest and a host in parties of up to eight people. Vue has been mostly good, sometimes excellent, but not consistent. The menu is interesting and varied, and the service is attentive without being intrusive. Vue can be expensive but, especially at lunch, doesn’t have to be. The wine list is broad and has tempting selections. They had an excellent 1992 Stags’ Leap Merlot (now, unfortunately, all gone), plus a strong selection of wines by the glass – a very good Barolo and Chateau d’Yquem (at $40, one way of making a meal expensive).

The style is heavily Asian-fusion – sushi nights twice during the week – with a largely fish entrée menu. The excellent sushi/sashimi starter is a meal by itself. A lobster tasting comes in four elegant preparations, including ravioli and a small amount of bisque. A calamari appetizer comes with sauce based on dried cranberries - an improvement on the usual sweet concoctions. The entrées aren’t based on exotic ingredients. Although some work better than others, presentations are inventive. The sushi rolls are large and tend to fall apart. One evening these had been made in advance – the rice was cold and compacted. A salmon dish wrapped in fried pasta was almost too complicated to eat without small pieces of crisp noodle going everywhere. At the most recent visit my daughter’s hazelnut-crusted salmon was slightly over-cooked. My braised short rib on garlic mashed potatoes (an unadventurous choice but suitable for a wintry evening) was simple and balanced. A flounder dish came with scallops and shrimps in a garlic tomato sauce that complemented the robust fish.

The décor is adventurous and inviting, although the dining room is sometimes cold. If you sit close to the entrance you are going to get regular blasts of wintry air when anyone leaves. Did Vue engage an architect from Phoenix? Most evenings have been busy, and although the tables are close together the room is not overly loud.

Plates are elongated or square and silverware has a pleasant heft. Getting huge plates in front of the diners was sometimes a challenge. The longer ones extend like SUVs into neighboring parking slots.

Some things I would prefer to be different. The portions are too large, the endemic problem with the Midwest restaurant. An appetizer should be small and enticing, not a meal in itself. The bread was not very interesting and dry. I have a prejudice against servers introducing themselves. Other things are less a matter of opinion and more poor organization. It is jarring when you order a second bottle of wine to be told that you have just drunk the last one. If you ask for a glass of wine to go with appetizers it should be on the table before the food arrives. Several of these inconsistencies together could produce a seriously bad evening. I have heard some less enthusiastic comments. One friend who lives within walking distance said that it wasn’t worth the journey. Others have been highly enthusiastic, and Vue seems to be consistently quite busy.

Overall this is an ambitious venture that mostly succeeds in what it sets out to do, and with Downtown 140, a welcome addition to the conservative dining choices in the area.

Full disclosure: at my last and sixth visit our party was given a tray of small desserts on the house – more in fact than we could eat. Those portions sizes again.

Monbazillac

2005-12-23T15:45:00.000-05:00

I found a bottle of 1989 Monbazillac at my local wine store yesterday. The owner came across it in his cellar recently and put it on display with no price on it. When I asked him how much it was, he said that he didn't know if it was still any good and charged me $9.99 The wine is Domaine de la Brie Basse. I can't find anything about it on the Web. There is a Chateau La Brie, located in Domaine de la Brie, but nothing about a wine of that name. It is a deep, almost orange/yellow color. For $10 it seemed worth a try. The level of the wine is a little low but it is above the shoulders, and being a very sweet wine it should have been able to take care of itself for sixteen years. We will see.

Goose

2005-12-23T15:42:00.000-05:00

When I was young(er) our family always had turkey for Christmas, but we didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving where we were, so this meant that we were not doomed to turkey more than once a year. Having had our Thanksgiving turkey this year we have to decide what to eat for Christmas dinner. A small and unscientific poll at my office suggests that only a few people endure turkey twice within five weeks. There are many things to be said it. It is difficult to cook without turning the breast into cotton wool just when the legs are done. Its near-spherical shape means that stuffing cooks slowly inside the bird, which according to some is a health hazard. The meat is lean so tends to be a bit dry. Finally, the average turkey is so huge that for all but the largest families there is a daunting pile of leftovers.

