Posts from — March 2008

James Beard has announced their annual award nominees. It’s no Golden Clog, but has a few bits worth noting.

Two of my favorite food writers, Brett Anderson of Times-Picayune and Robb Walsh of Houston Press, got nods for Newspaper Feature About Restaurants and/or About Chefs. Walsh has been covering Houston for years and has done some really great stories that capture the essence of the city, Taco Truck Gourmet, history of Tex-Mex and the most excellent flame war with John Mariani over processed cheese being my all time favorites.

I only recently came across Brett Anderson and found that he has a similar grasp of New Orleans food, covering the resurgence of the post-Katrina restaurant scene extensively. It’s a bit disappointing that blogs don’t make the list for JBF. I have read great many newspaper dining blogs in the last couple of years and we are lucky to have one of the best with Cook’s Tour, which is somehow relevant beyond Houston city limits and yet local at the same time.

Who else is left out? Daniel Patterson of Coi, who has written some of the best food stories in the recent years. Patterson is a working chef and has a dimension that food writers can’t attain, looking from outside in by definition. One of the best articles chronicles the decades of suffocating impact that Chez Panisse has had on Southern California, which captured the evolution and eventual stagnation of dining in San Francisco. I don’t know enough about San Francisco to agree or disagree, but judging by the number of people upset by his take, seems there is some truth to his proclamation that the emperor has no clothes.

Few notes about chef nominations. Tom Douglas for Best Restaurateur? Don’t buy it. Fearing’s probably belongs in the Best New Restaurant category. I recently completed a Southwestern tour of Fearing, Pyles and Del Grande restaurants and Fearing clearly has the most left in the tank. Although I haven’t had much exposure to the Outstanding Chef nominees, but Grant Achatz should take that category without much trouble. The guy has an unreal amount of talent and serves up a mind-blowing experience better than anyone on the molecular block today.

Regional awards are a mixed bag, as usual. I still think it’s retarded that New York has it’s own category, but I suppose you need to pack the ego’s in somewhere. After visiting both Manresa and Quince recently, I am now a huge David Kinch fan and have little more than tacit approval for Michael Tusk. If Kinch doesn’t take the Best Chef Pacific category, James Beard might as well turn awards over to the foreign press.

No one from Houston is nominated this year. I am not thrilled about it, but I have to agree. There is a ton of talent here, doing some really exciting things, but no one quite takes it up to the level of Sharon Hage and Andrew Weissman. If I had to choose I’d probably go with York Street. Le Reve serves a fantastic meal, but it’s York Street I keep on thinking about going back to over and over again.

And finally, Irma’s? I don’t get the fascination with this place. The food is up and down, the prices are usually up and it just doesn’t feel like an affable hole in the wall any more, but some exclusive politico club where the story sounds better than it tastes. I’ll pass.

I don’t have a whole lot to show for my dinner at Quince. Save for a few brilliant dishes that hint at just how much talent Michael Tusk has, the restaurant takes itself far too seriously for a comfortable night out and delivers too little to justify the excessive fuss. Even taking the snooty, staff that envelop every spare inch of this tiny restaurant, out of the equation, you are still left with a feeling that Quince could be a lot more if it didn’t let the foam of accolades go straight to it’s (proverbial) head.

Photo shoot cut short at Quince

Except for a lonely frog leg amuse, I don’t have any pictures of the food. You’ll have to settle for my mini-diary, instead (I was quite bored).

