Five thoughts about Ten Tables

We checked out the new Ten Tables in Cambridge this weekend. (Sadly, the lighting was too atmospheric for decent photos, so you'll have to make do with words.) Here are a few observations:

They like cream. A lot.
Okay, I ordered the vélouté of fennel to start, so duh, cream. The Boy's jamon serrano-wrapped sea bass was served in a puddle of cream sauce. And the desserts were all dairy-enhanced in some way: with Thai-basil ice cream, with rum ice cream, with muscat sabayon (eggs count as dairy, right?). Not that cream is bad, you understand; it just seemed there were few light, fresh options. Maybe this is just Ten Tables' winter menu and they'll lighten it up for spring.

It's loud.
Was Craigie loud? I don't remember. But at Ten Tables, at least on Sunday night, we had to lean across the table to talk each other.

On the other hand, this did allow us to hear the fabulous exchange at the next table: a couple, possibly on a first date, with the guy doing 90% of the talking. At one point, during a soliloquy on his dating history, he said, "I've been thinking about trying Match.com."

A little too quickly, the woman responded, "Oh, you totally should."

There was a pause, and then the guy said, "Oh …" And above the noise, you heard his romantic hopes die.

Somebody knows sausage.
It's rare to find sausage in good restaurants at all; Ten Tables' menu had two (two!) choices. I did consider getting both the merguez appetizer and the boudin blanc main, but decided that would probably be Wrong (sigh) so just went with the latter.

It was light and delicate—almost fluffy. It came with duck breast with fantastically crispy skin, lentils in a light mustard (and cream) sauce, and thin matchsticks of apple that made for a perfect foil of crunch and sweetness.

If you go and there's sausage on the menu, you should get it, whatever it is.

The waitstaff needs to read the wine list.
We started with wine; I asked for the Crémant de Bourgogne, one of two sparkling wines by the glass on the list. Our waiter (who was otherwise lovely) disappeared and came back with The Boy's order. And disappeared again.

And then he came back and asked me, "Which wine did you want?" And disappeared again. And came back and said, "That's only available by the bottle." Not until I pointed it out on the menu ("That one, the second wine on the page") did he figure it out. And by then I'd finished my appetizer.

Comparisons to Craigie Street are unavoidable.
Of the wine mix-up, The Boy observed, "That would never have happened at Craigie." Which is true: those guys know their bottles. And it's hard, in general, not to look around Ten Tables and remember what came before. There's only so much you can change in a low, narrow, basement space.

Ten Tables has done some painting, and the area inside the door where you'd wait has been legitimized as a table for four. The French poster art is replaced with a chalkboard of—I think—dessert options (low lighting made it hard to read).

But there's still a coat rack in the foyer, and the menu still comes on a clipboard, and you still have to dodge servers to get to the restrooms.

And the food is still good. I don't want to say it's better than Craigie—I'll need some repeat visits and comparisons before coming to any conclusions—but the dishes are creative and the ingredients are fresh.

Any resto going into that spot would have big shoes to fill; Craigie wasn't just a high-end place, but also a neighborhood favorite for that part of Cambridge. Ten Tables may have to walk around in those shoes a little, but I think they'll fit quite comfortably.

Au revoir, Craigie Street Bistrot

This is Craigie Street Bistrot's last week in its current subterranean location; the final service is happening as I write. Last night, we went to pay our respects. Much as L'Espalier made a move this summer from its Back Bay townhouse to the new-hotel-smell Mandarin Oriental, so CSB is moving across Cambridge to Main Street to take over the site formerly known as La Groceria.

This is doutbless a relief for the kitchen crew; as with L'Espalier, the chefs at Craigie Street were pretty much working in a ship's galley. And similarly, the tight confines of the kitchen made it even more miraculous that they were able to create dishes of great delicacy, complexity and balance. The dining room isn't exactly cavernous, either.



The parallels between the two gave us a little trepidation. Our swan-song visit to L'Espalier had been disappointing; would Craigie Street's standards also start slipping as they prepared to close the doors?

One sign that this was not going to happen: Young Tommy is now the bar manager.

Okay, I shouldn't call him that; it's just that he was one of the first kids I met when I started as a school volunteer 15 years ago. He was a 10-year-old who managed to be both bratty and charming, and now he's lost the brattiness (pretty much) and has become a respected local mixologist who made a name for himself at Eastern Standard and is obviously destined for great things.

The school librarian, Jean (still one of my best friends), had high hopes that he'd become an astronaut; frankly, I think his chosen career path is a much greater service to humanity.