There are several popular alternatives to turkey. Ham is a favorite, but it can often be a bit salty. A standing rib roast is also popular but not everyone wants it cooked the same amount. Pheasant is in season now and good for a small group, although they can be tough and full of shot. I have never cooked venison, but I am told it isn’t easy because of the very lean meat . I think of lamb as best in spring, and so not a good winter dish. This is probably completely false, but I remain a bit prejudiced against it for Christmas. There are more exotic options. When we lived in Pittsburgh we used to see elderly Italians buying their traditional Christmas octopus in the city market. Barring all of these, the option that more people should consider is roast goose.

Goose used to be the European Christmas dish. Dickens talks sentimentally about goose in The Christmas Carol. Goose features in Conan Doyle (The Blue Carbuncle describes a valuable gem concealed inside a Christmas goose). The bird has a lot going for it beyond Victorian tradition – generally not a trustworthy guide in matters of food, anyway. A goose isn’t huge, so you aren’t eating it for a week. It cooks reasonably quickly, it doesn’t dry out and it goes well with many different types of stuffing. There are many interesting and reliable recipes for goose in standard cookbooks, and provided you don’t completely overcook it, goose will always taste excellent, albeit a little richer and more filling than turkey. If you are careful you can get a goose to render an impressive amount of useful fat – an excellent medium for sautéing. Any meat left over is very good cold.

Goose has a few drawbacks. A deceptively large bird will feed comparatively few. Don’t plan on seating fourteen unless you have two geese. A goose is more expensive than turkey. (Mine was around $3.60 per pound). It is needs careful cooking to render the fat from the skin and it can be tricky to carve due to its elongated shape. Goose doesn’t pack on the pounds as co-operatively as a young turkey does, so has escaped the mass-production process – but this is another argument in its favor. It seems difficult to get a fresh goose, at least where I live.

You need to plan the meal around the goose. What you eat with it should reflect the fact that goose has a higher proportion of fat than turkey. Goose plus gratin dauphinoise potatoes and chestnuts wrapped in bacon all under hollandaise sauce will induce nausea and will close arteries around the table. Boiled potatoes, slow-cooked red cabbage and green vegetables go well, but I also like a Julia Child’s sausage and apple stuffing recipe, which isn’t exactly low-fat. Sauces should be on the lighter side.

What to drink? Goose goes well with reasonably assertive dry whites, but can handle and justify high-end red.

Phood Phobias

2005-12-22T06:23:00.000-05:00

The ultimate food snobbery seems to be the conceit held by some parents that their children have sophisticated tastes in food. ‘Tiffany just loves sushi!” or “Jason can’t bear his duck breast overdone!” Parents project on children – nowhere more so than in the area of culinary refinement. There is a double claim to distinction here. The first is that the household in question maintains a very elevated level of cuisine; the second is that the children of the house recognize and appreciate this. Most of these parents will experience a profound disappointment when their precocious gourmets suddenly turn into monovores.

Children will eat almost anything if exposed to it at an early enough age – they have to survive after all. At a certain point coinciding with increased mobility a sudden conservatism sets in. Some of this is obviously an evolved protection. When babies can walk around they become vulnerable to accidental poisoning. Since equatorial regions contain a variety of deadly fruits and seeds, an unwillingness to eat unfamiliar vegetables would be strongly favored by natural selection. It is a commonplace that vegetables are anathema for all children. Our two teenagers will still not eat any squash, and are notably unenthusiastic about most other vegetables. Their distaste for mushrooms is completely explained by natural selection. Oddly, the general reluctance extends to new foods offered by parents, who presumably are trustworthy and in evolutionary terms are on the children’s side. Most infant palates suddenly become rigidly conservative and not very subtle. Our children, when faced with risotto, would wail “Not sticky rice again!” Their ideal dinner for many years was waffles and a peculiar kind of frozen fruit heated into a viscous sauce. This still creeps on to the menu from time to time when I am out of town. A close relative who is fine cook and keeps a varied and interesting table is forced to make two versions of Bolognese sauce, the one for her children excluding not only chicken liver (understandable) but also carrots. These same children have exquisitely discriminating senses used to detect slight occurrences of any of an extensive list of forbidden ingredients. A dish will be spurned on the suspicion that it contains parmesan cheese, often when it is some distance from the table.

