deep thoughts: Boia De | Buena Vista (Miami)

Earlier this week, I got to speak to a seventh grade class at North Broward Preparatory School about food blogging. A food theme runs through their entire curriculum for the year, so while they are writing their own food blogs for English class, they are also learning about food in science class, and tending an on-campus edible garden. It was a lot of fun to pass on a few nuggets of "wisdom" from my own experiences, but what was really great was hearing from the students about their own interests, projects and questions.

Of course, one of them asked "What is your favorite restaurant?" And invariably, this is the question everyone asks every food blogger. It's also a question I always have trouble answering. Because I have lots of favorites! Even if you narrowed it by category I'd still struggle, because so many different restaurants satisfy so many different cravings and moods. (I am voracious, I eat multitudes).

Having said that, I actually do have a favorite right now. And by favorite right now, I mean, if you asked me pretty much any day the past few months, "Where do you want to eat tonight?" the answer would likely be "Well, we could go to Boia De." This is a conversation that occurs frequently in our household. And frequently ends in the same place.

So what is Boia De? Maybe we should start with a related question: "What does "boia de" mean? Somehow, I got it in my head that it's an Italian expression that means "How cool!" But that translation exists only in my imagination. According to chef/owners Luciana Giangrande and Alex Meyer, it loosely translates as "Oh my!" which is much nicer than what turns up on Google Translate, which says something about an executioner?

It's perhaps appropriate that the name "Boia De" is a bit ambiguous, because the restaurant "Boia De" is itself delightfully difficult to typecast by genre. If I were to call it anything, I might go with "Italian-American," but I mean something almost the exact opposite of the checkered-tablecloth, red-sauce and mozz stereotype that phrase typically invokes. Alex and Luci mine Italian cuisine for ideas and ingredients – pastas and polenta and 'nduja and tonnato sauce – but those rub shoulders with green goddess and ranch dressing and and miso and mango. In lesser hands, this would be a recipe for disaster. But Alex and Luci know what they're doing.

(You can see all my pictures in this Boia De flickr set - over multiple visits I've now covered about 90% of the menu, though several items like the pastas change regularly).

Start, for instance, with the baked clams: tender littlenecks tucked under a blanket of spicy, smoky 'nduja sausage and breadcrumbs, torched til they're brown and bubbly, then finished with a squeeze of fresh lemon. They make for a delightful little one-bite surf-n-turf experience.

Or maybe instead a crudo? The hamachi is rich and buttery but delightfully clean and fresh, with splashes of yuzu salsa verde, ringlets of fresno chile, and briny fried capers to cut through the fattiness of the fish. It still feels kind of Italian even though nonna might disagree. Alternatively, you could go with the tuna crudo, which gets matched up in equally unorthodox fashion with a Sicilian pesto and smoky miso eggplant.

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deep thoughts: Proof Pizza and Pasta | Midtown MIami

Someone asked me recently^[1] "So, when you are going to write an actual review of a Miami restaurant again? You know, like you used to?" Fair question. Like the food writers I used to berate, I'm probably more than a little guilty of the Magpie Phenomenon – being constantly distracted by the latest shiny object. I try to keep relatively current on Miami dining with the "best thing I ate last week"  and "first thoughts" posts, and I report on our roughly monthly Cobaya dinners; but then the bulk of my more expansive writing lately seems dedicated to "travelogues" or other recaps from "further afield," rather than locally focused.^[2] Mission creep has taken hold.

So let's fix that. And let's start with a place that may not be among the most talked-about restaurants in Miami, but one which I think deserves more attention for what it does: Proof. Chef Justin Flit^[3] opened "Proof Pizza & Pasta" almost exactly two years ago just up Miami Avenue from Wynwood, across from the Midtown shopping center. The name was modest and the spot was too: a basic box with exposed ventilation and simple tables and chairs, not so much "industrial chic" as just plain old "utilitarian."

(You can see all my pictures from Proof in this Proof Pizza & Pasta flickr set).

But while it might have sounded and looked like a utility slice joint, Proof was actually serving gorgeous Neapolitan style pies with toppings like soppressata, n'duja and broccoli rabe, or braised oxtail with black garlic and caramelized onions.

