Archive for November 2012
Kris is bananas for brunch
t says: g and I met up with some friends at Kris for brunch the other weekend. Our brunchmates were Kris-obsessed, so when they heard that g and I had never gone, their hearts broke (I exaggerate for effect …). It has been a while since we’ve gone, so my memory has faded about what everyone else had. <Checks his iPhone> Actually. That’s a lie. I can’t remember what anyone else had because I was too busy focused on this:
bananas
I apologize for the quality of that photo, but I was trying to be nonchalant with my photo-taking (I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of our friends … and I didn’t want to embarrass our friends in front of the restaurant staff, either). And boy am I glad I did … because I totally housed this dish in a matter of 5 minutes. These pecan-crusted brioche french toast slices are topped with caramelized banana. It reminded me of a more elegant form of this monster (that I still love/miss/cherish to this very day). Say what you will about how “boring” some nuts, French toast, and bananas are, but this was damn delicious. All the textures were dead-on. Give me a scoop of bacon ice cream up in there and I could have gone into a food coma a happy man … as it was, I ended the meal pleasantly full, not grossly full … until, of course, we split an order of the nutella crepes which were amazing (although I have to confess that the dish is really kinda-sortuva pretty obvious excuse to just eat nutella for breakfast).
g had some kind of egg dish. If she was still awake at the time I was writing this, I would ask her about its details. I do remember her being happy, though – happy enough to want to try it again – both for brunch AND dinner!
It’s still early in the game to make a call on Kris, but I have to say that so far, it seems like they’re going to make a strong case for us to journey south-of-South more often!
have a capogiro affogato … even if it’s not on the menu
t says: A colleague and I hit up Capogiro for a post-lunch pick-me-up. Anticipating a somewhat-boring afternoon, we wanted some caffeine, but also wanted an excuse to have gelato as well. Problem solved:
affogato!
This concoction of coffee/espresso and gelato wasn’t on the menu, but the gelato-dude (?gelateer? gelatorista?) was happy to concoct one for the each of us. I went with marshmallow gelato, and the end result, while not quite in the proportions I was expecting (it was quite a good bit of gelato for a small amount of liquid … but I guess I could then reason that I was getting my mone’s worth!), was delicious. It reminded me of a hot chocolate with marshmallow … except with coffee … leading me wonder: why don’t people routinely add marshmallow to their coffee as they do hot chocolate? I think I might have to start! Also, while I had never had their marshmallow before, it might just be my new second-favorite flavor! (You can’t beat the dark chocolate.) So check out an affogato the next time you’re there – you can get your sugar-high and caffeine-rush on all at once!
how g and t do Thanksgiving … for two!
t says: So, after last year’s expertly-orchestrated Thanksgiving cook-a-thon, g and I were ready to dominate T-day again this year … until it turned out that we weren’t going to be able to spend the holiday with our families. On one hand, it stunk that we weren’t going to see our parents on Thanksgiving (but we’ll see them soon thereafter). On the other, it presented another challenge: what would we do if we were cooking on our own? Apparently, it looks like this:
T-day dinner at home … g & t style … with mood lighting …
So, I need to set the record straight and say that I had absolutely nothing to do with any of the dinner preparations. g was all over the table-setting, the cooking, the plating, everything (I guess she figured it’d be too easy if both of us worked on it?). All I did was decant some wine and provide some entertainment while she chopped, sauteed, roasted, etc. Normally, I don’t like being sidelined, but g was on a mission, so who am I to object to an effort-free meal? Plus – I had to focus my thoughts on the wine: a 2008 Ayoub pinot noir from Oregon, which was perhaps the most elegant OR pinot I’ve ever had. I sent a a tasting note to be tweeted, but I am confident that he won’t be able to squeeze the entirety of it in one tweet, so here it is:
2008 Ayoub Pinot Noir (Oregon). Nose of anise and black cherry pie (and later a bit of cocoa). On the palate, simple up front with red fruit and a bit of characteristic OR earth, followed by a very lengthy 60+ second finish of evolving red fruits (strawberry to raspberry to cherry), hints of cedar, and an undertone of loam. Smooth as silk and containing impressive elegance and restraint/balance – it’s a fairly lightweight pinot that just keeps going and going, drawing you in with each passing second. It’s most like ‘the girl next door’: dressed in pajamas and lacking make-up, she is not astoundingly pretty up front, but then as you get to know her, you find out that she is a professional violinist, is writing a novel, loves doing the moonwalk, and can often be found in her kitchen baking pies while effortlessly mumbling answers to Jeopardy clues on the television in the background. The longer she’s around, the more your discover, and the more you’re hooked – it’s seduction in a very complex-brainy-dorky sort of way.”
