Matters of Taste

"Urban Italian" -- Great Food Wherever You Cook It

Andrew Carmellini had me at “Hello!”

The acclaimed New York City chef wowed me last summer on my first trip to A Voce with his simple but stylish and stunningly flavorful food.  (In fact, I had liked his food at Café Boulud before that, but somehow he makes more of a statement when he’s cooking Italian.)

And when his first cookbook came out some months ago, I was hooked on the first recipe I turned to. 

“Urban Italian – Simple Recipes and True Stories from a Life in Food” is an inviting tome that manages to entertain with honest stories and funny anecdotes, all the while providing a detailed roadmap to memorable meals.

Carmellini (and his wife Gwen Hyman, who is co-author) claims he decided to write the book while waiting around for construction delays on A Voce (he is no longer chef there). Though he grew up in a food-loving Italian family, and has cooked over the years in such gourmet temples as Lespinasse (now closed) and Café Boulud, the Ohio-born Carmellini knows all too well the challenges of cooking in a tiny apartment kitchen in a big American city.  Hence, the title, “Urban Italian” and the contents….a compendium of recipes that can be pulled off with success in that environment, without benefit of wood-burning pizza oven, root cellars, curing rooms, etc.

The book starts with the “True Stories” and a hilarious, laugh-out-loud bunch they are. It then moves on to the recipes, but not before a couple pages in which he lays out the ground rules for successful cooking, including “don’t stress out,” don’t be afraid to make a mess,”  “don’t leave out the salt or the fat,” and “plan ahead.” Photos, by Quentin Bacon, add a lot to the experience, especially the tantalizing shots of the cooked foods.

  Carmellini’s a fan of bold flavors, satisfying textures and food with a high comfort-quotient. He delivers all of the above in such dishes as Marinated Chicken Alla Griglia (with roasted garlic puree and Sicilian oregano), Lamb Leg with Garlic, Yogurt and Fennel, Spicy Corn with Hot Banana Pepper and Pine Nuts, and a divine Rigatoni Pugliese with chickpeas, Italian sausage and broccoli rabe. Some recipes contain just a few ingredients that can be tossed together on a weeknight. Others, like the My Grandmother’s Ravioli pictured here, are multi-page affairs with how-to directions and photos.

Instructions are clear and concise, with the lilt of Carmellini’s effervescent and sometimes iconoclastic personality peeking through. This may not be the best book for a novice cook – nothing is dumbed down. But for novices with guts, Urban Italian will  make the move beyond the novice stage a delicious and fun experience.

Here’s the recipe for Rigatoni Pugliese, which has already made its way into my family’s regular repertoire.

RIGATONI PUGLIESE

Serves 4 to 6

Sauce:

1 15-ounce can chickpeas
¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 pound spicy Italian sausage
3 cups Basic Tomato Sauce (see note below)
½ teaspoon ground fennel seed

Broccoli rabe and rigatoni:

1 bunch broccoli rabe, cleaned of outer leaves and bottom stems trimmed
1 pound rigatoni
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, sliced very thin
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste

To finish the dish:

2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup grated pecorino cheese

Sauce:
Drain the chickpeas well, reserving the liquid. Blend half the chickpeas (about 1 cup) and all their liquid on high until the mixture forms a smooth paste, about 1 minute.
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over high heat. Squeeze the sausage out of the casing and add the meat to the pan. Brown it, stirring regularly and breaking the meat up into small pieces with a spoon.
Add the tomato sauce and stir to combine.
Add the chickpea puree and the fennel seed and stir to combine. Cook over medium heat until the mixture forms a loose sauce and the flavors are combined, about 15 minutes.

Broccoli rabe and rigatoni:
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
Blanch the broccoli rabe until the stems are just softened and the color has deepened, about 90 seconds. Remove with a slotted spoon to a bowl of ice water to immediately stop the cooking process.
Return the water to a boil, add the rigatoni and cook until it’s al dente. Drain but do not rinse the pasta.
Warm the olive oil over medium-high heat in a medium sauté pan. Add the broccoli rabe, garlic, red pepper flakes and the remaining half of the chickpeas. Season with salt and pepper and saute until the greens are well coated, about 1 minute.

