mamster

I have a bottle of this on my desk! It's a chelating agent. I also have a bottle of sodium lauryl sulfate. You want my job so bad.

Laurie and I are going this weekend, probably with heyjude and Senor Jude. We are going to put this place OUT OF BUSINESS, baby! Wait, that wasn't the point?

Around Seattle, at least, you also see flanken-style short ribs frozen and sliced thin on a deli slicer for making Korean barbecue.

They actually never asked to see my nametag when I went in. I just said, "I'm with the food journalists," and they whisked me inside and started pouring wine. Based on this experience, I intend to say that every time I go into a restaurant from now on. I will be wearing a disguise, so it will be completely ethical.

I haven't been over to Bottleworks yet, but I've tried most of the Cantillon products, and the gueuze is still my favorite. I'm going to buy a case (probably from Bottleworks).

Laurie and I are planning to go to Ouest next time we're in Vancouver, but I also have to take her to the tasting bar at Lumiere for some more of those ravioli. Perhaps they could be persuaded to do an all-you-can-eat ravioli thing. "Olive Garden is doing it," I will tell them. Also, dammit, if I want to convince myself I'm getting special treatment, who are you to tell me any different?

I wish she had mentioned Primo Burger's fries, which are the only good thing about the place. Klink, do they still put their seasoning mix on the burgers? That was a nice touch.

"Any food" covers a lot of ground. Can you be more specific? There are tricks for keeping some types of vegetables and fruits fresh longer, but for the most part there's the freezer, dehydration, canning, pickling, smoking...and the vacuum packing device, which I've never tried. Can you buy smaller amounts of perishables?

I was in Vancouver on Thursday to participate in a panel at the Association of Food Journalists conference. My panel was on restaurant critic ethics, and I was invited by AFJ President-elect Bill Daley, aka Mebutter. Luckily, I was also invited to stick around for lunch at Lumiere. So, after holding forth on the importance of anonymity, I went to a meal with several dozen food critics wearing nametags. Lumiere has been reported on here before, and I'm lazy, so I'll just touch on a few highlights from the 9-course lunch. I like the very simple, Northwesty decor, although I worry it might be too austere if the restaurant weren't packed (but how likely is that?). It is very loud when full, but maybe only when it's full of reporters, who are loud by nature. Each course had a matching 1.5 to 2 ounce taste of wine. I thought the best overall wine match was the first: Zind-Humbrecht Clos Hauserer riesling 1999 with an amuse of albacore sashimi topped with som tam, or Thai-style green papaya salad. This was an unexpectly authentic little som tam, although it had toasted pine nuts instead of peanuts. They went light on the lime juice so it would pair well with the wine, and it was just an awesome match--bite of amuse, sip of wine, and boom, tuna flavor comes to the fore. The best overall dish was butternut squash and mascarpone ravioli. Normally I do not like butternut squash ravioli: it's always either too sweet or stringy. Not today. These were two ravioli, looking like a pair of sunny-side-up eggs, topped with with black truffle beurre blanc (flash-frozen truffles, the chef told us), EVOO, and fleur de sel. The essence of creamy, and not too sweet. One of the best and very French things about Lumiere's food is the concentration of flavor in the tiny accompanying elements. This was exemplified by the foie gras dish, a bite of seared foie gras wrapped in a slice of duck breast, served atop cauliflower puree and in turn topped with a prosciutto and herb "salad", really just a teaspoon of crispy prosciutto and herb bits. A couple of the dishes (not this one) were served in espresso cups; I would have gladly accepted an oversized mug of the buttery cauliflower puree. There was a very nice Quebecois goat cheese called Cabri Cendré; the cheese course overall was well done, consisting of three Canadian cheeses, fig bread and fruit-nut bread, and a glass of Australian tawny port. Desserts (a sorbet and a berries-and-cream concoction) were fine, but it was clear that the heart of this place is not in the desserts. The plates are very small, and I left after three hours sated and a little drunk, but not overly full. I sat next to eGullet member Marlena Spieler, who is a fount of entertaining stories; she told us about her recent visit to a prosciutto festival in Parma, where everything was delicious except the prosciutto desserts. It's probably unfair to recommend Lumiere after this carefully orchestrated pull-out-all-the-stops lunch, but what the hell? I loved it.