• 9:25 Arrive at Quince. Parking is 10 dollars. They’ll be happy to add it to my bill through magic of vertical integration. You have got to love San Francisco!
• 9:26 Enter the restaurant. Everything stops for a split second. Feeling From Dusk Till Dawn sort of awkward.
• 9:27 Menu arrives with a tasting menu flap open. Subtle. I think the Quincinites want me to order this. Maybe I should order a la carte just to spite the man. Somehow I think the symbolism would be lost on these people.
• 9:29 Hmmm. The tasting menu is $20 more than what’s listed on the web site. Quince is going to compete with Alinea and La Reve for value with only half the number of dishes. This place has Rocky Mountain Oysters the size of watermelons. Game on! I am ordering the tasting menu!
• 9:31 First impressions. The space is tiny. Dining room looks comfortable, but quite cold and much more formal than necessary. Something like 16 tables set up in a grid pattern with as many waiters moving through the room like Pac-Men. They seem attentive and efficient; everything is done in carefully measured motions as if they work in a laboratory. If I didn’t know better I’d think this is a social experiment or a focus group.
• 9:35 Starting the figure out the social order here. Waiters (toasters) wear brown Oxford suits and are perpetual motion through the dining room to make sure everything is in order. It may look like they aren’t hovering, but your every move is carefully observed. Once in a while the toasters will whisper something to each other, disappear into the kitchen and come out with a set of plates placed on the table in a set of perfectly choreographed motions. While the toasters are watching you, the skinjobs in black suits are watching the toasters. One of the four skinjobs works the front door, while others work the wine island, but their real function is to make sure the toasters don’t malfunction. After the dishes come out the skinjobs make a quick pass to observe the plate settings on the table and facial expressions of the diners. Nothing goes unnoticed, as the staff churns through the dining room like some programmable biomass. Basically, Quince is a creepy fucking place.
• 9:37 Waiter arrives after noticing I have been sitting there a little while with nothing to do. He seems nervous. I really don’t mind, but I have a feeling the skinjobs are going to feed him to the pigs if I as much as raise an eyebrow.
• 9:38 House baked bread basket. Looks good. Tastes… bland and sort of rubbery.
• 9:40 Fried Frog Leg and Potato amuse. Cliched as it is, but it tastes like the garden variety chicken. This reminds me of the Escargot and Chicken Oysters Fricassee I had once at db bistro in New York. The escargot were supposed to give the dish its gravitas, but the chicken oysters completely outshined the rubbery little snails, tossed in only to justify the caliber of the chef and the price. I’d take great chicken over average frog legs any day of the week.
• 9:42 Skinjob lady arrives at my table and informs me that photography is against house rules. I am nearly speechless, but I comply. First time this happens to me. Strange though, there are pictures of Quince dishes all over the net.
• 9:51 Sformato of Black Trumpet Mushroom, Stracchino Cheese. A light soufflé thingy with black trumpet mushrooms that have a far more pronounced flavor than some truffles I’ve had lately. It’s a good dish, but the sauce is so impotent it could have been made with just about anything that melts. Stracchino cheese has a mild, but deep flavor, and its nowhere to be found here. Seems like an opportunity lost.
• 9:59 Sea Scallops, Potato, Wild Nettle. The scallops are fine, but quite unremarkable. Still waiting for the fireworks to begin.
• 10:10 Interesting. The table in the corner is taking flash photographs, lighting up the entire room. Flash photography in a restaurant is incredibly rude, so I wait for the skinjobs to converge and turn the offenders into human hamburger. Strangely enough, nothing of the sort happens even after a dozen or so shots. Just as I get ready to call the skinjob lady over to explain herself to me, she finally approaches their table. Minutes later they are back at it again.
• 10:16 Saffron Chitarra, Dungeness Crab, Hot Pepper, Bread Crumbs. This dish is absolutely perfect and unlike anything I’ve had before. Very balanced blend of flavors and textures. The pasta is just the right density, crab is sweet, right amount of seasoning and a great kick of heat from hot peppers. Best part: bread crumbs provide a really nice contrast to the pasta and crab and brighten the whole thing up. I could eat an entire plate of this. Considering forgiving Michael Tusk for hiring the insufferable front house staff, but only for a moment. Really, how does a place this fussy send out a dish with crab shell fragments?
• 10:32 Tortelloni, Castelrosso Cheese, Honey, Walnuts. Another perfect dish. No confusion over the meaning of "al dente" here; the pasta is delicate and complements all the other ingredients quite nicely. Again, not a single flavor out of place. I’ve never had castelrosso cheese before, but it seems very heat sensitive, which makes the tortelloni even more technically impressive. I could really go for another half dozen pasta courses at this rate.
• 10:35 With tables this close together, and no dining companion to distract me, I can’t help to absorb the conversations around me. Quince really wants to be an elevated neighborhood joint, but with reservations impossible to secure without at least a weeks, often months, notice the place is stuffed to the gills by pseudo intellectual foodie snobs. The Ivy league windbag next to me is talking about the flavor profiles on his scallops being off and making sure to pronounce "panna cotta" with a perfect Italian inflection, as if making a point to correct the house staff. I want to stab this guy in the throat. I wonder if this is against house rules, as long as I don’t use my camera to do it.
• 10:45 Sonoma Organic Veal, Erbette Chard, First of the Season Asparagus and Peas. The meat course is weak. I’d read that Quince doesn’t do mains well, but its really weak. The veal tenderloin is a shade of pink north of proper, the garnish entirely ordinary, demiglace is too strong. You can do much better in anytown French bistro. I should have stuck with the pasta dishes.
• 11:00 Chocolate Hazelnut Bombe, Olive Oil Gelato. Not bad, but it doesn’t quite close out the dinner with a statement either. I think I am still hungry.

