best dishes of 2017: part 1

I know, I know, you're supposed to do these "best of the year" wrap-ups before the year actually ends. Well, I'm just glad we've made it through to 2018, so I'm not going to sweat the timing all that much. Looking back, it was a somewhat odd year of eating for me. We traveled – London, Paris, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Santa Fe – but they were all mostly short jaunts, a few days here and there that were over almost as soon as they began. Meanwhile, I'm feeling increasingly out of touch with developments here at home; the list of new Miami restaurants I haven't yet tried grows longer and longer.

Sometimes that's purposeful: just because it's new doesn't necessarily mean it's interesting or good. Sometimes it's geographically driven: one of the more interesting phenomena of the past year, to me anyway, is the abundance of independent restaurants opening outside of the usual trifecta of Wynwood, South Beach and Brickell. I'm thinking of places like Ghee in Downtown Dadeland, No Name Chinese and Shelley's in South Miami, Doce Provisions and Ella's Oyster Bar in Little Havana, Sherwood's Bistro in Little Haiti, Finka Table and Tap and Amelia's 1931 out west. Some of those are easier for me to get to than others, but those I've gotten to have provided some of the most interesting eating of the past year. And sometimes, let's be honest, inertia sets in.

As always, despite that word "best," I make no pretense of this being any sort of objective listing, only my personal favorites of the places I had the good fortune to visit in 2017. They are not ranked, but rather are listed here in roughly chronological order. For ease of digestion, I'll be breaking this up into three parts.

cockles, pil pil sauce - Bazaar Mar

I wasn't sure Miami needed a second Bazaar restaurant from Chef José Andrés, but I'm glad we got another, and the seafood-focused menu at Bazaar Mar is sufficiently different from the original that they're both worthy of a visit (you can read my thoughts and see more pictures in this Bazaar Mar flickr set). There are lots of flashy, showy dishes there, but one of my favorites was one of the simplest.

The larger dishes on the menu tend to skew a bit more traditional, but that doesn't necessarily mean boring. I loved these little cockles, fresh from the tank, in a Basque-style pil pil sauce, an emulsion of garlic, parsley, olive oil and fish juices.

José Andrés' accomplishments this past year far transcend the restaurant world: through World Central Kitchen, he delivered over two million meals to over seventy locations in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. He also continues to run restaurants that make some great food. José for President!

khandvi - Ghee Rancho Patel Cobaya dinner

Chef Niven Patel of Ghee is making some of the most exciting food in Miami right now, and over the past year he's gone from doing pop-ups at his home in Homestead to opening two restaurants featuring his version of farm-to-table Indian cuisine. We got a taste back in March, shortly before his first spot in Downtown Dadeland opened (read my thoughts on our Cobaya Rancho Patel dinner and see more pictures in this Cobaya Rancho Patel flickr set).

A special treat: khandvi, or as our menu called them, "chickpea roll-ups." This was something I'd never tried before, and for good reason: Niven says you're unlikely to ever see these unless your mother or grandmother is making them, as getting the batter – a mixture of chickpea flour and yogurt or buttermilk – and texture right is a bit of alchemy that could keep molecular gastronomists busy for a while. I was glad someone knew how to do it: these light, fluffy crepes, reminiscent of Japanese tamagoyaki, and seasoned with toasted black mustard seeds, julienned cilantro and curry leaf, were absolutely delicious.

roast bone marrow - St. John Bread and Wine

February featured a whirlwind trip to London and Paris, three days in each, which included a visit to one of the culinary stations of the cross: Fergus Henderson's St. John restaurant (actually, its sibling, St. John Bread and Wine in Spitalfields) (read my thoughts and see more pictures in this St. John Bread and Wine flickr set).

Of course, you have to start with the roasted marrow bones – Henderson's most famous dish, one that has been lovingly duplicated countless times in countless restaurants around the world, one that Anthony Bourdain declared his "always and forever choice" for his Death Row meal. The formula is now well-known: roasted femur bones; toasted bread; a pile of parsley salad; a mound of coarse sea salt. Scoop the oozy marrow from the bone, spread on to the toast, dress with a sprinkle of salt and a pinch of the salad, and enjoy. I've had it dozens of times, but never until now the original. And yes, it's the best: the marrow at the magic borderline between solid and liquid, the acid and salt and herbaceous bite of the salad right on the edge of too aggressive without crossing the line, with just the right punch of caper and shallot. I can't say it better than Fergus himself:

"Do you recall eating Raisin Bran for breakfast? The raisin-to-bran-flake ratio was always a huge anxiety, to a point, sometimes, that one was tempted to add extra raisins, which inevitably resulted in too many raisins, and one lost that pleasure of discovering the occasional sweet chewiness in contrast to the branny crunch. When administering such things as capers, it is very good to remember Raisin Bran."

raw Orkney scallop, hazelnut, clementine, winter truffle - The Clove Club

Our dinner at The Clove Club, chef Isaac McHale's all-grown-up supper club in Shoreditch, was one of my favorites of the year; two dishes from that meal appear here (read my thoughts and see more pictures in this Clove Club flickr set).