I can vouch for this, because I brought cornbread to the Pacific Northwest eGullet smoke-up, and Fat Guy was prowling around saying, "Who made this cornbread? I need some more of that." Wait, now that I think about it, it had frozen kernels in it, not creamed corn. On skillet cornbread, I think the use of white flint cornmeal is important. It's hard stuff to find (we order ours from Morgan's Mills, and it's ludicrously expensive as far as cornmeal goes, around $3/lb), but makes a big difference. This is a favorite dinner at the Amster-Burton house. We use the recipe from John Thorne's Serious Pig, bacon drippings as the fat. We crumble the bacon and throw it in the batter, and when the bread is done, we halve it parallel to the plate and put some cheddar cheese inside.

Maybe my stereotype of WSJ readers is outdated--I'm envisioning them carrying a basket through Balducci's.

You mean the Wall Street Journal doesn't know how to amortize capital expenses? That's humorous. It's also hard for me to believe that WSJ readers shop at supermarkets that don't sell fresh sage.

This reminds me of a question. Once I went to the Deluxe and got a burger, and one of the people I was eating with said, "I don't like the burgers here--they're perfectly round." I believe she was implying that they were frozen (I have no idea whether this is true at the Deluxe). How widespread is the use of frozen patties, and how much does it matter. Also, is her contention accurate, that a perfectly round patty implies frozen, or could a fresh one come out an even circle if you use one of those rings?

Thanks, Macrosan! Yes, I started a related thread ("Expensive restaurant, simple dishes") over in General, where I am being well and fairly reamed for some of my comments. Okay, mildly reamed by eGullet standards. Check it out.

I'd advise anyone interested in Genoa to go--some of the food was simply world-class, and despite my various criticisms, I did enjoy the meal.

Shrimp.