Return the rigatoni to the pot. Add the sauce and cook on medium-high heat, mixing well, until the pasta is well coated, about 1 minute. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the butter, olive oil and half the pecorino cheese. Transfer the pasta and sauce to a large serving dish and pour the broccoli rabe and chickpea mixture over the top. Top with the rest of the pecorino cheese and serve immediately.

Note: "Urban Italian" contains a recipe for Basic Tomato Sauce that is worthwhile but time-consuming. I sometimes substitute a good, simple packaged sauce, such as San  Marzano, Lucini or Muiri.

Presents Perfect -- Making the Happy Couple Happier

WEDDING BELLS are ringing across the land, signaling the start of another summer season of taffeta and tulle, showers and champagne, toasts and tuxedos,  Mendelssohn and the Macarena.

It also means a mad scramble for wedding gifts that are clever, useful, and memorable. 

Here are some ideas, both budget-minded and blow-out, that are sure to please.

• The Scanpan Classic Nonstick Double Burner Grill straddles two stovetop burners, gets hot enough to make handsome grill marks on meat, chicken, fish and vegetables, and is a breeze to clean. Made in Denmark of heavy cast aluminum that’s coated with ceramic-titanium non-stick surface, it’s durable and especially suited to cooking with minimal fat. Pair it with a copy of BBQ guru Steven Raichlen’s book “Indoor! Grilling.”  The Scanpan brand is available at most upscale home stores and at Amazon.com. At about $145, the Grill is a splurge, but one that will be appreciated by the bride and groom for decades to come. The paperback cookbook costs about $13.

• Once upon a time, only fancy-schmancy wines from older vintages ever saw the inside of a decanter. But today’s containers are larger, roomier, more casual affairs. And wine lovers are rapidly learning that every wine  can benefit from a vigorous dance in a decanter. One of my favorites is the Luigi Bormioli Captain’s Decanter from Target. It contains 68 ounces, costs just $22.49 and does a masterful job of “opening” up a wine and making it shine. Target also carries the Accademia decanter for about 15 bucks. If you’re looking to spend more, check out the elegant crystal decanters from Riedel. The top of the line decanters from this Austrian company look like graceful swans and cost anywhere from $150 to about $400.

Latte lovers on your shopping list? You can’t go wrong with the Froth Au Lait, an electric milk frother that does the job better than the most skilled barista…even the most skilled Italian barista. It’s $52.99 on Amazon.com. A budget-conscious alternative is the BonJour Automatic Milk Frother that doesn’t take up as much counter space and costs just $15. The slim batter-operated wand comes with a countertop storage stand. It’s widely available in stores and on-line.

• They’ll fall in love with this Culinary Herbs Pasta Bowl Set that is so bright and realistic you can almost smell the rosemary! The sleek contemporary bowls are hand-painted ceramic and cost $35.99 for a set of four at Target’s on-line Web site (not available in most stores).

•  Flummoxed by the vast array of pots and pans dangling in front of you in the housewares department?  I can’t really tell you a single pan that will fit the needs of each individual cook. But I can tell you two pans on my rack that I could never live without: The All-Clad 12-inch Stainless Steel Fry Pan which I like for its sloping sides, its durable surface that lets foods brown well, and its easy clean up. Also available in 8-inch and 10-inch, they cost between $80 and $150. On the other hand, my 12-inch KitchenAid Red Nonstick Stir Fry Pan costs only about $40 in most department stores and on-line. Don’t think that this is just for Asian stir-frys. I use it for everything and love the way foods move around in the pan, browning evenly and easily.

• Everything looks better by candlelight. The Lolli Candleholders from Crate & Barrel come in six colors, accommodate standard tealights and votives and cost just $6.95 each. Or give a single elegant Cabochon Votive from  wedding princess Vera Wang. The shimmering crystal holder costs about $45 at Bed Bath & Beyond, Macy's and Amazon.com.