The distaste for new foods usually declines as children grow up. Most adults have some foods they will refuse to eat, probably also a survival instinct. I like to think that my reluctance to eat brains – and I will eat almost anything else – is an ancient protection against BSE. Many adults, though, retain their childish prejudices intact. What you don’t eat by forty you probably will reject forever, and some adults resolutely refuse to try new things. It is often tempting to say, as to a child “How do you know you don’t like it if you haven’t tasted it?” Frequent traveler in Asia will often be asked how they manage to eat the food. The reply that is it almost always very good is met with scepticism.

Beyond their children's early years if parents make conscious moves to introduce a child to alternative foods an open-minded attitude will gradually develop. These moves include taking children frequently to restaurants, introducing new foods and getting children involved in the process of cooking.

If parents completely skip one class of food they raise an adult who “doesn’t eat” fish/celery/carrots/offal… The prejudice against offal is common since it disappeared from American childhood. I had a boss once, an extremely intelligent and cultivated Frenchman, who would rigorously interrogate a waiter to ensure that no trace of fish appeared in any of his food, yet was completely unable to state when he had ever eaten fish and what his reaction had been. There is seldom logic in this. Another colleague will eat no fish at all, except tuna, cooked fashionably rare, and clams. Some distastes are associated with hardship. An acquaintance of mine served as advance reconnaissance in Vietnam and was forced to eat such a wide range of food as a matter of survival that he is now strictly a meat and potatoes person. In Ireland, shellfish was associated in the minds of older people in the country with lack of alternatives and is known as “famine-food”, a race memory dating back to the 1850s.

French children do seem to have been exposed to a greater range and variety of foods and consequently have fewer blind spots, my former boss notwithstanding.

Few of us can claim to be truly open-minded. I have tried, and been repulsed, by a certain fried insect considered a great delicacy in Venezuela. I would certainly blanch at the live cobra heart that Anthony Bourdain was presented in The Cook’s Tour, but perhaps if it was part of a lucrative television series I might force it past the gag reflex.

Fashion is a powerful opener of the mind. The numerous patrons of sushi bars surely never saw it as a child. Sushi has the virtues of being expensive and fashionable, which kidneys and liver do not share. Many of us were exposed to seriously bad cooking as a child and had to be reintroduced as adults to certain foods prepared correctly. There is some economic and ecological aspect to this since few societies can afford to eat as much meat as often as we do in the developed West. For the consumer a varied diet is definitely thought of as more healthy. The avoidance of embarrassment when traveling in other cultures is a further advantage. Surely the main benefit of being a true omnivore is that life is more interesting and enriching. However, having a family willing to eat many foods doesn’t seem to make it easier to resolve the perennial problem of what to have for dinner.

Why France has the best restaurants

2005-12-19T20:50:00.000-05:00

The great strength of the French food scene is its center – the huge section of mid-range restaurants providing a very good, sometimes excellent, meal at a reasonable price. This stratum is mostly absent in the US and the UK. In all three countries there are top-class restaurants - places where you can have a sublime experience, eat inventive and interesting food beautifully presented and elegantly served. For this you will pay a lot of money. A very good meal at a top-flight restaurant may occasionally be good value, but it will always be expensive. Operating such an establishment is difficult, but the market always exists where there is a sufficient concentration of people with abundant disposable income. Richer cities, such as New York and London, can support many such places, each offering a different sumptuous experience. Paris though, is one of a few comparable cities with a wealth of excellent dining options for the less well-heeled.

The ideal mid-range restaurant provides pleasant surroundings, linen, a decent wine list and a short menu consisting of a few well-crafted dishes. We aspire to eat well here for $50 a head, with the option of making things more exotic if we choose. The occasion may call for foie gras at €3 supplementary and a good burgundy, but we can always stick to the €28 prix fixe, boisson compris, and depart contented and replete. Paris provides this experience in bewildering abundance, and this makes it the gastronomic capital of the world, not its starred establishments, unique and memorable though these are.

