redacted recipes

Food For Thought

I took my sister out to WD~50 last Friday night. For her it was a first ime and for me a second visit, and I must say that I enjoyed the tasting menu more on this occasion then I did a year ago. I did not take photos, as my camera can't handle the low light and I really hate it when I'm distracted by flashes coming from near-by tables, not to mention that flash and food don't mix well. The collage at the top of the page is taken from the WD~50 website, and isn't completely representative of what we actually ate.

For those of you already familiar with molecular gastronomy (a very broad term, actually, for many, many current trends-- and one rejected by most of the chefs associated with it) you already know it's all about techniques and technologies for preparing and presenting familiar foods in new ways with unexpected textures and taste combinations. The big names are Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck; Grant Achatz of Alinea; Ferran Adrià of El Bulli; and, of course, Wylie Dufresne of WD-50. Unfortunately I have only been to Mr. Dufresne's restaurant thus far, though Jack and I have sworn we'll be going to The Fat Duck at the earliest opportunity. 

There's a lot of science back in the WD~50 kitchen: lab equipment, flash freezing, chemical powders and lord knows what else, but for me it's the fun is in the presentation and how each dish creates a little cognitive dissonance as you reconsider the ingrained habits of your palate. Looking at what appears to be a sunny-side-up egg but tasting coconut and carrot married together with olive oil, smoked maple syrup and cardamom forces you to pay attention to what is on your tongue. This sort of food makes you sit up and use your words. Instead of just saying "This is delicious," you find yourself making statements about "deconstructionism" and "witty" and "elemental." You find yourself trying to isolate flavors.

You also find yourself experiencing memory flashes, or at least my sister and I did. As we ate the lamb belly (top right in the collage), both of us agreed it "tasted like Grandma's cooking," and then spent quite some time trying to figure out why, given that Grandma certainly never served us anything like lamb belly with black chickpeas and cherried cucumber. Finally we agreed it was the unctuous taste of fat. Grandma was never afraid to cook with plenty of fat.

Giggling with surprise and pleasure is another common reaction. When the pizza pebbles (alternating rows of dried pizza spices and pepperoni emulsion with dried shiitake mushroom chips) arrived we listened solemnly to our waiter as he described the dish. He had a bit of an accent so I misheard "emulsion" as "lotion" (which, frankly seemed perfectly plausible). But the real giggles came when we first tried the balls of pizza spices and decided they would more appropriately be named "pizza poprocks."

There were some real stand-outs, starting with the Knot Foie (absolutely gorgeous and I wish the WD~50 website had a photo). A terrine of foie gras tied into a knot and garnished with dots of kimchi puree alrernating with sultana raisin puree and then sprinkled with tiny rice crisps. The texture of the foie was very light and airy while the taste was extremely dense. Lovely dish.

We were intrigued by the French Onion Soup (bottom right in the collage)-- a deconstructed classic consisting of beef broth with madeira and two floating balls of encapsulated gruyere. Balanced on the bowl were two thin pieces of crispy toasted brioche, one of them topped with caramelized onion puree and another encapsulated ball of warm ozzing gruyere. This dish required that you make a mess of it to get the full effect, and we promptly crumbled our toasts into the broth and broke open the gruyere balls. The only criticism I had here was that the beef broth was a bit thin.

My hands-down favorite was the Eggs Benedict, consisting of fried cubes of hollandaise sauce, cylindrical shaped egg yolk, and thin crispy pieces of bacon. I'm going back soon just to have it again. Awesome.

Of the desserts, the hit of the evening was the toasted coconut cake, with carob, smoked hazelnut, and brown butter sorbet. The cake was dense, buttery and fabulous and the brown butter ice cream in combination with powdered smoked hazelnut just... well, it made my eyes roll back.

The restaurant itself is comfortable. Hip without being pretentious, and the atmosphere and service is attentive without being obsequious. We were challenged, surprised, delighted and sometimes confused but never disappointed. Try it. You might love it.