• Borrowing an idea from ancient Chinese philosophers – “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” – consider giving the lucky duo a hands-on cooking class. Most cities offer a variety of classes at such stores as Macy's and Sur La Table.  In San Diego, there's an extensive selection of classes at the popular Great News! Cooking School in Pacific Beach. Wrap up a store gift certificate with the latest class catalog, and let them choose from such tantalizing subjects as “Foodies Night Out: Mediterranean Style,” “Paella Perfection,” “Tapas and Sangria,” and “Thai One On.” Most classes are held in the evening, run about 2 ½ hours, provide enough samples to be considered dinner (and wine), and cost about $50 per person. If you’re looking to make a splash, consider pairing Katherine Emmenegger’s class “Basic Knife Skills” with one really good knife. My pick: The Wüsthof Classic 8-inch Chef’s Knife which goes for about $100.                                                                                                       

• Young people are particularly enchanted by the Riedel “O” Collection of wine glasses. The  stemless, egg-shaped glasses look cool, feel great in the hand, and facilitate the  swirling routine that brings out the best in a bottle of wine. Several shapes are available, each designed to maximize a varietal’s flavor: Cabernet  Sauvignon/Merlot; Chardonnay/Viognier; Pinot Noir; Shiraz/Syrah; Sauvignon Blanc/Riesling; etc. They cost about $10 each and come in sets of two. Widely available, including at Bed Bath & Beyond and on Amazon.com.

                                  

That's the Spirit!

Of all the issues that actually get people worked up these days – automaker bail-outs, Adam Lambert, Gitmo, Manny Ramirez – vodka seems one of the silliest. But the liquor that the Wall Street Journal calls “overexposed, overmarketed and overpoured” does seem to lubricate a lively exchange of opinions.

On the one side are the cocktail purists who call vodka “passé.” This contingent asserts that the spirit is inherently flavorless and brings only a boozy wallop to the table. Moreover, they say, the industry has taken one of the cheapest and most easily made liquors and duped consumers into paying big bucks with a highly polished marketing campaign.

On the other side are those folks who can’t seem to get enough of the stuff. Clearly this side is winning the war in terms of numbers: Vodka’s been the leading category of distilled spirits since the ‘90s.  It’s easy to see why vodka aficionados defend their choice. The “Miss Congeniality” of any bar scene, vodka is the ultimate mixer, capable of being teamed with just about any beverage. Moreover, the ladies-who-lurch on “Sex and the City” turned Cosmo-drinking into a high-status sport.

However, there are signs that vodka’s popularity may have peaked. In Food & Wine magazine’s annual drinks book, “Cocktails ’09,” vodka is démodé. Dedicated to showcasing the fashionable quaffs in the country’s bars, the book is a collection of about 150 cocktails designed by top mixologists around the U.S.   Whereas vodka was king in the 2005 book, only ten recipes in the new book call for the spirit. (The book’s available on Amazon.com for $10.) As Wall Street Journal “Drinks” columnist Eric Felton recently said in one of his columns:

“It’s a though there were finally the realization that making cocktails with vodka is like making paella with instant rice – it can be done, of course, but it doesn’t exactly burnish one’s culinary bona fides.”

I’m planted firmly in the “Why waste the calories and the brain cells on something so boring” camp. However, I did discover a flavored vodka recently that deserves a second sip. Van Gogh Pomegranate Vodka is a beautiful, rosy-red liquor with an appealing fresh fruit flavor. Perhaps because the alcohol content is slightly lower than most vodkas (70 percent), the fruity essence seems more pronounced.

 A bit tart, a bit sweet, it’s terrific in a vodka tonic (with lime wedge) or vodka sonic (tonic and club soda) and even better dripped into a glass of sparkling wine (Italian prosecco’s my choice). My mother flipped over the Pomegranate Cosmopolitan that I made her on Mother’s Day.

The Van Gogh PR machine also suggests a PomPom made with pomegranate vodka, POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice and a splash of water. It’s a bit over the top for my tastes, but it does contain a supposedly healthy dose of the anti-oxidants that deflect cancer, increase blow flow,  and slow prostate cancer. Can’t blame a guy for trying to stay healthy.

Cool, Cool, Very Cool --- Cauliflower!

What’s with all the cauliflower??

All of a sudden, this sturdy, white-on-white hunk is the darling of the dining scene.

Last week I wrote here about the simple but sensational cauliflower dish at NOBU
in San Diego’s Hard Rock Hotel. Roasted in a brick oven and lightly misted with a “sauce” of pureed fresh jalapenos, Japanese vinegar and grapeseed oil, it was a marvel of taste and texture.

On Saturday night, I discovered chef David McIntyre’s stunning presentation of sauteed divers scallops in a pureed cauliflower sauce that was plumped up with a little cream. The talented chef/owner of Crescent Heights in downtown San Diego set the bronzed scallops alongside a colorful confetti of weensy cauliflower rosettes in purple, green and white, golden raisins and roasted shallots.  Another pale sauce -- of white wine, preserved lemon and butter --  accented the dish (pictured here).