In the US we have plenty of low-end eateries, ranging from the fast-food joints to places where you can sit down and eat a bit better. They usually have a list of well-advertised indifferent wines and sometimes a full bar. The wait staff consists of cheerful amateurs who will readily sing a birthday song on request but know nothing about the food or how it is prepared. The menu is sometimes very long, portions are huge and you get a doggy-bag for what you can’t eat. These places are open all day, they are clean, friendly and they turn tables many times a night. Most are chains, whose offering of dishes designed in corporate headquarters is the same across the country, and the market is clearly huge. Nobody departs disappointed, since every diner knows exactly what to expect and gets it. The problem is that they aren't very good.

Far above that exist more expensive, formal restaurants covering a vast range of quality. Many are good, a very few are spectacular, some represent value for money but none is inexpensive. The center is entirely missing.

The situation in the United Kingdom is actually less satisfactory, because the low-price eatery is usually much worse than its American equivalent and descends as far as the motorway cafeteria: bacon, chips and beans eaten to the accompaniment of diesel fumes and cigarette smoke. Britain is plentifully supplied with excellent restaurants for the affluent, but few for the thrifty knowledgeable diner.

Why this is the case is not obvious. It may be due to the labor market infrastructure. France has a stratum of serious professional waiters who know their craft. Many of these can manage a room of diners single-handedly or with only one assistant, often finishing or serving individual meals at the table-side. Such a person knows his (or her) wine and can make useful suggestions. He is deft, courteous and seldom indulges in conversation beyond taking your order and “L’assiette est très chaud, m’sieur” when it arrives. He would not dream of telling you what his name was, partly to maintain a professional distance but mostly because he has no time for idle backchat. I also suspect that many of these waiters learned their craft at seriously good establishments. The best restaurants with many servers often have a cadre of younger employees in training. Do these matriculate to running their own brasserie dining rooms? They can’t all become maitre d’s.

Perhaps another reason for this gap in the US is that we haven’t a good network of food distribution, but that is becoming less of a reasonable excuse than it was. Maybe mid-range restaurants wouldn’t thrive because we have no market – our thrifty segment all goes to Applebee’s and the Olive Garden. Maybe the segment will develop - it is hard to tell. However, at this time it would be a brave man who would start a bistro with a set menu at $35 dollars for three courses.

Of course, this segment does exist in the US outside the French bistro culture, in excellent ethnic restaurants on both coasts, and some regional cuisine in the south. Unfortunately such places are not plentiful. Our food culture would be vastly stronger and more interesting if this type of restaurants was everywhere – busy every night, but not so busy that you couldn’t reserve a table by calling the same day. Our low-end would either move up, improve or disappear, our high-end would have to work much harder for its elevated prices, and we would all eat much better.

In the meantime we go to Paris, which isn't so bad.

anthony's bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook

2005-12-18T16:09:00.001-05:00

Anthony Bourdain must annoy the hell out of a lot of serious cooks and food authors. He sprung into prominence following Kitchen Confidential, which many restaurant professionals regarded as a sacriligious revelation of the underbelly of the industry. Since then he has another book, A Cook's Tour, accompanying television series and now the Les Halles Cookbook. He also writes thrillers that are better than workmanlike and feature lots of good food description weaved into intricate plots.

It must be jarring to Bourdain's critics that, beneath the bombast and posturing language, this is a serious cookbook with detailed, practical information. The book is well-produced and will surely expand the horizons of most cooks. It opens with some of Bourdain's history at Les Halles and then much useful detail on the basics of buying produce and meat, making stocks, organizing your work, breaking tasks down into simple blocks - the blocking and tackling of cooking and entertaining. He is particularly good on the organization side of cooking. Most amateur cooks produce a good meal but reduce their kitchens in the process to something approaching a battlefield. Bourdain strongly advocates detailed work beforehand, starting with "deep prep", and he makes the point that this can be the more enjoyable and pleasant part of preparing a meal.