First of all, here's Genoa's website. As you may remember, this year for my birthday I got my wisdom teeth out. So Laurie and heyjude promised me an extravaganza in September, and on Saturday the promise was fulfilled with dinner for Laurie and me at Genoa in Portland. I've been wanting to go to Genoa since I was in high school and first started hearing about their endless rustic Italian tasting menus. I would drive by their storefront on southeast Belmont (they always keep the shades drawn and the place always looks closed) and project myself enviously inside. By all accounts, Genoa is as good or better than it used to be. They're using Jim Dixon's olive oil, for one thing; it’s no longer so dark you can’t see your food; and chef Cathy Whims heads up a rotating cadre of five talented chefs. We made it in on the last day of chef Jerry Husinga's late summer menu. Our reservation was for 9 p.m. This is later than I usually eat, so I pretended we were European. Laurie and I have some friends from Spain and they are forever going out to dinner at 9:30. Anyway, the first thing you see just inside the door of the restaurant is a big table full of fruit--more on this later. Our table wasn't ready yet, and we were shown to the sitting room, which is like the front room of a posh bed and breakfast, only it's in the back. (I peeked behind a curtain and saw a dusty stockroom adjacent to the sitting room--a reminder that a restaurant made up to look like a country manor is not, in fact, a country manor.) In the sitting room we sat on comfortable chairs and enjoyed cocktails and recent issues of Italian cooking magazines. Laurie had a Bellini and I something that sounded like “Punta y mes,” although that would be Spanish. Our waiter translated it as “point and a half,” and it was a mix of vermouth, wine, and bitters. Nightscotsman, do you know anything about this drink? I liked it, but I like bitter things in general. We were quickly shown to our table and our waiter (a different waiter--I think there were three on duty in the 28-seat restaurant) described the choice of entree. There’s no choice on Genoa’s menu besides the entree--everyone in the restaurant is eating the same things. I enjoy dining this way: it keeps the kitchen focused and there’s little chance of choosing the wrong thing. I’m not as big a fan of the long tasting menu, because I’m bad at pacing myself, but this is my own fault. The entree choices were: Milk-braised pork loin chop with rapini, balsamic vinegar, and roasted peaches Salmon in agrodolce with fennel seed, Dijon mustard, fennel leaves, and sides of green beans and Italian frying peppers Quail sautéed with pancetta and shallots in a sauce of fig jam, chicken stock, and Marsala, served with pureed butternut squash We weren’t forced to make a decision until after the second course, and I vacillated between the quail and the pork until then, finally deciding on the little birds. I encouraged Laurie to get the fish, since I coveted the side dishes. We ordered a bottle of 1997 Produtti di Barbaresco, an uncomplicated but delicious wine reasonably priced at $44. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to be a concentrated tannin bomb of a Barbaresco, and our waiter not only assured me it wasn’t, but explained the wine in such a way that I could tell I was going to like it. Or maybe it was the power of suggestion. With each course, our waiter described the dish briefly. There is no printed menu. The first course was bocconcino di parma: crespelle, or crepes, filled with ricotta and Parmigiano-Reggiano, crisped up in the oven and served with sautéed thinly-sliced chanterelles with a kiss of vinegar. This was an absolute knockout starter, with the tart and woodsy mushrooms taking the edge off the rich, golden-brown cheesy crepes. Both the online menu and our waiter said the crepes would contain prosciutto, but there wasn’t any. Later we heard the waiter telling another table about this antipasto, and he didn’t mention prosciutto. Guess they were out. Next there was soup: pappa al pomodoro. This is the Tuscan tomato-bread soup, served at room temperature (“as is customary,” we were told). Good local tomatoes, house-made bread, and good olive oil, but still tomato soup. The pasta course, tagliatelle alle melanzane, consisted of fresh tagliatelle with diced eggplant, hot pepper, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. The homemade pasta really tasted like wheat and had perfect texture, and the eggplant was also nicely textured but could have used a bit more concentration of flavor. No entrees yet. First, a fish course, of Northwest mussels (really big fat ones; I don’t know the different types) on the half-shell. We each got five, steamed, then topped with garlic, marjoram, and breadcrumbs and briefly broiled. My mussels ranged from very slightly chewy to dead-on perfect fresh mussel flavor. If I were forced to decide whether this course or the bocconcino was my favorite, I’d take both and run away and say, “HA ha.” The fifth course was the secondo, the entree, the plat du resistance. Laurie had a big (half a pound) fillet of salmon which I’m sure she’ll tell you about separately, and I had two quail on a bed of butternut squash. The birds were cooked just right, tender and juicy. The butternut squash was rich and good as far as pureed squash goes. I wasn’t too enamored of the fig-based sauce--a little too sweet--but I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Laurie’s green beans were perfectly cooked, and I’m not using “perfect” in the jaded restaurant critic sense. Her sautéed peppers were nicely charred in parts, but not really any better than the sautéed peppers I make at home. They gave us some time to recover from our entrees before bringing out the dessert plate. Laurie has accepted responsibility for telling you about the dessert options. I had a coffee caramel custard with chocolate shavings, or at least three bites of one. Finally, while I was enjoying a cup of coffee, they brought out the fruit bowl. Genoa is famous for carefully selecting the best possible fruit to finish out the meal, and even though I thought I couldn’t eat another bite, I saved room for some tart green Interlaken grapes and a few nibble of an Italian prune plum. Other options included watermelon and two kinds of pear, Asian and non-Asian. Total time: 2.5 hours. Since it was a gift, we didn’t see the bill, but at well over $100 per person, this was the most expensive meal I’ve ever weaseled out of paying for. Genoa aims high and succeeds more often than not, but this was not the meal of a lifetime--it was a distinctly mixed experience. Now the critique. There were a couple of serious service errors. First, our places were set and entrees delivered in reverse. It’s one thing to lose track in a large party, but a party of two? In a restaurant that seats 28? Second, this is probably a minority view, but I am really sick of waiters asking me how I like the food while I’m eating it. Sure, at an unprepossessing place I’d rather have a waiter ask than disappear, but at one of the top restaurants in the region, it’s not too much to insist that waiters take the responsibility for recognizing whether a customer is unhappy, offering assistance if they are, and appearing to recede into the background if they are not. If I invited you to my house and asked you how you liked your food three bites in, I’d be guilty of low self-esteem or fishing for compliments. Maybe I could be excused for these things, but a great restaurant can’t. Laurie can tell you about the third and most egregious service lapse. (This is how we keep people tuned to Pacific Northwest.) I will note that her fish was served without skin, which is throwing away the best part of the salmon. I hope the staff got the skin. My final criticism may paint me as a spoiled diner--and maybe I’ve been spending too much time on eGullet--but I think it was a mistake for Genoa to serve these soup and pasta courses. Not only were they well prepared but extremely ordinary, but this was a $68 menu, and the two servings of soup and pasta together represented under a dollar’s worth of ingredients (and probably well under). I would like to be able to go to a restaurant in Portland and get great renditions of tomato soup and tagliatelle with eggplant--just not this restaurant. The menu as a whole was completely lacking in luxury ingredients (unless you count chanterelles), and I don’t think that’s a problem as long as each dish represents a chef’s serious thought, tinkering, and successful conclusion. It’s almost parallel to what I said above about the service: yes, I’d rather have classic dishes done well than bad experiments, but in this context what I should have is experiments, done well, on a classical foundation. Several dishes at Genoa failed to live up to that standard. So there it is (most of it, anyway): some seriously great food and some serious problems. I’m not at all sorry we went, but rarely have I had more mixed feelings about a meal.