And its pastas – all made in-house – were some of the best in town. The lineup would change often, but has included delicate pillows stuffed with butternut squash, awash in brown butter and sage and dusted with crumbled amaretti cookies, and the fantastic angel hair with crab, Calabrian chiles and lemon breadcrumbs. This latter is a mainstay, too good to take off the menu (I wrote a bit more about it in this "best thing I ate last week" from last year).

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Quince Restaurant | San Francisco

Quince Restaurant is something of an anachronism. In these days of bare tables and and backless stools and leather-aproned servers, here there are still white linens and cushions and tailored suits. Refinement. Elegance.

I wasn't so sure I cared about such things so much any more, but a solo meal there a few months ago left me feeling happily coddled like a soft, warm, perfectly cooked egg. It's not just the trappings, it's the entire gestalt of the place: you don't feel so much like a customer as the guest of a wealthy, thoughtful friend. If fine dining is dead, Quince never got around to reading the obituary.

I was basically killing time before a red-eye flight home from San Francisco, and Quince might not have been on my radar but for several people mentioning it when I went fishing for suggestions on twitter. Then I recalled that on our last visit to San Francisco, we'd stayed just up the street from its more casual sibling, Cotogna, right in the path of a cloud of intoxicating aromas which emanated from the kitchen every afternoon. So I'd booked an early reservation, and now settled into a banquette (one of the joys of solo dining is getting to sit in the comfy seat) and watched as the room slowly filled. A cut crystal coupe was also filled with champagne, as an assortment of amuse-bouches was brought to the table.

(You can see all my pictures in this Quince Restaurant flickr set).

A finely minced steak tartare wrapped within a cylinder of bric pastry, dabbed with a tart gribiche sauce; a bon-bon of pickled persimmon with marcona almonds; a delicate croqueta of jamón ibérico dabbed with sweet onion jam; a featherweight chicharrón cracker, with a delightful crackle.

There was a stretch of a few months where every tasting menu I tried started with an oyster. If it's a good oyster, I'm OK with that. This one – from Fanny Bay in British Columbia – was a good one, its fluted shell also bearing some little horseradish pearls, a pink peppercorn mignonette and tiny tarragon leaves (a great accent mark over the cucumber-y flavor of the oyster).

Light and delicate, this little salad of empire clam^[1] with purple borage flowers, fennel and meyer lemon, all nestled over a bright green borage leaf purée, arrived in a long, skinny dish reminiscent of a razor clam shell. For an eating utensil, they provided the same item with which it was plated: tweezers.

Clearly, Chef Michael Tusk likes caviar.  If you're not up for a full tasting menu, Quince has a salon where you can order several items a la carte, including an entire menu devoted to caviar selections. In the dining room, it was served two ways: on one side, a ring of tender brioche adorned with generous quenelles of Tsar Nicolai reserve caviar, buttons of creme fraiche and vibrant flower petals; on the other, a bed of creamy sea urchin, topped with an even more generous spoonful of steely grey roe, with a fine julienne of fennel and apple which provided a beautiful lift and brightness to the dish.

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travelogue: three days of eating (and other things) in and around Memphis, Tennessee

Despite getting to do my fair share of traveling, there are still huge swaths of this country I've never seen. With all of the family together over winter break, I aimed to make a small dent in the long list of "Places I Haven't Been" with a week-long, three-city trek that started in Memphis, Tennessee. As always, my pre-trip research resulted in a list of places to visit about five times longer than could possibly be achieved in the time we had. To see the complete list and plot your own adventure, click on this Memphis / Nashville / Louisville google map. Here's where we ate, with a few inedible highlights along the way.

If I knew one thing about Memphis food before this trip, it was dry-rub ribs. And if I knew one place to get them, it was Charles Vergos' Rendezvous, a nearly 70-year old restaurant downtown where you enter through a back alley and head downstairs into the basement. The ribs here are swabbed with a vinegar and spice mop, cooked over hot charcoal, then dusted with a heavy shower of dried spices. Except for a small puddle of the meat's own juices, there's not touched by any sauce, though there are a couple squeeze bottles on the table. These are not your fall-off-the-bone kind of ribs; they've still got some traction, matching the assertive flavors of pork and spice.