The recipes are French bistro classics - covering every category, with a particularly good section on offal. The scope is broad and one could run a complete restaurant menu with many changes out of this one book. Plenty of the recipes are relatively easy, but some will cause almost anyone pause for thought, or at least a lot of planning. Civet of wild boar look fairly straightforward to prepare, but you aren't going to find the ingredients in Safeway. These dishes are the real thing, and bring the perspective of the professional chef. Bourdain is no respecter of persons - he says "fuck the Health Department" on the subject of taking meat out of the fridge well in advance so that it is at room temperature before cooking.

He is a perfectionist but he doesn't always explain why a particularly step is necessary. Many cooks, for example, would roast bones and vegetables together in the oven before making stock. He calls for separate roasting , without saying why this is required.

Although Bourdain is highly opinionated and sometimes annoying, his style takes second place to the food he prepares. He has no Emeril-type cult, and his purpose here is to convey both the knowledge that went into Les Halles and some of his pride both in the restaurant and his craft. He ackowledges as co-authors the owners of Les Halles, and recognizes that the restaurant was essentially their creation.

The photographs are excellent, many focusing on the actions of preparing food and restaurant life, with no glossy food porn. The book ends with a useful section on suppliers, some further reading, a glossary and a copious list of acknowledgements. Finally Bourdain states his creed: "I want to thank anybody who stands behind a stove or in front of a flame anywhere. There is no nobler toil, nor is there a better profession."

Restaurant reviews

2005-12-18T12:26:00.000-05:00

One object of this blog is to write reviews of places I have eaten at. Since I travel a fair amount I get to a lot of restaurants in the year, in many countries. Most of these places are ones I will visit only once or very occasionally, so any review is a snap-shot of a single event. A few places I like a lot, or end up going back several times, for whatever reason, I can give a broader picture of.

What is the point of this? There are plenty of restaurant reviews around, and lots of good books. The world doesn't need my thoughts. One reason is that I do spend a lot of time eating out and in some interesting places, so this is a fairly big chunk of my experience. You should write about what you know. I find these kind of write-ups by other people interesting.

A few ground rules: I will restrict myself to meals where I picked up the tab - which is quite often, so shouldn't be a big restriction. (I include meals that I charge to my expenses - which frankly is most). This allows me to be as dispassionate and critical as I wish, or need to be. It seems ungracious to post, even if quite positively, about a meal that someone else treats one to. I also have better information as to what everything costs if I pay myself.

Another rule is that there will be no pictures of the food. In the first place, it is annoying to have people letting off flashes in a restaurant. Secondly, you may be tipping your hand. If I were running a restaurant and saw a customer, eating alone, photographing each dish, I would suspect the imminent publication of the diner's impressions. Most importantly, you have stopped participating and have become a recording bystander.

The other rule is that I will not go back and write about places I visited in the past - to write a useful review of anything, I think, requires that you have relatively recent impressions. This is a bit of a wrench - as I have been to some splendid places that don't meet that criterion.

All that said we will plunge in....

Giovanni's Ristorante, Beachwood, Ohio - Review

2005-12-18T04:53:00.000-05:00

Giovanni’s is a well-known Cleveland-area restaurant, with a high-end, solid Italian reputation. It is in a nondescript office building - on the bottom floor – a little hard to find because they have a small sign out front and then you have to go to the back of the building. It seems quite popular and the clientele presumably all know how to get there.

Inside the restaurant is ornately furnished in a traditional style bordering on the old-fashioned. The space is large, divided into several rooms of different sizes. Giovanni's seems generally to do well and is mostly busy. There are a few touches that seem a bit odd – the bar has a silent television in the background, not a very sophisticated note. The tables were a little close together and the ceiling is low, so it was noisier than it had to be, at least on this Saturday night, but the atmosphere can have a church-like hush when it isn't full. I had a reservation for seven o'clock and things seemed to be pretty much in full swing - Cleveland dines on the early side.

