At the risk of drooling all over my new Apple MacBook Pro's keyboard, I'd like to share with you the best dinners, decadent desserts, appetizing appetizers, and one grand gastro-adventure that I lucked into in 2012. Today, my three favorite dinners.
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The Dutch, Andrew Carmellini’s New American restaurant in Greenwich Village, is the quintessential dining “experience” -- --- the complete package, that magical blend of excitement, comfort, great food and booze that makes us giddy.The appealing “vibe” hit me the instant we stepped inside the door --- boisterous and high-spirited, with exuberant bartenders doing their thing and an enthusiastic clientele clinking glasses and slurping fresh oysters at the bar devoted to that pastime. In the “back” is a low-ceilinged dining room with white brick, dark wood and a soft glow from chandeliers shining on large tables and cozy booths alike.
Which of the 19 gins on the bar list would I like in my gin ‘n tonic? Well now, you just know you’re going to have fun when that’s the first salvo of the evening. (I chose the new-to-me Spring 44 from Colorado and loved it).
As a lover of bourbon too, I would happily have spent the evening exploring the rest of the bar list, which features more than 50 interesting whiskies. But calmer minds prevailed and I was soon equally entranced by the Snack list that proposed Eggplant Dip with Crackers, Beer-Steamed Clams and Little Oyster Sandwiches among other things. (Photo by Esquire.) If I had to reduce 2012 to just one, to-die-for Snack, this beautifully battered nubbin of oyster, perched on a seeded bun would be it.
The groans of pleasure had barely subsided when along came a dazzling bunch of “Jersey Asparagus,” steamed bright and topped with sautéed mushrooms and one perfect fried egg; and a flavorful pork chop (which is usually an oxymoron) snatched from a spunky adobo marinade, grilled to perfection, and served with cheesey grits and wax beans.
Other winners along the way to the insanely delicious Curry Sugar Donuts finale: Spring salad with old-fashioned buttermilk dressing, and a smoky roasted chicken with chickpeas, spiced yogurt and tamarind “flair” that would make Jennifer Aniston weep.
Yes, the donuts. Poufy, crackly with sugar, and served with butterscotch pudding and cashew brittle. In a word: Wow.
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When dinner starts with the best tuna tartare you’ve ever tasted (and you’ve eaten your weight in tuna tartare many times over!) you know you’re in for one pretty fabulous dinner. Well, “pretty fabulous” doesn’t even do justice to the dinner I enjoyed at Vernick Food & Drink in Philadelphia.
After the luminous bits of tuna the texture of cooked rice, judiciously moistened with sesame oil and a touch of herbs, came grilled sourdough topped with a mint-flecked green pea puree and wispy lardons of house-cured, crisp bacon; and sensational shishito peppers, char-blistered, dusted with coarse salt, and teamed with impossibly crisp roasted potatoes (pictured above). By the time the crisp-edged, fork-tender pork blade steak main course arrived, with its bitter mustard greens and sweet-tart red onion marmalade, I was totally in love with Vernick Food & Drink.
Open only since last Spring, Vernick is home to Greg Vernick, the accomplished chef who opened a slew of restaurants around the world for Jean-Georges Vongerichten before returning “home” to his own place. The restaurant, located just off Rittenhouse Square, is a two-story townhouse, with a sleek downstairs bar, an airy upstairs dining room with large windows opening onto a balcony, and a spacious kitchen area with counter and table seating.
The menu is small. The flavors are huge. Wood-roasted carrots, tossed into a salad with cornichons
and an olive-flecked dressing, tasted like they had been yanked from the garden
just hours before. Grilled hearts of romaine were delicious in a pas de deux
with figs. And ravioli, crafted of
delicate dough and creamy mashed potatoes, and topped with braised lamb and
buttery breadcrumbs, were terrific. A luscious Butterscotch & Smoked Chocolate Parfait --
with shortbread and pecans -- showed how the kitchen’s rousing creativity is
firmly grounded in the classics.
Great food, good looks, a flexible, reasonably priced menu, professional service, and a low-key but unusually hospitable ambiance. No calculator needed to know it all adds up to one of the best meals of 2012.
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No calculator needed to know that flour plus water equals pasta either. But Flour + Water in the hands of rising-star chef Thomas McNaughton results in something that transcends regular pasta. We’re talking gossamer packages in fanciful shapes –agnolotti, triangoli, caramelle, garganelli, bucatini, strozzapreti that are teamed with imaginative, robustly flavored sauces. (Photo by Brian Smeets, from GrubStreet.com.)
The concept at Flour + Water,
one of San Francisco’s most buzzworthy restaurants, is so simple. There are
just four appetizers, four pizzas, seven pasta creations, and two “secondi”
(main courses) on the little brown paper menus printed in old-fashioned
typewriter font.
The restaurant décor is simple, too. A long, narrow storefront on the corner of 20th and Harrison in a residential section of the Mission. No frills, but an attractive bar area, exposed beams, contemporary artwork, and a partially open kitchen that allows a peek at the wood-burning pizza oven which, I’m told, cooks a pizza in two minutes at something like 800 degrees. (Photo by Concierge.)
But there is nothing at all
simple about McNaughton’s talent, style or passion for tweaking great food
traditions. (He is on the James Beard Awards ballot in the Rising Star
category.
I was captivated from the very first bite of tuna conserva with artichokes and impossibly airy battered and fried cardoons. Crispy pork trotter with shaved asparagus, pine nuts and pickled green garlic was equally impressive.
But then came the tour de force, a parade of six pasta dishes that awed, fascinated, mesmerized, and dazzled. There was maltagliati with porcini mushrooms, green garlic and nettles. Elegant little raviolini filled with braised lamb and strewn with pea shoots and fresh mint. Fat, chewy bucatini with peas, tesa (a type of pancetta) and an egg. Twisty strozzapreti tinted green with spinach and tossed with whey-braised pork and ramps, the wild leeks that only hang around for a few weeks each spring. Precious caramelle filled with ricotta cheese and asparagus and bathed in brown butter and chile flakes. Each dish was my favorite…until the next amazing creation came.
Clearly, we couldn’t call it quits until we had tried one of the handsome Neapolitan-style pizzas that went whizzing by us all night long. The pork sausage pie with tomato, capers, chile flakes and caciocavallo cheese was sensational – thin, light, airy, with a charred rim and crackly crust.
Just when I thought this meal couldn’t possibly be improved upon, along came the chocolate budino – an Italian pudding with a shiny, ganache-like texture – that was topped with espresso caramel cream and a sprinkling of coarse salt.
Let’s call it the New Math. Flour + Water = one of my favorite meals ever.
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