We settled in to read the menu, and then I recalled something I'd read in a CSB email about a wine. All I remembered was that it was made by re-using the lees after fermentation; that the result was either absolutely terrible or completely fantastic; that a recent vintage had been the latter; and that Craigie Street had the only 15 cases in the country.

"Oh yes," said our server, "you mean Noire." It was $68 a bottle, but we figured we might not get the chance again.

I'm not a sommelier. I'm getting more competent at pairing wine with food, I know what I like, I know what to expect from certain varietals. I don't have the vocabulary to explain Noire in wine terms, so I'll try this instead:

Usually, when I taste a wine for the first time, I can pinpoint certain fundamental flavors and characteristics—plum/spice/tannins; pepper/citrus/acidity; peach/minerals. It's like watching Murder, She Wrote and figuring out whodunnit in the first act.

By comparison, tasting Noire was like watching Memento: just when you think you know where it's going, it gives you more clues, different angles, unexpected revelations. Instead of responding to the first pour with (sip) ... beat ... "yes, that's fine, thanks," this was more like (sip) ... beat ... "wow ... oh, wait ... hold on ... oh my goodness ... oh ... um, this is amazing."

Oh, also, there was food. We both went for the prix fixe, with a couple of substitutions from the a la carte menu, and ended up with:

• Tartare of citrus-cured Irish sea trout with sturgeon caviar
• Banyuls-cured duck breast and fennel/pepper-cured lardo


• Spanish octopus with fresh hearts of palm (possibly the best octopus I've ever had)
• Ragout of cocks' combs and local mushrooms with a slow-cooked egg (I wiped the plate with bread; have I mentioned that I don't like mushrooms?)


• Slow-roasted sweetbreads, marinated in yogurt and served with kohlrabi and turnips
• Lamb: roasted loin, slow-cooked belly (a square of sweet fat), ragout of tongue

Throughout the meal, the wine changed, not just opening up as it breathed, but also being a chameleon to the flavors in the dishes, matching note for note against duck meat and fennel, chestnuts and kimchee.

And then dessert—it's included! How could we say no? The Boy had profiteroles with chocolate sauce and banana ice cream, and I had warm cornbread pain perdu with lemon-verbena ice cream, blueberries and huckleberry sauce. Lemon and blueberry should always run on the same ticket.

And then Young Tommy appeared with a couple of unexpected glasses of dessert wine, and met our (weak) protests with "I'm new here; I don't know what I'm doing."

And then there was a tiny dish of burgundy mousse with a champagne sorbet.

And then there were fresh, buttery madeleines with the cheque.

And then we wandered outside in a daze and I took a last couple of photos.





The new restaurant, Craigie on Main, opens around November 14.

The magical animal

Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

Last night, we met that magical animal. We met him and we et him.

The event was Craigie Street Bistrot's "Lyons in Winter" dinner, a one-night-only menu showcasing the hearty goodness of the city's cooking traditions: pig, pig and more pig.

So we began with "Les Cochonailles," which loosely translates to "in heaven, the things they leave on your hotel pillow instead of mints."

Instead of a photo (which will just make some people all complainy, no doubt), here's a nice diagram:



A: Pork terrine--delicately textured with a light, intricate flavor
B: Lardo. The last time we ate at CSB, The Boy responded to our waiter's description of a dish containing this wafer-thin slice of pork fat with "You had me at lardo."
C: Chicharrón. You can never, ever go wrong with deep-fried pork skin. Okay, so it wasn't as insane as the stuff you get at La Viña, the corner coffee-shop/social club near The Boy's parents' house, but it was still acceptable (snif).
D: I didn't catch their name, but they were lightly fried cubes of the most melt-in-the-mouthingy sweet pork fat. I'd go so far as to say they'd knock bitterballen into a cocked hat. And you know how I feel about bitterballen.

The cochonailles came with a glass of a brut rosé from Burgundy, which was a brief reminder of summer: hints of hay and strawberry.

Next up: a salade lyonnaise for The Boy--frisée and salty lardons and a poached egg--and a creamy salt-cod soup decorated with cockles, as well as the world's sweetest, juiciest shrimp, for me.



(Sorry the image quality isn't great--we were at a romantically underlit table).

And then The Boy had fried pork tripe, crispy on the outside and soft and salty on the inside; I went for the ragout of kidney beans with boudin noir and pork sausage. Because they had me at "boudin noir."

Next, the dish that was our main reason for making a reservation: pied du cochon for deux.