The menu with wine pairings:

King oyster noodles, pine nut, pickled ramp, basil
Gruner Veltliner 'Punkt Genau' Brut Ewald Gruber NV (Weinviertel, Austria)

Pizza pebbles, pepperoni, shiitake
Gruner Veltliner 'Punkt Genau' Brut Ewald Gruber NV (Weinviertel, Austria)

Hamachi tartare, wakame, sake lees tahini, grapefruit-shallot
'Thalassitis' Gaia Estate 2006 (Santorini, Greece)

Knot foie
Miyasaka 'Yamahai 50 Nama' Ginjo Sake (Nagano-Prefecture, Japan)

Eggs benedict
'Thalassitis' Gaia Estate 2006 (Santorini, Greece)

French onion soup
'Old Telegram' Bonny Doon Vineyard 2001 (Santa Cruz, CA)

Cuttlefish, squash, chamomile, orange, toast oil
'Old Telegram' Bonny Doon Vineyard 2001 (Santa Cruz, CA)

Lamb belly, black chickpea, cherried cucumber
Shiraz 'Reserve' Old Gnarly's 2004 (Barossa Valley, South Australia)

Wintergreen parfait, walnut, avocado, chartreuse

Toasted coconut cake, carob, smoked hazelnut, brown butter sorbet
Cerdon du Bugey 'Methode Ancestrale' Renardat-Fache NV (Bugey, France)

Soft white chocolate, potato, malt, white beer ice cream
Commandaria St. John NV (Lemesos, Cyprus)

Chicory ice cream-coffee

A Brooklyn Waterfront Walk

It was a cold, clear and crisp day so Ann and I went for brunch at the very wonderful Park Luncheonette. This place is one of the relatively few neighbourhood originals to have successfully adapted to the increasing hipsterisation of Williamsburg. It's been run by the same family for years and used to be a very traditional diner serving burgers, fries, shakes and - as a nod to the strong Polish contingent in the area - pierogi, knishes and so on. A couple of years ago they saw the writing on the wall and decided to evolve and recognise the changing face of Williamsburg. They tidied the place up a bit, kept the old-style look and feel but started serving what you might call American modern cuisine: classic but classy takes on American favourites. The food there now is wonderful without being in any way pretentious or over-fancy. So sure, you can get poached eggs on toast. But it comes with wild mushrooms, pesto and salad, and it tastes out of this world. We love it.

Suitably refreshed, Ann decided to head into Manhattan to do some shopping. I went for a walk along Williamsburg's grungy, run-down industrial waterfront to take some shots of the view towards Manhattan and to enjoy the cold sunlight. The East River is just a few yards from Kent Avenue and from there we have a great view of the old skyline. Sadly, recent excessive development of expensive condos and apartment blocks means that the long-time residents of the older buildings on Kent no longer do. Gentrification brings bad things as well as good.

Further south is our link to Manhattan, the ugly/beautiful Williamsburg Bridge. Back in 1998 one of my very first impressions of New York was just that: that its harsh yet imposing structures manage to be both brutally ugly and yet strangely beautiful. To this day Williamsburg still clearly shows the signs of its poor industrial past, especially here on the waterfront. Bleak and often disused buildings squat darkly beside the East River; the roads are full of suspension-breaking potholes; graffiti is everywhere. The area was - and is - home to large Polish, hispanic and Hasidic communities. In the mid nineties young and poor artists started to move in as word of the cheap and easily-had rentals went around. Hip cafes and bars started to dot the grubby streets. I first arrived to stay with Ann in 1998, at about the time this change was just starting to take off. By the time I came to live in the city in 2002 the word was well and truly out, and the culture clash of the old and new inhabitants was reaching something of a compromise. More cafes, restaurants bars and clubs were opening. Art galleries and shows sprang up next to local convenience stores and eastern orthodox churches. Soon we saw the monied professionals arriving with their young children. Williamsburg, it seems, had been softened up enough for them to feel safe. I suppose, on balance, this is a good thing, but I can't help feeling something vital and exciting has been lost.