McIntyre stresses that the cauliflower comes from Chino Farm in Rancho Santa Fe, which means it has the fresh, pronounced flavor necessary to make an interesting sauce.  Cooked al dente, these dainty florets held their shape and color perfectly, and their flavor heralded the new spring season.

For years it seems that cauliflower was waiting in the wings, while trendier veggies like fiddlehead ferns and white asparagus, ramps and pea tendrils stole the show.

But now, it’s stage center. At Tilth in Seattle (whose chef Maria Hines won the James Beard Award last week for Best Chef Pacific Northwest),  a truffled cauliflower flan is set off with Meyer lemon zest and bits of crunchy fried capers.  At Gotham Bar & Grill in New York City, chef Alfred Portale does a braised cauliflower salad with golden raisins, capers, pine nuts,  goat cheese and a white verjus (juice of unripe grapes) vinaigrette.

And last week’s New York Times featured a review of the new restaurant Fishtail By David Burke
and proclaimed cauliflower the standout dish at the pricey Upper East Side eatery. According to critic Frank Bruni, “Its given one of those treatments popular with chefs of a super-indulgent bent, who see no reason why vegetables should be any less rich than desserts…Fishtail’s cauliflower gets so much cream it’s nearly a custard, so much cheese it could impersonate a quiche.”

For my money though, the simpler the preparation, the better. I recently taught a cooking class at Great News! in Pacific Beach that featured five of the best restaurant recipes I discovered while eating my way around the world. One of them was a delicious pasta dish from Masseria Il Frantoio, a magical country inn in Puglia, Italy. The mingling of orecchiette (ear-shaped) noodles, cauliflower florets, almonds and garlicky toasted breadcrumbs is easy to make, hard to forget.

But perhaps the most luscious performance by a head of cauliflower that I’ve encountered was the soup created by chef Trey Foshee and his team at George’s California Modern in La Jolla. 

A satiny mix of pureed veggie, heavy cream, chicken stock and a whisper of white truffle oil, the potage is topped with a delicate “salad” of Dungeness crab, lemon zest and chopped Marcona almonds.

Here’s the recipe.

CREAM OF CAULIFLOWER SOUP
DUNGENESS CRAB & MARCONA ALMOND SALAD

8 servings

From George's California Modern

Soup
1 ea.    Yellow onion, peeled and minced
5 ea.    Garlic cloves, slices
¼ #    Butter
2 hds.    Chino white cauliflower, chopped
4 C    Chicken stock
1 C    Heavy Cream
1 T    White truffle oil

Crab Salad
4 oz.    Fresh Dungeness crab
Zest of 2  Meyer lemons
3 T    Marcona almonds, chopped

For the soup:
In a medium sauce pot sweat the onions and garlic in the butter until soft but not browned. Add the cauliflower and cook 5 minutes and add the stock. Bring to a simmer and cook until everything is soft, about 15 minutes. Add the cream and bring to a simmer, blend well and strain and finish with salt, white pepper and the truffle oil.

For the crab salad:
Combine everything in a bowl and mix.

Mocha Match: Starbucks 1 -- McJo 0

Please pardon any typos in today’s post.

My fingers are flying over the keyboard. My brain is in overdrive. And my heart is racing.

This morning I set out to single-handedly settle the Starbucks-McDonald’s coffee war.

And now, two hot mochas, two hot lattes, two iced mochas and two iced lattes later, I have an opinion….and a bad case of the shakes.

Most folks who read my blog (or read, past tense, my articles in The San Diego Union-Tribune) know that I’m passionate about coffee and savvy enough to know that Seattle’s Caffe Umbria and Italy’s Illy coffee are the standard bearers. But I’m also pragmatic and I do appreciate Starbucks consistency and ubiquitousness (though I’m not crazy about the bitter, over-roasted taste of  its coffee). 

Like most journalists, I also love, every so often, to act the iconoclast and shake up readers with unexpected opinions.

That’s why when I walked into my local McDonald’s McCafe this morning – face to face with Miss California and “The Donald” on a huge hanging TV screen – I was actually kinda rooting for McJo.

Didn’t happen.

I sipped all the hot coffee drinks side by side, while very hot, and later at room temperature (which is when a coffee’s flavor is actually more pronounced).