It's not your typical barbecue (in fact some might say it's not barbecue at all), and the place has a little bit of a tourist trap feel to it, but I've had plenty worse ribs than these. I was also fond of their slaw, which had a pronounced yellow mustard kick, and am grateful to Allison Riley for counseling me not to miss the simple pleasures of a sausage and cheese appetizer plate.

(You can see all my pictures in this Charles Vergos' Rendezvous flickr set).

Charles Vergos' Rendezvous
52 S. Second Street, Memphis, Tennessee
901.523.2746

Our first night in Memphis found us at The Second Line, a New Orleans inspired restaurant from Chef Kelly English. The Louisiana-born chef first started cooking professionally in New Orleans with culinary godfather John Besh, then made his way to Memphis to open his first spot, Restaurant Iris, in 2009. A few years later he opened The Second Line, a more casual place featuring lots of Big Easy staples, right next door to the fancier Iris.^[1]

What better way to start an evening than a sazerac? Followed by some New Orleans-style BBQ shrimp (with a shout-out to English's mentor: "Besh's BBQ Shrimp") and a nice loaf of French bread? All that was missing was, alas, my favorite part: the shrimp's heads. When I'd order these at Mr. B's Bistro in New Orleans or Red Light in Miami, I'd give Mrs. F all the meat and just suck on all the heads.^[2]

English's fried gulf oyster poboy, dressed with lettuce tomato mayo and pickles, was as good as any I've had in New Orleans (seen up close in cross-section here), with a hearty sidecar of red beans and rice. And while much of the menu consists of several other varieties of poboys, there's also a good beet and feta shwarma, and even a "reasonably healthy dinner salad" if you had ribs for lunch and don't see a fried oyster sandwich as an exercise in moderation.

For our first night in town, this hit all the right spots.

(You can see all my pictures in this The Second Line flickr set).

The Second Line
2144 Monroe Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee
901.590.2829

Much like eating dry-rub ribs, you can't go to Memphis and not go to Beale Street. This three-block stretch, with a history as an entertainment district stretching back to the 1800's, feels a bit like a low-budget Bourbon Street. It has its share of kitsch, but it also has its share of charm. I couldn't figure out why I was hearing an extra horn line over the recorded music coming from one of the bars until I spied a wandering trumpeter playing as he walked down the sidewalk.^[3] And a troupe of street gymnasts used Beale as the stage for an impressively athletic series of flips, culminating in this high air in front of the 140-year old A. Schwab Trading Co. store.

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best thing i ate last week (dec 21-27, 2015) - Thunderbird! Forty Twice! pizza at Hog & Hominy

It's been a little quiet over here in FFT-land, as I took advantage of the holidays to plan a family trip through the South. We flew into Memphis, where we spent a few days before driving to Nashville, then to Louisville before flying home. These were all towns I've wanted to visit, and with a week free, we were able to get to all of them (and then some). I told the kids before we left: "I hope you like BBQ, fried chicken, bourbon and the blues, because there's going to be a lot of them." And there was. We did some good eating, and had a couple surprising disappointments too.

Anyway, to catch up and fill in some blanks on the "best thing i ate last week," I'm going to backtrack to the second day of our trip, when we visited Hog & Hominy in Memphis, where chefs Michael Hudman and Andrew Ticer do Italian-style cooking with Southern-style ingredients. On Sundays they offer a "Sunday Funday" menu all day which is mostly pizzas and brunch-type items, and the best of them may have been this "Thunderbird! Forty Twice!" pizza, topped with fontina, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, thin-sliced pepperoni and a drizzle of spicy honey. A puffy, chewy crust with just speckles of char, a balance between crust and toppings; a great interplay of spicy, cheesy and meaty with just a touch of sweet. Mrs. F regretted not ordering a second one.

(You can see all my pictures from our dinner in this Hog & Hominy flickr set).