So yes, g and I enjoyed the pinot. We also had a great French sauvignon blanc, but its description didn’t warrant such a verbose tasting note, so I’ll skip it. As for the food … well, g went all-out:
Centerpiece: Turkey (duh!); New-for-our-T-day: Sweet-potato-and-chorizo hash, craisin-sausage stuffing, summery succotash; Nostalgia: Cream-of-celery gravy, Brown-n-serve rolls, and ‘Can’-berry sauce
- mixed berry pie and ice cream … both bought (i.e. not homemade), but so delicious we didn’t care … (and check out the design on the silverware!)
All I can say is that every bit of food turned out wonderfully; g has proven that she can single-handedly conquer Thanksgiving. The only drawback is that now we have approximately 10 meals worth of leftovers (the smallest turkey our grocer had was 14 lbs), so it’s going to be a long haul … fortunately, it was so good that I can’t wait to be hungry again!
sadface dinners …
t says: g and I have hit up two dinner recently that left us a little … wanting … I’m going to consolidate their stories here so we can minimize the number of negative posts …
Brick American Eatery. It’s no wonder there seems to be a “deal” like a Groupon going on here every time we turn around … the food is a miss! I don’t want to harp on every dish we got (actually, dz’s dinner, the Asian noodles and the Fish-n-Chips, looked pretty darned tasty! … nevermind they were the least “American” items on the menu), so I’ll pick the worst of the ones we had (i.e. out of 4 appetizers and 3 mains). It was mine. Check it:
the food was so bad that the picture didn’t even warrant a proper Snapdish quick-fix.
The sprouts: pale, no char, no texture. The steak: pale, minimal Maillard, no flavor. The jus: insipid, no salt, no pepper. People! It’s a steak! It’s a steak and Brussels sprouts! It was popular in 2009! If the $25 all-you-can-eat steak is better than yours, you should just take steak off the menu so you can stop breaking the hearts of customers. No matter how good dz’s entrees looked, nothing can save a restaurant from a bad steak … the mediocre salmon and stale duck nachos didn’t help either. Consequently, I have no choice but to withhold adsz’s stamp of approval (actually … it makes me wish we had a stamp of dismissal … can I do that?). Fortunately, the company was good, and the glass of wine was deep …
Jamonera. So, going in, I imagined that Jamonera would have been like Amada with the feel of Barbuzzo … Man-o-man was I disappointed. And it wasn’t just me! It was g and kp, too! (And kp is perhaps the second-nicest-guy-in-the-world!) The dish the best encapsulates our frustration:
Papa Frita Snoozefest!
So … the papa frita … It’s normally a deliciously fried seasoned potato. And the one thing jamonera did superbly was frying it – I have never had so wonderfully-a-crisped potato. But they were missing one very important aspect of the dish … flavor. What was that weak aioli they had going on? Where’s the seasoning? Where’s the oomph? I wanted it to hit my mouth and make me go “wow”, and then follow it up with a warm, soothing hug of fried-potato-comfort … and this did neither (I don’t find that quantity of aioli comforting … clog-inducing, yes, comforting, no). The other items we sampled that night were similarly lacking in flavor. Their albondigas made me wish I was at Barbuzzo. Their charcuterie made me wish I was at Amada or GTC. The were definitely not winning any adsz awards that night! Oh well – I guess even the mighty Val and Marcie can disappoint once in a while! I suspect that Jamongera may go the way of the Bindi. It’s ok – there’s always Lolita and Barbuzzo …
tastykakes misstep
t says: Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a sucker for Tastykakes. Mostly this is because that is what I ate for the majority of my childhood – we’d go to WaWa and I’d get some assortment of pies/krimpets/kandykakes … you name it, and I ate it.
When I saw that TastyKake was going to do some collaboration with Hershey’s, I was intrigued. Could it be that the joining of two of my favorite junkfoods of youth would result in some sort of unparalleled deliciosity? I wanted to find out … but just couldn’t for the love of me find out where they were sold …
And then one day in the cafeteria, they appeared!
Why buy one when I can fit two in my pocket?
So there we go – I bought one of each and shared with my colleagues.
My colleagues preferred the Reese’s …
Both of the cakes were surprisingly spongy – I thought they’d be denser, like a krimpet. I think the texture kind of threw me off because you’d think they’d be more “solid”. The choco+PB one tasted a little like a PB KandyKake, which is good, however, the ratio of chocolate and PB was all kinds of weird … There was too little PB, and the cake’s chocolateyness was underwhelming, leaving only the coating to provide any real chocolate texture/flavor. I don’t know – it just rubbed me the wrong way … in every possible way.