The stark iron bones of the bridge remind me both of what Williamsburg was - grimily industrial - and what it has become: connected to the wider city, to the buzz of big brother Manhattan. It's as if some of the vibe and the wealth of the island slowly leaked out across that bridge and settled amongst these rotten old streets. The hipsters and artists have been  saying that Williamsburg is "over" for a few years now, and I know what they mean. But it isn't "over", it's just growing up. We still have the Polish butchers; we still have the Hasidic Jews with their ringlets and wacky garb; we still have the rowdy Dominicans and Puerto Ricans with their illegal street barbecues and horrible music... but now we also have yuppies, and rap stars like Busta Rhymes buying penthouses on top of the old Gretsch building while rich movie stars buy the super-expensive lofts below for their spoilt kids. Whatever grudges we might occasionally feel are softened by the realisation that all this means that Williamsburg is alive, not dead. It could easily have been a true wasteland by now.

And besides, the artists, bohemians and boho-wannabes haven't gone away. Not all of them. That's why you can still see things like this here!

Williamsburg Restaurants: The Early Days

Ten years ago when I was planning to move to New York a friend asked me if I wanted to take over the lease on her Brooklyn apartment. I accepted before ever seeing the place and and arranged a weekend visit to sign the lease.

The apartment was located on Metropolitan Ave in Williamsburg between Havemeyer and Marcy. The building had no buzzers and the hallway and stairs were dark and dirty, but the apartment was full of light. It was a four room railroad-- no hallway, just the rooms all in a row, consisting of a large kitchen with windows at one end and leading through two smaller windowless rooms in the middle and then a large living room with twin windows and a view of the Empire State Building at the other end. All of the rooms had glass french doors and transoms, allowing the light to the middle rooms; and even better, all of the original architectural details were in place: pressed tin ceilings, ornate mouldings, a (closed up) fireplace and mantle in the living room, and hardwood floors. I loved it.

In 1997 Williamsburg was still edgy and raw and the hipsterization, well underway, was mainly confined to Bedford Ave. between N. 5th and N. 10th. You tended to see the same faces over and over again when you went out to eat-- not surprising given the finite number of restaurants and bars.

For places to eat you could count the options on both hands. There was the venerable L Cafe (now closed), where you could sit forever drinking coffee (refills were free and endless), and which was the place of choice for brunch. Like many of my friends, I had a love-hate relationship with the L, as the service could be spectacularly bad and the food was merely unobjectionable, and yet... it was always there and I always ended up going back. There was Oznot's Dish (also closed now) on Berry and N. 10th, which was quite good for a while there-- they had a kick-ass Lamb Burger with charmoula. There was Mug's Ale House on Bedford and N. 9th for a burger and a beer; Teddy's on Berry and N. 10th for the same; Vera Cruz on Bedford and N. 6th for uninspired Mexican; Bean (closed) on N. 8th for okay Mexican; Kaisa for pierogi and potato pancakes; and Planet Thailand (still called Plan-Eat Thailand in a small storefront on Bedford back in those days). There was Peter Luger, of course, but it wasn't on my radar in 1997 because I couldn't afford it. That was about it, unless you included Kellogg's Diner, which nobody in their right mind did or does.

Ramsay at The London (follow-up)

I received an email from Shawn Paul, Chef Sommelier at The London, detailing his tasting menu pairings. They're mostly described, if not identified, in Jacks review of our evening:

Riesling ~ Kabinett, St.Urbans-Hof, Mosel, Germany 2006

Pinot Blanc ~ Les Pierres Chaudes, Julien Meyer, Nothalten, France 2005

Domaine La Croix Belle, Nº 7, Côtes de Thongue, France 2005

Malbec ~ Crios, Susana Balbo, Mendoza Argentina 2006

Grenache/Mourvèdre~ Vacqueyras, Domaine La Garrigue, France 2004

Cockburn's 20 Year Tawny Port, Portugal

Pedro Ximenez Sherry  ‘Solera 1927’ Alvear, Spain

Mr. Paul closed his email with the wish that they see us again soon. We will be happy to oblige.