Starbucks’ latte had a significantly deeper, more layered flavor than the McDonald’s latte which tasted mostly “dark” and slightly burnt. I felt that the Starbucks coffee had a livelier flavor that “sang” good morning to me, whereas, in comparison, the McDonald’s just half-heartedly nudged me into the day. 

Moreover, I was disappointed in the McDonald’s one-size fits all approach. The large signs proclaiming “Made To Order”  are lying. The chain uses a press-here machine similar to those used in many airports and convenience stores. You want a medium latte, you get it the way the machine wants to make it. Want only one shot of espresso in that instead of two?? Want heavy foam or no foam at all?? Don’t waste your breath.

In addition, the chocolate syrup in the McD mocha is more about sugar than about cocoa flavor and the McDonald’s mocha drink is, indeed, a lot sweeter than the Starbucks version. The whipped cream on the Mickey D comes from a ReddiWip can; Starbucks uses real whipping cream in a canister. Not only can you taste the difference right away, but after a couple minutes the real stuff is still there and the Reddi Wip is but a slimy memory.

The iced versions of latte and mocha were more of the same. Flat flavor and too much sugar in the McDonald’s drinks, decent coffee and chocolate flavor in the Starbucks.

Lastly, a note about value. To all those folks out there thinking that they’ll hit the Golden Arches to save money: Think again. A medium McD latte was $2.89;  a medium (grande) Starbucks latte was $3.25.  There’s even less difference in the prices of iced drinks.

Bottom line: If you’re cruising through the backroads of America, you’ll find the new McDonald’s coffee drinks a lot better than what was there before. But, dollar for dollar,, in an area where you have a choice, Starbucks is the place to satisfy that caffeine craving.

For the Love of Cod!

Today’s chefs love to talk about simplicity, as in “I take fresh local ingredients and prepare them simply.” But much of the time, it’s just lip service, and they proceed to gussy up the food with sauces, seasonings and, now, chemistry class experiments. 

Nobu Matsuhisa is the master of simplicity.

I first discovered this pioneer of contemporary Japanese cuisine in the mid-1990s in New York City, where he opened NOBU (with partners Robert De Niro and restaurateur Drew Nieporent) in 1994. (His first restaurant had opened in L.A. in 1987.)

On my first visit I was blown away by his Black Cod with Miso. On my second visit I was blown away by his Black Cod with Miso.

And last weekend, at the year-old NOBU in downtown San Diego’s Hard Rock Hotel, I was blown away by his Black Cod with Miso.

I’m telling you, this dish is so fabulous that I cannot seem to move beyond it on the menu. The rest of my group swooned over voluptuous fresh uni (sea urchin roe) served with just a sprinkle of  Peruvian chile paste; and plump seared scallops with a daub of peppery wasabi sauce; and fresh sole from Greenland, simply broiled and buttered, with a few wispy, deep-fried celery root leaves scattered on top. All the while, I sat quietly, savoring and marveling at each luscious, lightly perfumed, beguilingly sweet morsel of my cod. It sat alone on the dish. No sauce. No garnish. No sidekicks. Pure, delectable simplicity.

Of course, I did TASTE a few other things…and I was particularly spellbound by the elegance and effortlessness of two vegetable dishes from the brick oven. Fresh baby corn, still in their husks, were roasted and then spritzed with citrusy yuzu-butter. Roasted cauliflower rosettes had a sweet subtle, lightly caramelized flavor that was accentuated by a barely-there sauce of pureed jalapenos, garlic, Japanese vinegar and discreet grapeseed oil. I wouldn’t so much call this a sauce as a “mist.” Semantics aside,  I lapped up every last droplet with gusto.

For such a high-end and cutting-edge establishment,  NOBU has some very gentle prices. The brick oven veggie dishes cost $11; and the extraordinary black cod is just $22.

Simple.

Sensational.

For Cinco de Mayo: A Bold Cold One

There’s not a whole lot of good news coming out of Mexico these days. But with Cinco de Mayo just around the clock, this seems like a good time to toast the country that gave us chocolate, Frida Kahlo and Spring Break, Cancun-style, and to wish it well in coming days.