Runners-up: these lady peas with guanciale and chicken liver mousse from the same meal; a supremely satisfying fried oyster poboy from Kelly English's New Orleans' themed Memphis restaurant, The Second Line; some delicious Delta style hot tamales from Mose Tamale truck, spotted in a gas station parking lot on the way between the Memphis airport and Graceland.

best thing i ate last week: angel hair with crab, calabrian chili and lemon breadcrumbs at Proof

I don't often go to Italian restaurants, for reasons I've previously expressed. Put in less vulgar terms: it's not so easy to find it done much better than I can do it at home. So when I do go out for Italian, I go to a place like Proof Pizza & Pasta. The modest name belies the seriousness of the cooking here. The pizzas are very good, but the pastas are easily some of the best in town, rivaled only by Macchialina and perhaps Scarpetta (where I haven't been since Nina Compton left).

Case in point: their angel hair with crab. Angel hair is usually the most insipid and pointless of pastas, but here the noodles still have a substantial texture despite their diminutive width, making them an ideal vehicle for the sweet crabmeat. It all swims in an intense crustacean sauce somewhere between broth and bisque, with some Calabrian chiles for some zing, and lemon breadcrumbs for brightness and texture. It was the best thing I ate last week.

All the pastas at Proof are pretty consistently excellent, but I'd also suggest you not sleep on the bucatini with uni and roasted cauliflower, which was a new addition to the menu on my last visit.

(That picture is from about a year ago, though the dish remains the same; you can see all my pictures in this Proof Pizza & Pasta - Miami flickr set).

Runners up: this excellent house-made charcuterie board at Edge Steak and Bar in Brickell; this cured and oil-poached local tuna and kimchi reuben from Josh's Deli.

Cobaya Proof with Chefs Justin Flit and Matt DePante

This is really why we do it. Justin Flit and Matt DePante are a couple guys you probably haven't heard of. But Justin spent years as the sous chef at Bourbon Steak, and Matt had the same role at another of Miami's top restaurants, The Dutch. And you might not expect much from their new restaurant, Proof Pizza & Pasta, by the name, anyway. It seems like a pretty simple place, with a short menu of mostly – you guessed it – pizzas and pastas.

But these two – who met at the French Culinary Institute (now the International Culinary Center) and both worked in New York before finding their way down to Miami – can flat out cook. The restaurant exceeds expectations, serving some of the best pastas I've had in Miami (you can see some pictures from a regular dinner at the restaurant here). And when we talked to them about doing one of our Cobaya dinners, I had a high degree of confidence they'd do it right. Actually, both are veterans of a couple Cobaya dinners themselves: Justin was in the kitchen at Bourbon Steak for Experiment #6, as was Matt for Experiment #24 at The Dutch. So they know the drill.

My confidence was rewarded: Justin and Matt and their team at Proof put together a really exceptional meal on all fronts: food, service, pace, atmosphere.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Proof flickr set).

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Cobaya Divino with Chef Julian Baker of Toscana Divino

Chefs, like actors, can get typecast. Do a certain thing well, and often enough, and people will start to think that it's all you can do. Chef Julian Baker is the chef at Toscana Divino, a restaurant in Brickell that, as the name suggests, operates in a mostly traditional Tuscan vein. Before Toscana Divino, he'd helped open Bice restaurants around the world. Though Baker's an Englishman, his resume would lead you to expect classical Italian through and through.

We like when our Cobaya events defy expectations - when chefs recognize it as an opportunity to venture outside of their, and their regular customers', comfort zones. Chef Baker did that with his Cobaya dinner, which we've been working on coordinating nearly since the restaurant first opened. Baker's culinary background happens to be much broader than the Italian cooking he's done lately, and other than a pasta course, I don't think anything he served at his dinner last week would immediately register as Italian. That's just fine by us.

From start to finish, every dish reflected a lot of thinking behind it, from concept to presentation to flavor. It was a thoughtful dinner that was also a lot of fun.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Divino flickr set).

A barrel-aged Gentleman Jack "Negroni"^[1] started the festivities, along with a few passed "bar snacks," all with clever, fun presentations. Smoked sweet potato croquette "cigars" were served in a cigar box billowing with smoke; foie gras "roll ups" wrapped in strawberry fruit leather and sprinkled with pistachios stuck up out of a field of greens planted in a box; and best of all, crispy chicharron-like beef tendon "frazzles" which emerged, still audibly crackling, from inside a false book.