Gordon Ramsay at The London

He's a character, isn't he? When I first saw Ramsay doing his stroppy, sweary routine on television I had two thoughts: one, that Marco Pierre White had already done this shtick and two, that Ramsay had better be able to put his cuisine where his cocky foul mouth was or his shelf life would be extremely short.  Last year we went to his three-Michelin-starred flagship London restaurant at Royal Hospital Road in Chelsea. This is not a review of that restaurant so I'll just get to the point and say that it was the best meal of my life. We left that place feeling drugged, in a good way. There was some involuntary moaning and sighing. I was completely won over. Ramsay was the real thing: a truly world-class chef.

So when he opened Gordon Ramsay at the London (which is in New York, for those who have not been paying attention) we were thrilled, and eagerly anticipated a visit. And when Frank Bruni, the New York Times Restaurant critic, gave it an extremely sniffy review ("Eric Ripert: meet Colonel Sanders") and a measly two stars, we were somewhat taken aback. Teething troubles, perhaps? It seemed unlikely there'd be many problems of that nature, given both Ramsay's vast experience in the business and his clear determination to do well in arguably the best, most competitive restaurant city in the world. Was Bruni just being a dick? Resenting the presumptuous outsider, the enfant terrible? Well, last night we found out. If there were teething troubles at the London, they're dealt with. The place just received two Michelin stars and they are very well deserved. I have no way of knowing what was happening at The London when Bruni reviewed it but what's happening there now is very good indeed.

To get to the main restaurant you first have to walk through the London Bar, which is a moderately large and attractive space. Tables (and places at the bar) were available both when we arrived at 6:30 and when we left at 9:00. It seems it's perfectly possible to just walk into the place without reservations and spend an evening enjoying cocktails and their allegedly delicious tapas-style bar snacks. That's not something you can do at the restaurant but I was surprised to discover that it is still very easy to make a short-notice reservation there. I called only a week before ours and I was offered at least one time for every day of the following week. For a New York restaurant of this quality that's fairly amazing. I guess people are still giving more weight to Mr. Bruni's review than they are to the Michelin effect. I suspect this will not continue for much longer so now is a very good time to eat at The London. I certainly hope to go at least one more time before reservation becomes as difficult and tiresome as it can be at similarly rated places in New York.

The restaurant, as Bruni correctly observed, is very muted in appearance. The seats are sage green; the walls are a combination of glass and unobtrusive pale shades. The effect is formal but relaxed and I was immediately struck by certain similarities to Hospital Road. Not, perhaps, in the detail but more in the general air of cool refinement. The wait staff is efficient and smooth without being overly fussy or formal, and they quickly make you feel that you are in capable hands. If I wanted to nitpick I'd say that they haven't yet quite attained the truly awe-inspiring impression of well-oiled efficiency one finds at Hospital Road, but that's to be expected in a relatively new establishment that is clearly working to find and maintain its level. They're definitely getting there.

The food? Well, as is our custom when visiting restaurants of this quality, we had the tasting menu with wine pairings. Here's the rundown:

Dressler's Michelin Star

I've watched Colin Devlin build his Williamsburg restaurant presence ever since he opened Dumont six years ago. From my outsider's view his strategy has been very sound-- know your customers and then grow up with them. Dumont was exactly what Williamsburg was looking for in 2001, and Dressler, opened about a year ago in partnership with Joe Foglia, is a natural for the more adult neighborhood Williamsburg is in the midst of becoming. Dumont's success was based upon a small and thoughtfully executed menu and friendly service in a space that preserved the character of the original neighborhood by highlighting, rather than hiding, the old mosaic tile floors and tin ceiling.  Dressler takes that same strategy and elevates it with a larger and more sophisticated menu and wine list in an elegant bistro-like dining room showcasing intricate metal work designed by Robert Ferraroni and Jeff Khan of Ferra Designs.