What better drink to do this than the Michelada, a refreshing brew of blond beer, lime juice and hot sauce.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, writer Eric Felten declares that this south-of-the-border drink “has yet to really break out…” meaning that New Yorkers haven’t embraced it yet. But in the Southwest it’s a familiar face – served on the rocks in a pint glass at backyard barbecues and beach picnics. And the big boys – Bud and Miller --have already gotten into the act with Budweiser Chelada and Miller Chill.

At its simplest, the Michelada is beer and lime juice in a salt-rimmed glass (photo from the WSJ). But, as Felton says, the drink is in a “state of evolutionary perambulation,” with different regions of Mexico and different bars in, say, San Diego juggling flavors and adding flair.

You can follow the basic recipe here, and spend the extra time on mashing a few avocados. Or you can get crazy and improvise with stuff like Clamato juice, Maggi seasoning, cumin or black pepper, but I’d advise against all such actions.

Felton says he’s partial to using a dark Mexican beer like Negra Modelo because it stands up to the ice cubes better. But I’m in the camp that goes for a lager such as Corona or, my favorite, Dos Equis Green.

THE MICHELADA

12 ounces beer
1 ounce fresh lime juice
2 dashes Worcestershire (in my opinion, optional)
2 dashes Mexico hot sauce (ideally Cholula)

Combine ingredients over ice in a salt-rimmed highball glass or pint glass and stir. Avoid watering down the beer with too much ice or small cubes that melt quickly. For an extra kick, try a mixture of coarse salt and Chef Merito “Salt, Lemon and Chili” seasoning mix (available on supermarket spice racks) on the rim.

3,000 Miles For an Oatmeal Cookie

There are a lot of good reasons to visit Cambridge, Massachusetts.

But only one of them involves oatmeal, crystallized ginger, plump sun-dried cherries, toasted walnuts and pecans. Only one of them causes me to plan my schedule around it, and to toss valuable items from my carry-on bag to make room.

That would be the oatmeal cookie at Hi-Rise Bread Company.

Recently, I was in Cambridge for several days of meetings. When I got on the plane to return to San Diego, I was loaded down with deliriously delicious cookies – Oatmeal Cherry Raisin, Oatmeal Coconut Pecan, Oatmeal Ginger, Chocolate Chocolate Chunk, Chocolate Walnut Chunk. Each was fat and moist, with bumpy textures that tickled the tongue and hidden nubbins that were either chewy, gooey or molten.

I also had a bunch of Maple Pecan Scones that are as good as any scone I’ve ever tasted…creamy, flaky, subtly sweetened with maple syrup and studded with toasty nuts.

I’d like to also tell you about the stuff I didn’t bring home for reasons that are obvious when you look at this lemon meringue pie and homemade whoopie pies. But it breaks my heart to talk about the goodies left behind because I probably won’t get to taste them again until next year.

Located at 208 Concord Avenue, a 10-minute walk from Harvard Square, Hi-Rise is a large, airy storefront with the working bakery on one side, and a casual eatery on the other. Guests sit at funky communal picnic tables or a few two-tops by the window. Everyone waits in line patiently to order breakfast fare, sandwiches and salads that are every bit as impressive as the baked goods.

The tantalizing jumble of bakery treats sits behind a low glass shield and on rickety wooden shelves. Smart folks survey the scene carefully before getting in line to order. It’s easy to miss a basket of Rice Krispie treats or a plate of almond macaroons hidden behind cases of wine or a pyramid of jars of homemade preserves.

The “menu” is on a couple of huge blackboards overhead. Sandwiches bear silly/clever monikers and are made from top-notch ingredients with a large dose of creativity. I love the Nat Queen Cool – pulled pork, avocado, cilantro, harissa, tomato and red onion on grilled bread. The Cisco Kid Surf & Turf of tuna, tarragon mayo, bacon, red onion on while wheat is  terrific too. And what kid-at-heart is going to turn down the Sin Sandwich of Nutella, Valrhona bittersweet chocolate on grilled brioche?

There’s also a tiny Hi-Rise satellite café on Brattle Street just a couple blocks from Harvard Square on one side and the grassy banks of the Charles on the other side. Sandwich and salad selections are limited and the array of baked goods is smaller, too.

But this location is my favorite as it’s tucked into an 1808 cottage called The Blacksmith’s House – the site of the village smithy and spreading chestnut tree of Longfellow’s 1839 poem "The Village Blacksmith." In warm weather you can sit outside under the tree and bask in the quiet sense of history.