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Cobaya Nina at Scarpetta

I'll confess, it's actually been a long time since I've eaten at Scarpetta, the Scott Conant restaurant in the Fontainebleau where Chef Nina Compton holds down as chef de cuisine. But we knew good things were happening there - I've never heard of anyone reporting anything but a great meal at Scarpetta, and Compton's performance on this season of "Top Chef" has her as the clear front-runner to take that honor. We figured we had to get in on a Cobaya dinner with her before she blew up. After the seed was planted when she helped out former kitchen companion Michael Pirolo for his Cobaya dinner at Macchialina a few months ago, it came together earlier this week.

As is our usual modus operandi, we gave no limitations other than "Cook what you want," which is what Chef Nina did for a group of forty seated at several long tables on a veranda looking out over the Fontainebleau pool. She let us know at the start, there would be no "theme," just "good food." She was right. It was a great meal: a bit more adventurous than the usual offerings at Scarpetta, but with that same elegant, modern Italian spirit.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Nina at Scarpetta flickr set).

A simple crudo to start, playing on the flavors of the Mediterranean - tender scallop, with slivered fennel, orange and pine nuts - was a clean and bright start. A refreshing bubbly prosecco was a perfect pair with this; indeed, the wine pairings throughout the night were very well done, unfortunately I didn't take notes on producers.

Some heartier bites followed: whipped morcilla (blood sausage), a slice of testa (headcheese), and fegato (chicken livers) making up a nice offal sampler.

Sweetbreads are tough to get right. Over-breaded or over-cooked and they just become little nuggets of "fried"; not enough and they can be floppy and flaccid. Nina's were close to perfect: a nice bit of crunch on the exterior, but not enough to overshadow the delicate puffy texture of the sweetbreads. They were served over a truffled sunchoke purée with brussel sprout petals and black trumpet mushrooms, making for a really a nice layering of earthy flavors.

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Cobaya Macchialina with Chef Michael Pirolo

Too often, I feel about Italian food the way I feel about handjobs: even when it's done well, it's satisfying but rarely very exciting; and when it's done poorly, I may as well do it myself.

After our Cobaya dinner at Macchialina, perhaps I should reconsider (about Italian food; not handjobs). Macchialina is the fourth restaurant opened by the Pubbelly boys, and to head this one up they poached Chef Michael Pirolo from Scarpetta in the Fontainebleau, where he had been chef de cuisine. Chef Pirolo put together a dinner for us that was hearty and satisfying, but also showed off a real range of flavors and techniques, classical in inspiration but contemporary in style.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Macchialina flickr set.)

We entered the restaurant to find the long bar counter completely blanketed in the finest meats and cheeses of the land: parmigiano reggiano in rough chunks, waves upon waves of prosciutto, mortadella, salami, and best of all, Macchialina's house-made porchetta, served in thinly sliced, fat-laced ribbons. As guests arrived, GM and wine director Jennifer Chaefsky offered glasses of Baldini Lambrusco dell'Emilia, a refreshing sparkling Lambrusco that was perfect with the salumi (yes, Lambrusco is back).

The meal followed a classical Italian progression: antipasti, pasta as a "primi piatti," followed by a hearty "secondo piatto," mostly served family style. First up, a couple of crudo-style cured fish items:^[1] tuna, cured like prosciutto, wrapped around compressed melon; and swordfish, cured with citrus zests, topped with a dab of a bright green dill purée, and finished with shavings of bottarga.

For the next round, a fritto misto of seafood, each diner was handed a paper cone, stuffed with fried shrimp, calamaretti, whitebait, baby eels and anchovies. Delicate and crisp, the real standouts here were the gorgeous head-on shrimp - though all were good, especially after being dragged through the anchovy-infused salsa verde offered alongside. To accompany, Jennifer poured the Vietti Roero Arneis, a crisp, floral white from one of my favorite Italian producers, better known for their Barolos.

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Sustainable Cobaya

Sometimes even we're surprised.