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photo by tiboutoo

I love Dressler, happily dining there for special occasions when we can't be bothered to cross the river. And while I was very pleased for Colin and his partner when I read that they had been awarded a Michelin star, I was a little surprised. I wasn't convinced they're on the same level as many of the other one star restaurants on the list. I wondered how Michelin could compare Dressler to Annisa or wd~50. A little investigating revealed that comparing the restaurants is a mistake. A single star merely denotes "a very good restaurant in it's category." From the Michelin Guide site: 

"For restaurants, Michelin stars are based on five criteria:

The quality of the products
The mastery of flavor and cooking
The "personality" of the cuisine
The value for the money
The consistency between visits

Michelin stars are awarded to restaurants offering the finest cooking, regardless of cuisine style. Stars represent only what is on the plate. They do not take into consideration interior decoration, service quality or table settings."

And the meaning of the stars?

  * A very good restaurant in it's category
** Excellent cooking and worth a detour
*** Exceptional cuisine and worth the journey

Damned right. Congratulations Dressler!

The Boating Party Effect

I spent a number of formative years living in Northern Virginia and looking at art in Washington with an artist boyfriend for whom an ideal weekend outing was an afternoon in a gallery followed by dinner and drinks. Of the many galleries and museums we visited, my favorite was the Phillips Collection, where I spent many happy hours gazing at Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party. I didn’t know then that the faces in the painting are portraits of people Renoir knew, and I certainly did not have the historical context to realize that the painting depicted an emerging French social structure—accepting of the French Revolution’s liberté, egalité, fraternité. But I did know that sometimes, rarely, one experiences a feeling of existing without self-consciousness, of being in harmony with everything and everyone else, of being completely in the moment, which is what I saw in the painting. At the time, based on limited experience and a religious upbringing, I described such moments as “a state of grace.” If you had asked me to explain it any further I’d have muttered incoherently about how a clear night sky or a perfect autumn day made me feel connected to… something.

I think I understand the elements that spark off these feelings a little better now. I think I know that it’s a combination of intangibles and dim memories combined in some individual and serendipitous way. I think I also know that it’s different for everyone and probably impossible to adequately describe. This feeling of delight and connectedness can happen in all sorts of circumstances, but for me it's most frequently associated with food and good company-- and it's in that context that I came up with the phrase "the Boating Party effect."

It was at Allioli (now closed), in 2001, that I mentioned the Renoir painting in an attempt to describe my delight. A small tapas restaurant here in Williamsburg, Allioli managed to hit on all of my senses in just the right way. Delicious and innovative food (they were to achieve a 27 from Zagats within the year), friendly staff who seemed delighted to be a part of something special, and a warm inviting interior. Nothing so unusual about these things in and of themselves, but taken as a whole they became something special. Remarkable, even.

The first time we had the tasting menu at Tocqueville (how I miss their old cramped but cozy dining room!) we experienced the same magic in a different package. Artfully composed food, attentive but not obsequious service and an intelligent wine steward encouraged us to wallow in the experience. We loved the place, we loved the food, we loved each other.

Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road in London had us nearly gibbering with unselfconscious delight. The food was heaven. The dining room was formal, but comfortable, with tables set discretely far apart from each other. The service was impeccable, but not stiff. Everything was perfect, from the moment the maître d offered to arrange individual tasting menus for each of us to the moment the young man in charge of the fromage trolley sighed with pleasure when I pointed to the runniest, stinkiest-looking cheese, round to our reluctant last tastes of coffee and cognac. We were in the moment.

There is a magic difficult to describe when everything is perfect in a dining room. The Boating Party effect is elusive. We did not find it at The French Laundry, though we adored the food. As delighted as we were to be there, to finally taste the famous Oysters and Pearls, we did not lose ourselves. The evening was hot and the dining room a little warm. The heavy table linens bothered my legs, the other diners did not seem as happy as I would have expected, the service was a little remote and cold. In contrast, we had dinner at Gary Danko’s just a few nights later and again found the magic. The food wasn’t better, but it was very, very good. The combination of food, service, atmosphere and who knows what intangibles were just… there. At La Bernardin the food knocked us out but we found the dining room a bit fussy and the service, while correct, somewhat disinterested.