I preferred the S’mores
The S’mores was slightly more unique of a combination, but once again, the excessive amount of bland cake kinda-sorta-ruined everything. Give me one more stripe of marshmallow, another layer of graham, and a slightly thicker layer of chocolate, and then we’d be cooking with gas …
So what’s a chocolate-lover to do in light of these failures?
Well, I’ve been eating these:
as previously seen here … now over a year later and I’m hooked!
Bibou … we love you
t says: a, v, g, and I went to Bibou recently. We did invite several others to join, but no one could quite make it. This was very problematic for a and me. You see, when there’s only four people, we’re only going to go through 3-4 bottles of wine. When there’s eight people, we can open 8 – which means we can taste more interesting wine! And isn’t that the point – to taste!? Well, undeterred by the limited number of people, we still showed up with 6 bottles … you know … just so we could make some game-time decisions (and in case the servers wanted to get in on the action).
Now once again, Bibou already gets SO much love on this blog that it’s absolutely pointless to re-hash awesome dishes like the escargots and pig’s feet. I think v put it best earlier in the day when she said, “if I get there tonight, and there’s no pig’s foot, I am going to cry in the restaurant.” And I believe her. Fortunately, no one cried that night …
g says: We only get to Bibou once or twice a year, so when we are lucky enough to score a reservation, we take our meal very seriously (hence v’s fear of the kitchen running out of pig’s feet). Generally, we each stick to familiar classics — escargot and pig’s feet for t, crudo and beouf for moi — because it is so hard to justify ordering something new when we are guaranteed a sensational dining experience with our old standbys. These are the dishes that we dream about as we anxiously await the day of our reservation, after all.
We threw caution to the wind this time around, and some new items hit the table with thrilling results. My picks for the winners of this meal both fall into this new category of “interesting” rather than classic dishes that remain on Bibou’s menu at all times. v’s squash consomme (that’s right, a clear broth soup made from squash of all things) was, in my opinion, the best first course. none of us had ever even heard of such a thing <t interrupts: for the record – i’ve heard of consommes, but just never had one>, but the deep flavors just blew us away. I also believe that my main course was the winner of that round, an arctic char with bulgar wheat in a buerre rouge sauce. That’s right, fish in a red wine sauce. Intriguing, right? It was AMAZING. Pierre told us that it was a special item on the menu for that week only; I would say that “special” is right on the money for describing that dish.
Apparently, branching out beyond our “usuals” at Bibou really pays off. I chuckle to myself when I think of how apprehensive I felt when looking at the menu that night (i.e. the minor flash of panic that came over me when I toyed with the idea of ordering something other than the boeuf that I love so much). Did I really think that I would receive a sub-par meal from arguably the best restaurant in the city? Probably not. But now I have confirmed that trying something new could provide an exciting experience without feeling sorry that I didn’t order my old favorite. And now I have a new flavor of the month for adsz!
it’s not a “proper” adsz-style dinner unless the glass:diner ratio is at least 4:1 (not including water glasses).
This mysterious, very dark brown puddle was a squash consomme. It’s a clear broth. Like, if you were in the hospital and required to be “on a clear diet”, this would still qualify. However – it was so jam-packed full of flavor (it tasted like fall) that it knocked our socks off.
Arctic char in beurre rouge sauce (butter, red wine, shallots) over bulgar wheat (tasted like Thanksgiving stuffing!) with a fricasse of persimmon and anaheim pepper. g declared it the winner of our main courses. v agreed with that assessment in terms of creativity, but for taste, she had to vote still for her favorite pig’s feet and lentils.
another table abandoned their remaining Sauterne … so our server allowed us to share it (there was more than a glass per person leftover!) … result: he gets a little bigger tip, and we get a little happier …
t says: Bibou still brings down the house in terms of food. The four of us just can’t get enough. And talking to Pierre is always such a delight. Now I know there are some Bibou-haters out there … and that’s fine … we just can’t be friends … ha.
We did have some delightful wines that night, including a bottle we got from Napa: 2009 Blackbird Arise. This is a serious California Merlot-based wine. If you’ve never had some Blackbird before, it’s excusable to lie/cheat/steal so you can try it – it’ll change your opinion on Cali-Merlot. (I’m not saying it’s a Right Bank Bordeaux doppleganger, but it’s something better than the “F-in’ Merlot” mentioned in Sideways).
Thanks Pierre. And, we missed you, Charlotte.
after dinner sneeze 