When we plan these Cobaya dinners, we purposefully keep the "marching orders" to the chefs minimal: basically, be creative, and do something you don't normally get to do. Often we'll kick around ideas, we might see preview menus, but not always. Sometimes we have only a rough sketch of what to expect, and sometimes we go in completely blind.

When we sat down to talk with Chef Alejandro Piñero and Manager Jonathan Lazar of Sustain Restaurant + Bar in Midtown Miami, they said they were thinking of doing a Southern Italian inspired menu. Though Sustain is known mostly for its focus on fresh, local, and - yes - sustainable ingredients, this didn't come as a complete surprise to me. Before Sustain, Chef Piñero spent five years as sous chef at Casa Tua and then took over as chef de cuisine at Fratelli Lyon, so Italian is clearly in his repertoire. We invited them to run with the idea, and that was the extent of what we knew.

I expected Sicilian and Sardinian flavors, I expected some modern and some old-school techniques, I expected some great wine pairings from sommelier Daniel Toral. Even I didn't expect a roasted goat's head.

Here is the full menu (you can see all my pictures in this Sustainable Cobaya flickr set, or click on any picture to view a larger version):

L'Apertivo

Arancia Rossa e Averna

Gamberi

Lardo e Ricci di Mare

Andrea Franchetti "Guardiola" Etna, Sicily 2010

Seppie

"Oliva" e Frissée

Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna, Sicily 2010

Malloreddus

Ragu di Cinghiale

Arianna Occhipinti "SP68" Vittoria, Sicily 2010

Testa di Capra Arrosto

Cerevella di Capra, Patate e Cavolo Nero

Andrea Franchetti "Passopisciaro" Etna, Sicily 2008

Pannacotta al Cardomomo

Arancia Rossa, Torta all'Olio d'Oliva

Sebadas

Miele Sardo e Sorbetto al Latte di Mandorle

I am generally terrible with foreign languages, but have a savant-like ability to read menus. So it was fun to watch some at our table struggle to translate our menu, particularly as they got to the fifth course.

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If You Like Food and Wine ...

You're in the right place. If you don't like food and wine, well I'm not sure what you're doing here. With Miami Spice season concluded, those of you who do like food and wine may be wondering how to spend your dining dollars. Some local restaurants have a few ideas: as if it to make up for two months of serving $35 three-course dinners, several places are now rolling out some higher-end dining propositions. Here are some upcoming wine-themed dinners, including a couple for tonight that may still have seats available:

October 18: Domain Lucien Albrecht Dinner at db Bistro Moderne:

Chef Jerrod Verbiak will be cooking a four course dinner (no menu posted), paired with eight of Alsatian vintner Domaine Lucien Albrecht 's wines. Domaine Lucien Albrecht's owner Marie Albrecht will host. Reception at 6:30pm, dinner starts at 7:00pm, spots are $150 per person including tax and gratuity. Sign up here.

db Bistro Moderne
255 Biscayne Boulevard Way, Miami
305.421.8800

October 18: Spain: A Wine Dinner at Charlotte:

Chef Elida Villaroel closed down her charming Charlotte Bistro over the summer, revamped, and recently reopened. To help kick off the reopening, she's hosting a Spanish-themed wine dinner at the restaurant together with Sunset Corners. The lineup:

1+1=3 Cava Brut (D.O. Cava)

King Crab Risotto with truffle emulsion and micro-greens

Abadel Picapoll 2008 (D.O. Pla de Bages)

Grouper with celery root puree and a lemongrass veloute

Becquer Tinto 2008 (D.O. Ca. Rioja)

Magret de Canard with a fruit chutney and finished with a balsamic pomegranate emulsion

Luna Beberide "Finca la Cuesta" 2008 (D.O. Bierzo)

Lamb Shank with red wine au jus and fennel salami finished with fine herbs and cacao beans

Finca Torremilanos, Torre Albeniz Reserva 2006 (D.O. Ribera del Duero)

Moelleux au Chocolat with Grand Marnier creme anglaise

Dinner starts at 7:00pm, price is $69 per person plus tax and gratuity. Contact the restaurant for a reservation.