Quince is a fine restaurant, but it only transcends the average with it’s pasta. Maybe not so unusual in Italy, but it really is special here in the states. Does a one dimensional restaurant like Quince deserve the accolades it gets? Glowing critic reviews, clogged reservation lines, it’s Michelin star, breathless declarations that Quince is the best restaurant in San Francisco by foodie bloggers? Probably not. I think that’s more a function of the always hungry for more food scene in San Francisco than anything else.

Here’s the bizarre ending to this story – I might go back to Quince again. If I sit with my back to the dining room, stay away from the under powered tasting menu and weak meat mains, I can focus on the spectacular (and expensive) pasta dishes Quince turns out so well. A pair of earplugs to filter out the foodie windbags, and it might just be a good time.

Strange trend emerged over the last few years. Some of the best chefs in the city aren’t cooking.

Earlier this month Randy Rucker departed from Artista. I had speculated some time ago that Cordua restaurants were ready for a change, which just might restore some past glory to this tired Houston institution, but the new America’s menu looks like more of the same and Rucker ran into creative "differences" with the owners (read: he didn’t want to grill a hunk of beef 14 different ways and call it cooking). Guess I am going to cancel my reservation for the dinner Rucker was planning for March 17th to showcase some of his creations.

For now, you can look at, but you can’t touch, the dishes he creates on his blog. I hope someone comes to their senses in Houston and hires this guy.

On the other side of town, Philippe Schmit returned from a trip to France to get some creative ideas and found himself out of a job – booted unceremoniously from Bistro Moderne, which put Hotel Derek on culinary map. New hotel owners often change concepts, but to dismiss one of the best chefs in the city from a restaurant that was so successful after so many false starts?

Last Supper at Bistro Moderne

Schmit landed on his feet and scored a job with the Legacy Group, the people behind Antone’s and Ninfa’s on Navigation. The press release announcing his hiring promised a signature restaurant around, but the Chronicle story about Legacy today makes no mention of any such thing in the plans. The corporate chef job pays the bills, but is that really the best opportunity available in Houston for someone with Schmit’s talent?

Another sad story – Scott Tycer, who went to fat camp, shuttered Aries and now spends his time on commercial baking. Tycer has top billing as a chef at Gravitas, but for the most part it seems like a Jason Gould operation. Gravitas is a decent restaurant, but it far from realizing it’s full potential. You can tell the kitchen can turn out great food, but the menu lacks inspiration and seasonality to be a true draw. I rarely go there.

Maybe the most depressing story of all is that of Alberto Baffoni, who turned out some of the most refined Italian food in the city at Simposio. Since leaving Simposio, Baffoni had a string of odd jobs at places that don’t quite fit him, finally ending up at the most bizarre place of all – Bohemia, a sort of a macabre combination of an Italian restaurant, and eastern European supper club, complete with a band, disco lights and gypsy dancers.

I visited Bohemia a handful of times and it was but a sad reminder of what Baffoni used to accomplish at Simposio. For shits and giggles I ordered borscht and buckweat blinis, just to see how Baffoni was coping with his Russian owners. I wasn’t less amused when I realized I’d have to eat them. Both had all the right ingredients, but clearly cooked by someone who never tasted the dishes as they are supposed to be prepared.

Italian dishes were better, but not great. Ravioli were kneaded to glutinous mess and stuffed with lumpy, low grade beef. Baffoni’s signature dish, vitello tonnato – cold slices of veal with mayo/tuna/anchovies sauce, had a heavy mayonnaise profile that blew right past the delicate veal. Veal chops were perfectly cooked to medium rare and had a nice crust, but also sported a mayonnaise cap that seemed entirely unnecessary. The style of cooking was reminiscent of traditional Russian food, where zakuski are often dressed with higher fat ingredients that stand up to vodka. The menu was clearly tailored to suit Bohemia’s intended clientele – Russian immigrants who love to drink and dance first, and eat second.