I think we’ve established that the Boating Party effect is made up of intangibles, yet I cannot resist the temptation to define these intangibles into a concrete list:

The food must be very, very good
The kitchen and the wait-staff must genuinely care about your experience
The dining room must Feel Right
You must be in good company
It helps to be in love
The stars must be aligned

Grape Expectorations

[Originally written in August 2006]

Call that title punetic licence or something. Of course we didn’t spit; we swallowed, like the oenophilic sluts we are. We love wine far too much to squander the lovely stuff on the spittoon so it was case of small sips for the designated driver and sucking down every last drop for the lucky passenger.  I’m talking about our recent trip to California wine country.

I like California. The weather in summer manages to be warm, but not too warm. It’s sunny, but not oppressively humid. There’s often a cooling breeze. The beaches are long, open and strewn with patterned pebbles, shattered crabs, surf-smoothed jetsam, and tangled clots of marine plant life that look like a nightmare conglomeration of overcooked lasagne verde and slimy alien birthing pods. It reminds me of parts of the British coast and yet it’s also so different that I never feel at home. The waves swell and heave more impressively. The hills stretch back higher and further. Little terns or petrels or - hell, I don’t know what sort of birds they were - pick frantically at the slick, wet sand exposed by the receding foam and wait until the last second before trotting comically away from the next incoming wave. Gulls wheel and squeal and bully. There are surfers, and they chase away the OC and bring the Beach Boys back.

On the first day we headed south from San Francisco, down to Bonny Doon Vineyard. We made a special detour here because this is the place that initially persuaded me that my previously dismissive attitude to Californian wine needed a serious rethink. About a year ago we visited some friends who insisted we try a bottle of Bonny Doon’s 2002 Cigare Volant. I was sceptical. I am an old-world wine snob. For me, it doesn’t get any better than a damned good Bordeaux or a big, sweaty Rioja. I like the earthiness of old-world reds; the complexity of them. I like that they are not overly laden with sweet fruit and jamminess and all those sickly top-notes which so often swamp new world wines; especially Aussie and Californian ones. Too much fruit flavour in a wine is like too much of any good thing: too much. French wines are subtle and difficult and sleazy and dark and polluted. Californian wines used to strike me as being like candy and gum and Coke and Barbie dolls as opposed to dark chocolate and spices and brandy and sex. And then I tried the 02 Cigare and experienced the revelation of a new breed of Californian wine.

The guy who runs Bonny Doon is an enthusiast and an amiable nut. He has wines called “Big House Red” and “Cardinal Zin” and “Domaine des Blageurs” and (my favourite) “Heart of Darkness”. Some of the labels feature Gerald Scarfe drawings – how cool is that? He is clearly a lover of French wine and the French way of making it, and yet he doesn’t try to slavishly replicate Cotes Du Rhone, Claret and Burgundy. He takes an old-world approach to winemaking and applies it to California grapes and California methods. The results are an absolute bastard crossbreed joy. You get the best of both worlds. You get toppiness and big fruit but undercut with leather and tobacco and pepper. The best Bonny Doon wines are explosive on the palate and leave a lingering afterglow in the mouth. With the hindsight offered by our trip I can say that while they may not be the “best” wines in California, for my taste they’re some of the most inspired, surprising, experimental and original. And the folk in the tasting room are so nice,  so enthusiastic, and so keen for you to enjoy their wines it’s really quite touching. None of the rote litany of method and grape combination and vintage comparison you find at so many better-known wineries, just “Woah, you HAVE to try the 03, dude. On a scale of one to damned good it’s… damned good!”

The Tasting Menu (Redux)

Another old piece originally published in Damned Intellectuals:

The Tasting Menu
October, 2003

It’s been a while since I’ve traveled without an itinerary. The last time I had that pleasure was in the summer of 2000, when Jack and I wandered through Northern England. We never knew where we’d end up for the night—just stopped when we felt like it and found a likely looking B&B. We stuck to Yorkshire and then the Lake District, gazing at the landscape as we drove aimlessly from place to place and absolutely reveling in the luxury of needing to be nowhere.  We did end that vacation with a more structured weekend in Paris—Jack had reserved a room ahead of time in a lovely hotel—but even then we managed to ignore time and to simply let things happen, rather than racing to meet an agenda.