Charlotte
264 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables
305.443.3003

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City Snapshots: Washington DC Dining

Over the past couple months we've done a bit of traveling and, as we always try to do, some good eating along the way. Memory, notes, and photos are not necessarily as good as might be hoped, and so instead of full recaps of meals, here are some quick thoughts on some of the places we visited. I don't begin to pretend that a brief few days can begin to capture the dining zeitgeist of a city; rather, these are more in the nature of personal travelogues. First, a trip to Washington DC over the kids' spring break.

Possibly my favorite of the places we dined at was Palena. Located a bit northwest from central DC, but easily accessible by the DC Metro, Palena has a more formal Dining Room with a prix fixe menu, and a more casual Café with a la carte offerings. With kids in tow, we went the latter route. The food is Italianate (Chef Frank Ruta's family hails from Abruzzo), but not in a way that insists on banging you over the head with it. An appetizer of baby calamari was quickly cooked with Sicilian flavors of tomato, caperberries and chilies. Both roasted and raw slivered beets were paired with hazelnuts in a salad. A steak was cooked over a wood-fired grill that lent a touch of smokiness to the meat, served with an elemental salad of bibb lettuce and blue cheese and nicely crisp fries. But the real standout for me was an absolutely pitch-perfect bollito misto, with tender, deeply flavored veal tongue and corned beef in a soul-restoring broth, rounded out by a coddled duck egg and a few root vegetables. It's deceptively hard to do "simple" foods well; Palena made them shine.

Palena
3529 Connecticut Avenue NW
Washington DC
202.537.9250



I was hoping to take the whole family to José Andrés' minibar, but we were unable to score a reservation. Instead we made a trip to his more straight-ahead tapas restaurant, Jaleo, as well as a visit to Café Atlantico for its "Nuevo Latino Dim Sum Brunch."^[1] Jaleo is something like a living encyclopedia of tapas, with nearly 70 tapas selections, along with several paellas for those with even more robust appetites. They range from ubiquitous classics like pan con tomate and tortilla de patatas, to regional specialties like the Canary Islands' papas arrugas and Catalan esqueixada, to more unique items like calamares with pine nut praline and a Pedro Ximenez reduction, or seared salmon with a cauliflower purée and raspberries.

We found that some of the best items were those that hewed more closely to tradition, where Chef Andrés creates what may be close to the platonic ideals of classic Spanish dishes. An order of pan con tomate brings toasted but not completely crunchy bread, spread with softly tangy puréed tomato, a  generous drizzle of olive oil and sprinkling of salt completing the composition. His croquetas come to the table hot, with a crisp fragile shell encasing molten bechamel and shredded chicken. Buñuelos de bacalao achieve the same balance, with a honey aioli to play against the salty fishiness of the dried cod. Another contrast of sweet and salty is played out by the berenjenas a la miel, the feathery light fried eggplant glazed with a drizzle of honey.

Ensalada rusa, the curiously named Spanish potato salad (what's Russian about potatoes, peas and carrots bound in mayo?), is given double richness from a generous hand with the mayonnaise and luscious canned Spanish tuna, plus an extra layer of flavor provided by strips of piquillo peppers. I am a huge fan of ensalada rusa and this was one of the best I've had. Fried dates wrapped in bacon are accurately described in the menu as "como hace todo el mundo" (that you will want to eat every day). And those papas arrugas - wrinkly, generously salted marble-sized baby potatoes served with a pungent mojo verde reminiscent of an Argentine chimichurri - are equally addictive.

Surprisingly, the dishes we found to be less successful were the more creative ones. Those calamares with sweet pine nut praline and a Pedro Ximenez reduction couldn't successfully bridge the gap between seafood and sweet. The same was true of the salmon with a (vanilla-touched?) cauliflower purée and raspberries. On the other hand, a dish called Arroz de Pato "Jean Louis-Palladin," after the legendary DC chef, featuring rice with duck confit, topped with a seared duck breast, and drizzled with a foie gras cream, was an overdone layering of rich upon rich.