It was a good eight or nine inches long, plump and round and generously stuffed with hammy goodness, sitting on a bed of lentilles de Puy. Though we'd had a fabulously porky feast, this was the only dish that was verifiably, recognizably piggy. And it was glorious: salty-sweet, moist and tender.

And finally, dessert: crème caramel for The Boy, because that's his thing, and a rich, intense chocolate mousse pour moi. I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't made with bacon chocolate, but it was still lovely.

Oh, and we left with a parting gift: a beribboned jar of herbes de Provence. Which is good, because we're almost out. And I might do a pork tenderloin this weekend.

The meal I can't talk about

When it comes to writing about food, I have a rule: don't talk about your friends.

It's perfectly fine to critique one's own creations, or to have fantastically witty things to say about restaurant meals (you know, as I do all the time), but writing up domestic dinner parties ("Kate's chicken dish, much like a community theater production, was amateurish and overwrought") is Just Not Done. Not only could such an act threaten a friendship, it might also mean we don't get invited back.

This week I faced a conundrum when we were invited chez les Frères Fabuleux for dinner. One is a former colleague, fellow Spanish-practicer and all-round sweetheart; the other is a formidable professional chef who has worked in kitchens from Yountville to Vienna and is currently in residence at one of the best restos in Cambridge, if not New England (and is also very lovely).

So on which side does this fall? Friends or free-for-all?

In the end, I decided to play nice. The Chef was cooking on his day off, after all; it would hardly be fair to tear apart his domestic offerings.

Which means I can't tell you about the winter salad of rocket and radish and roasted beets, and that's a real pity, because the textures and flavors all played off each other so nicely: sweet and bitter, soft and crunchy. I definitely can't show you a picture. Well, not a whole one.



I certainly won't be illustrating the gigot d'agneau (the fat so sweet and aromatic with herbs) or the accompanying creamy, complex garbure-like stew of white beans and thick chunks of salami.

And I probably should just stay clear of the buttery tart topped with Glühwein-poached pears.



Yep. Won't say a word.

The Boy's birthday (of course there's food!)

Saturday was The Boy's birthday. My gifts to him were basketballs, as ever: a '94 Urbina Gran Reserva Rioja and some cedar sheets to wrap around food before grilling (I got him cedar planks a couple of years ago, but they're too damn long to fit on our tiny Weber).

We had breakfast at the Diesel Cafe in Davis Square (the original plan was Tu y Yo, but they were closed, doubtless having figured out that most people aren't looking for a mountain of eggs and chorizo before 10am). I used to work next door to the Diesel, but hadn't been in a while, and I'd forgotten what a funky, colorful, bright space it is.

The Boy ordered an iced lemon scone and a tall glass of painfully sweet Vietnamese coffee, and was happy. I went with a toasted bagel and a soy latte, and we sat and watched the regulars come in with newspapers, ironic t-shirts, laptops and the high-tech stroller that The Boy calls "the Baby Segway."

There's a preponderance of independent coffee shops in our neighborhood, and we decided we should go out for breakfast on a weekend more often, and try a different cafe each time. The people-watching is fabulous.

In the afternoon (once The Boy had come down from his sugar high) we went back into Davis to see Hot Fuzz at the Somerville Theatre. It's a worthy follow-up to Shaun of the Dead and a lovely homage/parody of the best and worst of cop-buddy movies. It also does a great job of capturing the essence of life in the less-urban areas of England; I particularly appreciated the scene in which Simon Pegg's character goes into a village pub and asks what wines they have.

"Well," says the landlord, "we've got red, and ... uh ... white ..."

(I swear I've had that exact exchange before ...)

After the movie, we just had enough time to go home and freshen up before the day's big event: dinner at Craigie Street Bistrot.

CSB is known for sticking to locally sourced ingredients as much as possible. Our previous trips there had been for winter celebrations (my birthday, our anniversary), so we were excited to see how seasonal changes in produce selections would affect the menu.

The first thing we noticed, aside from the food, was that the waitstaff seemed ... out of synch is the best way I can describe it. We had a 20-minute wait before anyone took our order, and another 45 minutes passed before the amuse-bouches arrived. In the meantime, one waitron sternly, silently marched another by the forearm back to the kitchen (the cause of this was unclear) and a rather fussy couple stormed out because there was a bug on their tablecloth.

Eh. Everyone has an off night once in a while.

The food, of course, was just fine. I started with squid noodles (tender, thinly sliced rings of squid) in a cilantro sauce with grains of paradise. The squid and sauce were light and lively--a refreshing intro to the evening's meal--but the spice was a little too generous, a bold, peppery bite that overwhelmed the delicacy of the rest.