In "The Physiology of Taste," Brillat-Savarin famously wrote, "The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity than the discovery of a new star." I can't say for certain that this is an entirely new dish; I can say it's the first time I've had this particular combination of raw scallop, slivered raw button mushrooms, crushed hazelnuts, clementine and black truffle, all assembled over a jet-black squid ink purée. The scallop itself – from fisheries in Orkney, in the outer northern reaches of Scotland – is beautifully plump and fresh and sweet. It's complemented by a fascinating interplay of earthy and nutty flavors, brightened just a hint by the citrus. Speaking for myself, anyway, it's a lot more exciting than the latest "cold brown dwarf."

rabbit, celeriac, smoked bacon, tarragon - The Clove Club

Tasting menus often tend to peter out (for me anyway) as you approach the "big protein" stage, with creativity and finesse giving way to a push for satiety. Not here. This rabbit dish is a tour de force, making use of all the animal in a variety of ways – a ballotine threaded with green leaves, a pinkish slice of loin, tiny chops from the ribs, a wee rabbit heart, a cromesqui of offal, pulled together with a bright green herb sauce redolent with tarragon, then finally drizzled tableside with a rabbit broth. Fantastic.

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best thing i ate last week: green chile dosa at Paper Dosa in Santa Fe

One of my New Year's resolutions: post more frequently. So let's start 2018 on the right foot by getting back to these "best thing I ate last week" posts - a nice way to keep current without doing the usual more lengthy exegesis (and fewer footnotes!).

We just spent a few days between Christmas and New Year's Eve in Santa Fe, a place with some great food traditions which bridge Mexico and New Mexico, in much the same way that Tex-Mex has become its own particular idiom. One of the challenges I always face when choosing where to eat in these types of communities is how closely to hew to tradition, particularly with limited dining opportunities. Do I look for the most "authentic" places (whatever that means), or do I just look for good food?

I went in the latter direction for our last night in Santa Fe, and it worked out great. Paper Dosa (see more pictures in this Paper Dosa flickr set) is a South Indian place run by chef Paulraj Karuppasamy which began as a catering business, then started doing weekly pop-up dinners, and in 2015 opened as a full-blown restaurant. The menu features about a half-dozen appetizers and chaats, several choices of dosas and uttapam, rounded out with a few curries. It reminds me quite a bit of Hopper's in London, where we had a great lunch early last year.

Everything at Paper Dosa was eye-poppingly good, but the standout was a dish that sort of came full circle: a delicate dosa (a crepe made of fermented rice and lentil batter) stuffed with local green chiles and melted cheese, served with traditional accompaniments of sambar (a sort of lentil stew), plus coconut and tomato chutneys. This wasn't one of those goofy "fusion" dishes, like where some French or Italian dish gets some incongruous Asian ingredient thrown into it. It tasted entirely South Indian, and entirely New Mexican, all at once. And it was the best thing I ate last week.

Happy New Year, all, and welcome to 2018.

Paper Dosa
551 W. Cordova Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico
505.930.5521

first thoughts: No Name Chinese | South Miami

2017 has been the year of the "to-do list" for me. The agenda of new restaurants I've been meaning to try continues to grow, and unlike the past several years, the usual forces of attrition (i.e., closures) haven't whittled it down quite as much as usual. Making it even more challenging, those openings haven't been limited to the ever-popular trifecta of Wynwood, South Beach and Brickell. It's good news for the residents of the outer bands of Greater Miami; it's a challenge for those trying to keep up with all the latest additions.

Witness, for example, No Name Chinese, which opened late this spring in South Miami, on a quiet corner behind the Shops at Sunset Place. No Name^[1] is the second spot from the team of wine buff Heath Porter and manager Craig DeWald (their first is Uvaggio wine bar in Coral Gables), who decided they wanted to open a place serving contemporary Chinese cuisine using local ingredients paired with unusual wines.^[2] They brought in Pablo Zitzmann to run the kitchen, who was last seen at the now-closed Trust & Co. in the Gables, and before that worked with Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Jeremy Ford at Matador Room, Ricky Sauri at Nobu and then Bloom in Wynwood, and Michelle Bernstein at Sra. Martinez, among others.

(You can see all my pictures in this No Name Chinese flickr set.)

Zitmann's menu at No Name is inspired by traditional Chinese dishes and flavors, but takes plenty of liberties. So there's a crispy turnip cake (law bok gow), a Chinese dim sum standard, but it's done in the style of a Japanese okonomiyaki topped with lap cheong sausage, shiitake mushrooms, Kewpie mayo and katsuobushi, the shavings of smoked, dried skipjack tuna wriggling in the heat. Turnip cake and okonomiyaki are a couple of my favorite things, so this makes me very happy.

Shrimp toast, usually a greasy fried indulgence, here comes on as healthy-ish as avocado toast: house-made shao bing bread topped with a clean, bright minced shrimp salad, its flavors amplified with a squeeze of lime and a dusting of "crunchy garlic bomb."

Smashed cucumber salad, another Chinese staple which everyone is riffing on lately, sees the cukes marinated in soy sauce and chianking vinegar, then plated over a creamy sesame sauce and topped with a shower of sesame seeds and a bouquet of fresh herbs. It's the kind of thing you keep going back for more bites of as you eat the rest of your meal.

There's an abbreviated selection of about a half-dozen dumplings – not quite enough to start supplying a fleet of carts, but enough to satisfy some dim sum cravings. No Name's shu mai are nearly bursting with a juicy paste of Key West pink shrimp and crab, topped with trout roe for a little pop and contrast. The "angry dumplings" are filled with spicy minced chicken, and dressed with a zippy chili garlic sauce, crispy shallots, more of that "crunchy garlic bomb," and a last minute dusting of orange zest to perk up all those flavors.

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