This seems like a good place to note that La Tienda Cadiz is kaput. No Cadiz, no James Cook--where am I going to buy cheese?

I was going to mention their tamarind-broth soup in an article; that article hasn't run yet, but I'm pretty sure (a) I did mention it, and (b) it'll run before the end of the year (in the Sunday Times magazine). Of course, it's not like Monsoon hasn't had enough publicity lately. It's really only upscale compared to Banh Mi 88 or Nha Trang; they've got beautiful-people waiters and prices in whole dollar amounts and a wine list, but they also have a chicken dish that's suspiciously like General Tso's. I like the place a lot--don't miss that soup.

I don't know if nightscotsman reads this forum, but he's strongly recommended to me the Kodansha guide, Gateway to Japan, which I haven't bought yet but will. So far I have the Tokyo City Atlas and Lonely Planet Tokyo. There is a nice book called Little Adventures in Tokyo in which the author talks about his favorite walking routes and interesting off-the-path things to do in Tokyo. He also explains pachinko to the westerner--can you believe the Lonely Planet book never mentions pachinko once?

The conveyor belt, long may she rotate. Welcome, aaustin, and thanks for the reminder. mb7o, I've seen the pea eggplants occasionally, once at the former Viet Hoa market at 7th and Jackson, and once at Uwajimaya. I snap them up whenever I see them and make a green curry. Wouldn't it be funny if the Vietnamese restaurants started trying to one-up each other in types of beef served? Maybe in a few months we can all go for "beef 35 ways."

Perhaps they meant as opposed to streaky bacon?

I made the hot and sour soup, which was good and quite different from any I've had before (although I discovered that I quite like the taste of harsh distilled white vinegar in my hot and sour, and I'll sub that for the Chinkiang next time). Then there were the dry sauteed string beans. We got some really nice skinny local string beans, and I tried Dunlop's shallow fry method. It worked fine and saved peanut oil, although it took forever. This dish is one of the best uses ground pork has ever found in my house (just behind potstickers). I don't know why I've never made it at home before. I intended to make the variation of this dish with shredded bitter melon and serve them both, but after frying the string beans for twenty minutes I was ready to eat. Ah, and I made the red-braised pork. They sell nice pieces of pork belly at my local Asian market, and I cut them into chunks and braised for a couple of hours in soy sauce, brown sugar, and star anise. I ate some for breakfast over rice. For me, at least, it took some suspension of disbelief to enjoy this dish, since it involved eating large, silky hunks of pork fat. I have nothing against pork fat, and I'm sure the dish has less fat than ice cream--at least, this is what I told myself as I wolfed it down. I'm hoping to cook just about everything in this book sooner or later. It's a marvel.

Ten bucks? Next time I get out of work in time to make it down by seven, I am so there.

Is there any mystery to why hotel restaurants drive chefs away? The chef is never an owner and her restaurant is constantly subject to the whims of the hotel management. On top of that, 727 Pine is a good restaurant that opened in the wrong place at the wrong time and sits empty. I don't blame Danielle Custer for moving on.