Not all was bad. The Adriatic seafood stew one night was spectacular, full of deep fish stock with a profound bay flavor, and perfectly steamed seafood. The restaurant, however, was empty at peak dinner hour. Alberto Baffoni came out to personally thank us for coming in, looking a bit embarrassed. Few weeks later he was gone.

Will he turn up again at a place that might use his talents to their fullest? I hope so, but I am not holding my breadth. Houston seems to have a deep bench of excellent chefs and little opportunity for them.

Alison Cook writes in her blog this week about a young American chef named Daniel Rose, who opened a tiny eatery in Paris against better judgement and proceeded to book out months in advance and charm the local Michelin reviewers. On the menu? Parsley root and chestnut soup — Pig’s feet, scallops and green apple — Pigeon, carrot purée, wilde hare, brussels sprouts glazed with balsamic vinegar. I’d fly for a night in Paris just to eat this stuff. No stopping there. Daniel Rose has a blog and broadcasts from the restaurant’s kitchen 24/7 via a set of web cams. It just might be the first Restaurant 2.0 in existence.

Small dining room, claustrophobic kitchen, a countertop and a chef is one of the best concepts to emerge in recent years (mix and match ingredients being the worst), very often producing exciting results. The menu changes every day, with dishes conjured up out of thin air during a morning trip to the market. It’s the antithesis of the fine dining experience, where precision and consistency rules, and menus change less frequently than governments.

One of the best restaurant experiences I’ve had was at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in London, where small tasting plates dominate the menu and the diner becomes immersed in the kitchen experience a feet away from the bar. L’Atelier is far from a tiny chef driven operation, but the idea is the same and it works, remarkably enough, despite being a chain.

We don’t have anything of the sort in Houston (does it really make sense in our egalitarian city?), but on my recent trip to San Francisco I came across Canteen, which sounds like a mirror image of Daniel Rose’s Spring.

I knew very little about Canteen going in. It made a short list of restaurants that had an interesting menu. Quick check to make sure it was within walking distance and I was off. I found Canteen about 10 minutes away from Union Square, just a few doors down and a world away from the iconic Fleur De Lys.

I liked Canteen from the moment I walked in. Four tables, green Formica countertop, tiny kitchen, a cook, unassuming waitress. 20 seats at most. It was perfect. The place felt comfortable, like a greasy spoon with great food. You can tell a lot about the place by how the staff carries themselves and the staff at Canteen moved through the tiny space as if they were serving a casual lunch at home. It’s the sort of kabuki dance you encounter when you come across a confident hand in the kitchen. Canteen seemed light years away from the imposing pomp and disappointment of Quince I experienced the night before (more on that later). I was hopeful.

The menu provided a second clue. One of the three dishes was spaghetti carbonara, with eggs, pancetta, parmigiano and black pepper. Cream was no where to be found Most restaurants, including the we-really-should-know-better-than-that Prego, bastardize this dish to make it more palatable to the alfredo loving crowds by replacing the raw eggs with cream. Classic carbonara on the menu was all I needed to know to dive in.

First up – a simple dinner roll and butter, which was pretty good. Seems like an odd thing to notice, but bread is important. Sometimes you know just what’s in store by the quality of the bread. This roll was soft, yeasty and had just enough texture to tell me that someone made it by hand that mornong. The Belgian endive salad with goat cheese was chopped and simply dressed in olive oil right in front of me. I don’t like grapefruit much, but it was a perfect compliment to the slightly bitter endive. The salad didn’t really need more acid and not much more was added. Things were off to a good start.

I ordered the Dover sole (at least I think it was a sole) for lunch, rather than the carbonara, which seemed a bit much considering my ambitious plan for Incanto later that night. The fish came out perfectly cooked and the sweet roasted onions on the side turned out to be the best thing on the plate. Problem was that the crust that coated the fish fillets made the dish almost inedible. The corn meal was neither toasted nor was the fish cooked at high enough temperature to make it crisp properly, giving the effect of uncooked grits being slathered on a the fish after cooking it.

