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Up and Down,
Back and Forth and Sideways
Vintage Snobs and Down to Earth Vintners
Comfort
Me With Martinis
Quantum mechanics explained...sort of.
Cooks
Tours (Audio)
Short toques on cooking schools around the world
Eat
Those Words
The manly craft of barbeque and a feast at Gourmet Magazine's private
dining room.
Dal
& Apple Pie
Kathmandu Cuisine
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Restaurant
Picks
New
York- Town
15
W 56th St Between 5th and 6th Av.
This lovely restaurant in the Chambers Hotel can seem a little spooky.
Its waiters are always hovering and staring. It isn't intrusive when you
notice that they are eyeing tables not snooping on customers. They watch
every detail. If a glass goes a centimeter below its fill-up point, it
is taken care of, immediately. I forgot my umbrella there one busy, crowded
night, came back a short time later and they called me by name. Chef Geoffrey
Zakarian's food is similarly fussy, as if a master interior decorator
took charge of the palate as well as the plate. Town's prix-fixe dinners,
beautifully match flavors and presentations. Pricey but worth it.
R-Johnson
New
York - Huntsman's Food
The nip was in the air as we sipped and dipped and otherwise savored our
way through New York. Crisp, on the cusp of winter weather inspires soothing
meals in warm glowing settings. My favorite “warm feeling” restaurants
in NYC where you can taste refined food from the hunt include:
Jean
Georges, (1 Central Park West) a cornerstone of “The Donald’s”
Columbus Circle rectangle (I have always thought Trump’s towers were
architectural combovers, but what do I know)? Jean George and its more
informal café, however, are toasty exceptions. Jean-Georges Vongerichten
is inspired by wild edibles from upstate like garlic mustard, yarrow,
sylvetta, burnet and chickweed, the kinds of things one would see on a
fall drive…or that John Kerry or Elmer Fudd might step on on a hunting
trip.
One of my
favorite warm weather dishes is duck, not the gamey, seasoned-with-buckshot
sort, but lovingly marinated duck steaks. Town Restaurant in the
Chambers Hotel at 15W 56th St. offers some of the best in a soothing,
glowing setting. Its tasting menus are pricey, but worth it for a special
evening.
A close
second can be found at Cafe Boulud on East 76th. But watch what
you choose. With cuisines ranging from Vietnamese to New Orlean-style
on one menu, it is possible to pick some pretty weird combinations.
What’s
good for the diner is not good for the goose. It is about as politically
incorrect as you can get, but fois gras is big in New York. Just about
every restaurant of note has fois gras of some sort or another, including
Boulud, with a wonderful warm pate with cherries.
Many restaurants
are also featuring New York wine these days. No, not he Finger Lakes Reislings
of yore, but real reds from…ta da…Long Island. There are more
than 30 wineries on Long Island. We tried a Merlot. Not bad. It ain’t
Sonoma folks, but a drinkable Two Buck Chuck sort of plonk.
Keep trying
Long Island.
San
Francisco - Sears Fine Food
Follow the Tourists to Sears
Fine Food. San Francisco, called by the late columnist Herb Caen,
the "cool gray city" lived up to its reputation as we bucked an August
wind to Sutter and Powell and Sears Fine Foods. Sears is in the tour books
as home of the "18 Swedish Pancakes," syrupy sinfully buttery little discs
served with bacon and lingonberries. I, as a local, rarely dined there,
even though I once had an office in the neighborhood. Sears was a "LOL"
kind of restaurant: not "Laugh Out Loud" but an establishment frequented
by shivering Wisconsites in bermuda shorts and Cain's round, blue-haired
"Little Old Ladies." Its waitresses wore white-trimmed black dresses and
little hats and had names like "Flo." Sears was founded in 1938 by Ben
Sears, a retired circus clown, whose wife Hilbur came up with the Swedish
pancake recipe (My mom had one too and the pancakes made up for the overcooked
potroast...the yin and yang of Swedish cooking). Sears shut its doors
in 2003 only to be revived by a neighborhood restaurateur. The food now
is better and I have begun to fancy the place, reintroduced by a farang,
a friend from UK who insists on breakfasting there. If you get there after
eleven you'll miss the line of tourists who by then have embarked on their
mission to huff up Nob Hill like out-of-shape Sherpas.
San Francisco - Bissap Baobab
A friend turned me on to a neighborhood place in the Mission District
called Bissap Baobab. It is Senegalese. The usual vehicles -- chicken,
fish and lamb -- are adorned with cumin, chiles, ginger and served on
couscous or rice with fried plantain. Yum! If you fancy martinis, try
a not-so-traditional melange of gin, ginger and grapefruit. The place
is crowded and noisy but fun. Worth a trip to San Francisco’s Mission
District which, after a pause following the dot com crash, is inching
upscale again.
San Francisco - AsiaSF
201 9th St San Francisco
This is a true
San Francisco restaurant, in the best sense. Fine dining mixed with Barbary
Coast bawdiness and a touch of the North Beach of the 60s. Gorgeous "gender
illusionists" dance on the bar while diners enjoy a supurb Asian
fusion menu (how about wasabi tobiko caviar)? This is not a tawdry strip
joint (although I wouldn't bring mom) but sexy, howlin' fun combined with
gourmet dining.
R-Johnson
ASIA
Kathmandu, Nepal - Krishnarpan
I was a bit skeptical when my friends Ambica and Sangita Shrestha decided
to open a gourmet traditional Nepali restaurant in Kathmandu. My experience
with Nepalese cuisine was sinewy chunks of buffalo slathered with lentils,
hard bread with yak butter and other undistinguished dishes. Krishnarpan,
at Dwarika's Kathmandu Village Hotel has changed my attitude. Krishnarpan
is set in a modern palace, serves authentic Nepalese dinners including
plates of assorted delicacies normally consumed at religious ceremonies.
Each course is presented as a work of art...a flower or a symbol. Every
course was not only palatable to western tastes (in fact delicious) but
offered some flavor I had never encountered before. Tables are designed
with centuries old lattice woodwork.
Beijing
- Fangshan
 Fanghsan, located in Beihai Park in Beijing rates
as serving up the most courses I have ever had any dinner, anywhere. What
were once the Tang Imperial Kitchens brought in a total of 27 courses
including Empress Cixi favored Cakes, Bamboo Shoots with Crab Roe, Sharks
Fin, Frog-Shaped Abalone and Stewed Deer. There are actually about 800
dishes on the menu.
Unfortunate
Trend -Wino Wines
The trend in California wine is toward the heavy, fruity and alcoholic.
Interesting to see how table wines in the US over the past 20 years have
progressed from sodapop sweet, to the dreaded White Zinfandel, to Chardonnays
and Sauvignons, light Merlots and Cabernets and now to ever more powerful
Zinfandels and Syrahs. Some of the latter have become alcoholic fruit
bombs...wino wines. Maybe it is my age, but after a couple of glasses
of one of these I feel like falling a sleep with a newspaper over my head.
But I have found a new affection for the subtleties of French Burgundies,
lighter Bordeaux and even some California Merlots, which have become quite
distinctive lately, not just blending wines to water down Cabernets.
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