But Chef Andrés deserves culinary sainthood if for no other reason than that he was instrumental in enabling the import of Spanish jamón ibérico into the United States. Jaleo was the first place it was served in the U.S., and there is possibly no more perfect dish than a plate of jamón ibérico de bellota. Priced at $22 at Jaleo, it's a worthwhile indulgence.^[2]

Jaleo
480 7th Street NW
Washington DC
202.628.7949



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Vino e Olio e Cobaya - Experiment #8

One of the guiding principles of the Cobaya - Gourmet Guinea Pigs group is that it's intended as an opportunity for chefs to do things that they may not otherwise have the opportunity to do in their regular settings. We organize events both in restaurants and out, but one of the rules is that it has to be an off-the-menu experience, a chance for the chefs to show something different from their usual routine.

When I read about the opening of Vino e Olio in the Design District, it seemed like a good fit. The chef, Andrea Menichetti, was virtually born in the kitchen: his parents, Maurizio Menichetti and Valeria Piccini, run the Michelin two-starred Da Caino in Montemerano, Italy, where Chef Andrea cooked before making his way to Miami. And the menu at Vino e Olio suggested more imagination and creativity than most garden-variety South Florida Italian restaurants. So we tried the restaurant, spoke to the chef, and then gave him free reign to craft a menu. The result, as one of our diners aptly put it, "balanced on a knife's edge between Tuscan playful and orthodox." Here's the menu, and below, some pictures and descriptions (full set of pictures on flickr, or click on each menu item).

Panino con il Lampredotto

(Sandwich with veal tripe)

Ravioli all' olio extravergine di oliva, capperi e alici serviti su coulis di pomodoro

(Ravioli filled with olive oil, capers, anchovies served with fresh tomato coulis)

Lombetto di coniglio al basilico con cream di finocchi e vinaigrette al balsamico

(Loin of rabbit stuffed with basil, served with a fennel sauce and black truffle vinaigrette)

Animelle di vitello rosolate con asparagi e balsamico

(Sautéed veal sweetbreads served with asparagus)

Agnello agli zampetti

(Lamb chop stuffed with pork, served with broccoli)

Minestrone di frutta e verdure con gelato alla vaniglia

(Fruits and vegetables cold soup served with vanilla ice cream)

Panino con il lampredotto

A confession: though I claim the chefs have complete free reign in crafting the menu, I did have some influence on the inclusion of the first dish, a miniature panino con il lampredotto (a/k/a tripe sandwich). I am a huge fan of the underutilized and underappreciated tripe (tripe = stomach, though a cow actually has four stomachs, and lampredotto is the "fourth and final stomach"), and so when I learned that Chef Menichetti was also an aficionado, I made a special request for this dish.

These days we think of both organ meats and food trucks as trendy: in fact this dish's reference point is a long-standing Tuscan tradition, dating back several centuries, of tripe sandwiches served from street carts. (For a great look at one of these three-wheeled tripe carts in Florence, go to around the 20 minute mark of this episode of "Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie"). The braised strips of tripe were slippery, sticky, with a deep but gentle meaty flavor that was transmuted to its braising liquid as well, with which the little rolls were generously doused. There was a dab of salsa verde for some contrast, and even a bit more heat might have been welcome. I loved it. But this was, I'll admit, a dish for those who already love tripe, rather than one that will make converts of non-believers. Our end of the table was fairly evenly divided between the former and the latter, and some gave theirs away after sampling a bite, while others eagerly grabbed them.


Ravioli all' olio extravirgine di oliva

The ravioli dish which followed also has a backstory: it won an international prize for cuisine with olive oil, and uses olive oil produced by the chef's mother's family. The pasta is stuffed with a mix of olive oil, minced anchovies and capers, and the chef advised everyone to eat them in one bite in order to experience the burst of liquid as you chew (similar in effect to a xiao long bao, a/k/a soup dumpling).^[1] The ravioli are purposefully served just barely warmed, and over a cool, raw tomato coulis, because the flavor of the olive oil is more muted at higher temperatures. This sensitivity to the temperature of the dish was a good thing, because it was indeed excellent olive oil. I enjoyed the dish, with its tweaking of traditional flavors and format - though the cool sauce would likely be even more welcome during one of the 350 days of the year that it's closer to 80º or 90º in Miami than during the cold weather we've had this week.

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