And just like that my budding love affair with Canteen came to a grinding halt.

Behind me a couple of foodie types were digging into their sole with much enthusiasm. One was a San Francisco native, the other seemed to be on a visit from New York. They both knew Dennis Leary, the chef/owner of Canteen, and seemed completely unaware that there was something wrong with the fish. Could it be that different than mine, considering all three fillets were cooked in the same pan?

Strangely enough, I wanted to come back to Canteen the very next day (I did not make it) and plan to do so next time I am in town. Maybe this time for dinner, to see how things go when Dennis Leary mans the stove himself. The truth is that even with minor imperfections, this is a better way to eat than being patronized in a stuffy restaurant where food takes a back seat to everything else. I am willing to take the lumps along the way.

"I wanted to do something different," he says, "and create a restaurant totally stripped of all pretension, the kind of place where I can cook for a small group of customers, interact and improvise, and offer very personally prepared, unique, and accessible food." As the sole cook in the establishment, he will personally prepare nearly every dish in the restaurant, from amuse bouche to salad to dessert. – Dennis Leary

Comfort food will always be judged on the merits of how fried, starchy or unapologetically unhealthy a dish might be. Come inducing foods really do stir up memories of times gone by when you were cared for by someone who cooked delicious things – mom, grandma, the creepy guy around the corner who wants to show you his awesome train set. For me, the definition of comfort food always came down to the flavors you associate most with home.

A long trip out of town is always the best way to zero in on the best and most comforting of flavors. Things you start to miss on day three of your trip. For years, my ritual meal coming back from the airport was at Ninfa’s. Perhaps no longer the best Tex-Mex in the city, but certainly unique to Houston …  and Beaumont, Baton Rouge, Atlanta and Austin, thanks to the half-wit owners of Serrano’s. At some point, Ninfa’s has taken a back seat to Tamales Doña Tere.

On any given day in Houston you can find great tamales at Pico’s, Otilia’s, Sylvia’s, Merida and Hugo’s, as well as some truly mediocre specimens at Berryhill. None of them quite capture the depth of flavor Dona Tere can deliver if you happen to order just the right tamale at the right time of the day.

Tamales at Doña Tere are always great, but if you happen to order from a batch that just came out of the steamer they are almost transcendent. Freshly steamed tamales have a creamy texture that melds with the filling to produce an almost gooey center. When fresh, the meat and cheese fillings take the back seat to the sauce, which works overtime as the corn meal releases steam. Wait too long and the effect goes away, producing a perfectly terrific tamale, but one notch below it’s full potential.

Doña Tere has about a dozen varieties, including a few sweet, tamales although none of them are better than the last batch out of the steamer. Tamales with green sauce tend to be a bit hotter than red and produce a brighter chile flavor that builds slowly and stays behind long after you’ve moved on. Doña Tere sells their green salsa on the side, but you only really need it when you hit a tamale that has been out of the steamer for a while.

The one time I hit on a freshly made Oaxaqueños tamale with chicken and red chili sauce it blew the rest of that days batch away. Larger than most, Oaxaqueños tamales have a deep red vein that gives them a striking appearance. The flavor was unlike anything I’ve ever had with deep, complex and slightly smoky chili notes that came in layers. I’ve ordered the Oaxaqueños on every visit since then, but they are always overshadowed by the more fresh varieties that day.

Eager for a comparison I ordered an Oaxaqueños tamale from Pico’s the very next night and it didn’t even come close. The chile sauce vein was less pronounced and the flavor was equally muted. Texture was closer to what you might expect to find in the inferior Salvadorian tamale varieties. The tamale was good, but tasted somewhat aristocratic and safe in comparison to the version made by Tamales Doña Tere.

The Beechnut location of Doña Tere provides something most restaurants cannot easily match – rapid inventory turnover. The dining room isn’t much to look at, with only a couple of bare tables and a long Formica counter lining the window. Take out is the preferred option for most customers and tamales go fast enough that Doña Tere has to resort to covering up the missing varieties on the menu board, until a fresh batch comes out of the steamer.

The only place that might come close to Doña Tere are the tamales at Alamo, but having never been there I can’t say which one is better. All I know is that three days into my trip out of town all I can think about is Tamales Doña Tere.