We've traveled a lot since then—another driving trip through England, a stay in Genova, Christmas in Barcelona, and a spring vacation in Switzerland—but always with my children, who spent last year in an International School in Italy and gave us a splendid excuse to make frequent trips to Europe). Traveling with two adolescent girls requires planning. You don’t want to spend too much time in the car, you want to know where you’re staying each night, and you try to make sure you’re always near something interesting. All quite pleasurable, but not the sort of letting go one can experience when traveling alone or with a partner.

A few weeks ago, quite unplanned, Jack and I found ourselves in Le Tableau, an appealing-looking French bistro in the East Village. We decided to put ourselves entirely in their hands and try the tasting menu with accompanying wines. I don’t know why we don’t do this more often. It reminded me of a night in 1997 at La Scopettaro in the Testaccio Quarter, where the restaurant owner offered us “a taste of Rome” and proceeded to send out plate after plate of unexpected and wonderful dishes (four antipasti, two pastas, two secondi, all accompanied by a wonderful dry red; two rounds of sweets with sparkling wine; and finally a death-blow consisting of three bottles of spirits—grappa, limoncello, and some sort of aperitivo tasting of raisins). It reminded me of a lunch Jack and I had in Apricale, on the Italian Riviera—again endless plates of fabulous food and no need to make any decisions.

We did it again last week—this time at Tocqueville in Union Square, a lovely place with attentive (but not obsequious) service and food to sigh over. We opted for the 7 course tasting menu and, if I remember correctly, we were each brought: a sashimi sampler plate consisting of the freshest fish I've ever tasted; a small bowl containing two perfect tiny tomatoes and a tiny scoop of tomato sherbet floating in tomato confit; a serving of grits and truffles topped with a perfectly poached quail's egg (this one may sound odd, but tasted seriously sexy); a serving of perfectly cooked foie gras with scallops which made Jack emotional and me feel corrupted in a divine sort of way; a serving of veal with herbed potatoes; a serving of some fabulous runny stinking cheese with a pear roasted in cognac and tiny pieces of raisin toast; and finally THREE normal-sized desserts to share—a  chocolate soufflé sort of affair with mint ice-cream, a mango pavlova, and a burnt-sugar apple tart. Each course came with wine selected by the chef and wine steward. We started with sake (the sashimi) and moved on through champagne to reds as the meal progressed.

These little culinary adventures make me happy. As we sit and talk and let it all happen I feel myself expanding—letting go and becoming close to happy. Maybe it’s because on most days there’s an agenda of some sort to get through—an endless series of decisions. Maybe it’s just because the food was so good. Whatever the reason, I felt suddenly free and as if I was traveling again—no need to think about tomorrow at all.

(We've been back to Tocqueville many times in the years since, as well as to La Bernardin, Aquavit, Bouley, The French Laundry, Gary Danko's and Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road. We always have the tasting menu and we always love the adventure. Somewhere I'm sure Jack or I have pieces we've written about some of these remarkable meals. One day I'll dig them out. In the meantime, we jave a long list of tasting menus yet to try.)

Ensalada de Pulpito

This recipe was given to me to put on the (now defunct) Allioli website by chef extraordinare Diego Gonzales. Diego is now co-owner and chef at Zipi Zape, and continues to dish out fabulous authentic tapas. Quite recently we had a special consisting of a perfectly fried (sunny-side-up) quail egg over a slice of savory chorizo sitting on a bed of crisp shredded potato hash. Genius! I ordered a second immediately. But I digress. I just hate to see this recipe lost. As an old VIllage Voice review rhapsodized, it's

"...a tidal pool of octopus, potatoes, and pimientos in pungent olive oil. Luckily, the single octopod was more adolescent than infant, and we readily dissected the head into several good-size portions. And since there were an even number of diners, we didn't have to fight over the tentacles."