The Boy went for the tiny taster of cured meats: duck and lardo.

"Lardo?" I asked the waiter.

"It's fatback," he said, "cured with fennel and pepper, and sliced real thin--"

The Boy held up his hand. "You had me at 'fatback'," he said.

I hate to overuse gastronomic clichés like "melt in the mouth," but when it comes to lardo, I really have no choice. Insansely good.

And then the apps: a generous green salad for The Boy, garnished (as all good salads should be) with a crisp slice of bacon. I had fricasée of lamb's tongue with homemade merguez, morels and poached egg in a green-pea sauce.

The plating was beautiful; almost an oil painting in rich, vibrant jewel tones, with grilled asparagus and a scattering of edible flowers. The waitress explained that the dish was best enjoyed by breaking the egg yolk into the sauce.

Another cliché ahoy: it brought tears to my eyes. Seriously. Literally. The tongue was soft, like pâté, with a flavor somewhere between chicken oysters and ostrich: dark and complex, but not fatty or heavy. The sauce, now blended with egg yolk, was rich but still with the lightness of spring vegetables. I mopped up the last drops with a chunk of bread, feeling a twinge of guilt at my bad table manners but not wanting to leave anything behind.

When it came to entrées, The Boy really only had one choice, it being his birthday and all: pan-fried hangar steak with bone marrow, snails and shiitake mushrooms. A very manly, meaty dish, deep and rich and flavorful. I opted for the pork "two ways": a generous chunk of juicy, salty suckling pig confit, topped with crispy skin, and a deep-fried cake of fromage de tête, which I later realized was very similar to the entrée I'd ordered on our previous visit (I guess head-cheese is never out of season).

By this point we were decidedly full, but yet too comatose to not order dessert. Come on, you've been there. So The Boy went for cornbread pain perdu (a very cool take on French toast, which I'm gonna haveta make for breakfast one day) and I had the seasonal fruit crisp, topped with walnuts and served with hyssop ice cream.

The crisp was great. The recipe is easy (this one is for winter fruits, but really it's the topping that makes it).

Apart from the staffing stutters, a lovely meal. Now we need an excuse to go back sometime in late summer for the best of the tomato crop ...

Head cheese in the basement

It's easy for a New England restaurant to offer a menu of seasonal local ingredients in summer, when neighborhood farms are loaded with corn and tomatoes and strawberries, all celebratory and exuberant.

But what to do in winter, when the ground is frozen and the pickins consist of turnips and apples?

The answer can be found at Craigie Street Bistrot. Or at least, it can once you find the restaurant, which is in the basement of an apartment building a few blocks north of Harvard Square.

The philosophy at CSB is that local, organic produce is tastier and more nutritious (not to mention being more beneficial for local farmers instead of corporate agribusiness). The menu changes daily, and is based upon whatever looked good at the market that morning.

So what looked good the day of our visit? Among other things, the fixins for my appetizer, a fresh, wake-up-call salad of endive and peppery-bitter watercress with duck prosciutto. The Boy won this round, though: he had grilled Spanish octopus with cipollini onions on a bed of cardoon puree. Octopus can be tricky--it's easy to turn it into rubber. But this was amazing: scallop-like in texture, and beautifully matched with the sweet onions and creamy puree.

For the entree, The Boy had tuna poached in curry oil with celery root and cauliflower--not spicy, but warming and full of flavor. But this time I won (!): thick slices of pork belly (the fat so sweet and melty it made ya wanna cry); chunks of peppery boudin noir; and a fried rissole of fromage de tete (aka head cheese, aka brawn).

What made it especially delicious was the oh-so-Cantabridgian table of four to my left (your right), who spent a great deal of their menu perusal disussing the inedibility of anything made from pig's blood or brains. Neophytes.

The other ingredient du jour, apparently, was truffles, which had arrived from Spain that afternoon and were being liberally shaved over everything for a supplement of $20. The waitron wasn't quite sure how to take my (joking) request to have them shaved over our gingerbread pain perdu (with intense ginger ice-cream) dessert. The Boy wasn't sure how to take my request to have them shaved over the busboy. Kidding, sweetie, kidding!

So a lovely evening; the only downside (my constant complaint) was that the room is tiny and loud. It's partly what happens when you're dining in a low-ceilinged basement, and partly what happens when you're surounded by the Boomers (demographically and vocally) of Cambridge.

I mean, I love being able to live like this; I just hate having to share it with the kind of people who also live like this.