The menu is a fairly extensive list of the traditional Italian staples. The appetizers are a little more adventurous than the main courses, but this isn't a place where you can expect cutting-edge cuisine. It is a long menu, with a very short list of daily specials. Main courses include the usual rack of lamb, veal scallopine, a couple of steaks, dover sole, all the usual pastas. Appetizers had calamari steak, snails, carpaccio of eggplant, oysters (daily special), wedding soup, with a good choice of salads. The menu is in Italian with English translation.

The wine list is impressive and roams diligently around the world without any particular bias. I don't see Giovanni's pouring their French wines in the gutter at the urging of Fox News. They have some old Bordeaux - with one selection, a Léoville Barton I think it was, from 1881. (A bit of a gamble at over $900). The list has the typical problem of having a lot of good wine that is too young to drink, especially Bordeaux. They had a 1953 Léoville Las Cases for $160 - good price if it was still drinkable. The few old wines were well-priced, but Bordeaux at ten to fifteen years out was steep and there wasn't much of it. We had a fairly big group, and some people started with a (very good) Chablis by the glass, and then we had Chalone Chardonnay and a Trimbach Riesling with the appetizers followed by a 2000 Vosne-Romanée ($85). The Italian list had a vast array of good selections with many Barolos, Amarones and other staples. Overall the wine wasn't extravagantly priced and there were several things I would fancy trying on another occasion, like a Hermitage and a Cote-Rotie, which seemed good value. There were also plenty of interesting Burgundies, not out of sight. With a smaller group I might have been a bit more adventurous. I didn't try the Riesling but the Chalone and the Vosne-Romanée were both good, the latter taking a bit of time to open up. I asked for a decanter for the second bottle, which I should have thought of doing at first - or the server should have thought of offering. Wine glasses were the same for each wine and were much too small for the Burgundy.

The food wasn't all that interesting, but it was well prepared. M. said that her grouper was over-cooked, but the market segment that Giovanni's targets probably is more comfortable that way. (She also said that the advertised horse-radish crust wasn't detectable). Some of our group said their steaks were a little over-done. I had snails, asparagus salad and veal scallopine. The latter - something I almost never have - was in a rather aggressive sauce. The obvious choice here proved to be a dumb one. Snails were fine - and there weren't too many. The portion size for the other appetizers leaned more towards appetite-deadening.

The presentation was very conventional - no oblong plates here - and the food could have been photographed for the Joy of Cooking.

Service was good - well paced with a slight bias towards the brisk. The white wines didn't arrive until after the appetizers and the red wasn't poured until after we all had our main courses, which is often the case, and annoys me. They handled a large party very fluently - no confusion about who was having what - and there seemed to be plenty of bodies wandering around. Our server was attentive without being instrusive and there was none of the "Hi, my name is Lois...." nonsense. The food came out at almost the same time and nothing seemed to have been standing around under a heat lamp developing a skin. We weren't offered anything other than tap water - which tasted chlorinated and was accompanied by constant topping-up.

Coffee came before desserts. I can't understand why anyone would prefer coffee before having something sweet. Desserts were pretty much what the rest of the menu was like. Cheesecake, mango sorbet, tiramisu, creme brulee - the usual suspects.

The server tacked on a 20% tip automatically, which is a bit rich compared to the usual 18%. There might be two arguments for this. I suppose one is that people may nickel-and-dime them on large parties, the other is the more specious one that large parties are harder to serve and so deserve an automatic high tip. I won't get into a rant about tipping here, but 20% grates.

Giovanni's isn't cheap - the bill was around $120 per person of which around $35 was drink - and it isn't terrific value - although the wine list had some good bargains on it and is fairly priced overall. For this kind of money I look for something considerably more adventurous, or at least have some elements of the meal that were a bit more memorable. For a bigger group it was a safe bet and everyone appeared to enjoy themselves, but I didn't leave thinking about when I was going to come again.

You get the sense that Giovanni's has a regular clientele - the maitre d' seemed to know many people and greeted some in Italian. This group is on the older side - the sensation is not quite as depressing as at a Cleveland Symphony concert where the audience appears to be dying on its feet, but the feeling is similar. However, the risk for Giovanni's might be the same.