Eating our way through NYC: Part two

So, to recap: we've had Cuban sandwiches, French bistro food, and what the New York Times describes as a "high church of reverently prepared fish."

Where next?

Answer: The Morgan Library, first to check out the building (by Charles McKim and Renzo Piano), and then the holdings (manuscripts by Mark Twain, Alexander Pope, Galileo, Mozart; silver cups from first-century Rome; three, count 'em, three Gutenberg Bibles).

And then the cafe, with its oversized, horseradishy deviled eggs:



and its three-martini lunch.



Then we wandered down Broadway so I could check out the first US branch of Top Shop (verdict: cheaply made and overpriced. Much worse than the US H&M. Or perhaps I just have to accept that I haven't been in Toppo Shoppo's target demographic for, ahem, 20 years).

And then it was time to eat again, so we scooted over to A Salt and Battery, discovered that it was full to bursting (which I guess is a good thing) and repaired next door to Tea & Sympathy.

It was the first time we'd managed to get in; the place only has room for ten tables, and would frankly be more comfortable if they took a couple out. It's so small that people waiting for a table have to stand outside (not fun on a freezing January day).

On the other hand, there's a lovely selection of sponge cakes on the counter, a gregarious Bet Lynch-like manager, and a menu of bangers and mash, scotch egg and sausage roll.

It's definitely a niche, and seemingly populated by young female American Anglophiles, and so they can get away with charging (get this) $5.95 for Heinz tomato soup (yes, from a can) and $7.50 for a cheese and pickle sarnie. But it was also the rare chance for me to get my fix, so I didn't care.

We got tea, which came in mismatched china (oh, how quaint!)



And then I ordered a bacon butty (which was good — ah, proper bacon! — but could have done with a couple of slices of fried tomato to add moisture) and The Boy went for the Cornish pasty.



And that's when I realized we'd have to come back.



The meat was perfectly seasoned, deep and rich and full of flavor. There were recognizable chunks of veggies. And jus. It was one of the best Cornish pasties I'd ever tasted.

For our last meal of the visit, we went to eat oysters in the basement of a train station. (I know, it sounds a lot like getting sushi from a gas station.)

The Oyster Bar is a cavernous space just off the dining concourse underneath Grand Central. One section is laid out with long, diner-like counter seating, and the rest is ... this:



It turns out the architect, Rafael Guastavino, patented a method of creating vaulted spaces using interlocking terracotta tiles.



And his first work in the US? The Boston Public Library, for McKim, Mead and White. There. You learned something.

But we weren't there to improve our minds; we were there to consume bivalves. Luckily, the Oyster Bar has one or two choices.



We settled on four: the Bras d'Or, the Chincoteague, and two locals: Oyster Ponds and Westhampton. It was fascinating to taste the differences that location makes to the same animal. The first, from colder waters, was small and briny; the second, from warmer Virginia, was long and salty. The Oyster Ponds had an iron-ish tang, while the other Long Island type was surprisingly sweet.



It was only fitting to have champagne and toast the end of another fabulously food-filled trip.

And then we caught the train back home.

Who moved my pork cakes?

Consider this a eulogy of sorts.

Last night we went to Tu y Yo, the bestest Mexican restaurant in Somerville (and beyond).

We know the menu pretty well at this point, so it didn't take us long to order.

The Boy chose the cochinita pibil and I asked for the tortitas de puerco, which are fist-sized patties of shredded pork in a sauce of xoconostle, a sweet-sour cactus fruit. This has become one of my favorite dishes, a perfectly balanced blend of flavors and textures.

When my parents were visiting, we brought them to Tu y Yo and my mom had them. She loved them too.

"I'm so sorry," our lovely waiter said. "I don't think we have any more."

Okay, I figured, they're out. Not surprising; we're coming up on a holiday weekend, and—

"We're changing the menu," he continued, "and that's one of the dishes we've discontinued."

What??

Okay, must recover. Let's go with the usual Plan B: the Pollo Yunkaax.

"Yes, that we have," our waiter said, looking strangely apologetic. "But ... um ... we'll be taking that off the menu soon as well."

And so, we come together to remember the loveliness of Pollo Yunkaax.



Kind of startling if you haven't encountered it before. So green! So vibrant! (That's the spinach and cream sauce, by the way).

Inside, its secret weapon: cuitlocoche.



The menu at Tu y Yo describes cuitlocoche as "corn's black mushroom," which is a polite way of saying "a disease of maize caused by a pathogenic plant fungus." (Which would you rather eat?)

The flavor is neither mushroomy nor moldy; it has a light, fresh, subtle earthiness. Together with the moist chicken and the creamy sauce, it makes—um, made—for a perfect summer meal.

I ate extra-slowly, realizing this was probably the last time I'd get to taste this particular dish.

The Boy consoled me with forkfuls of his fabulous pibil.



As usual, the beans were divine.



So, Tu y Yo, I have just two questions:

1) Can I get the recipe for the tortitas de puerco (and a source for xoconostle)?

2) Do you need someone to taste-test the new menu??

Foodie hell in Orlando

Okay, maybe "hell" is overstating the case slightly. And perhaps "Orlando" is too broad an area to disparage, as I stayed within the confines of a golf resort 25 miles from downtown. And I suppose it's even a stretch to call myself a "foodie," given that my predilection for eating, and talking about eating, is a trait shared with, oh, just about the entire population.

But if I'd titled this post "A few not-very-good meals in a golf resort somewhere in Florida," where's the fun in that?

In fairness, I wasn't there for fun; I was at the Healthcare Internet Conference, a fabulous few days of full-on marketing nerdery with 450 other people looking to figure out how to make their hospital websites more inviting, valuable and user-friendly. From that perspective, it was great, and I came away with a notebook of scribble and a list of ideas to put into practice.

But outside of conference hours, I was pretty much on my own for foraging purposes. Had this been New York or Miami, I could have strolled out of the hotel and into any number of dining options. Instead, I was surrrounded by 36 holes of Greg Norman-designed lawn atop what was once swamp.



So I ate:

• A straight-from-the-fridge sports-bar chopped salad, arranged on the plate as though intended for a child going through the "none of my foods can touch each other" phase
• A chocolate croissant topped with icing
• A blackened grouper sandwich with the consistency of a sock
• This:

Disturbing as the above looks, it was a godsend; being a high-end resort, prices were elevated, and my travel budget didn't include meals. So the hors d'oeuvres served during the early evening networking session became dinner, supplemented by

• Trail mix and bananas.

Perhaps, then, you can understand my gratitude when I arrived back in Boston, and The Boy met me at the airport and said, "Let's go to Hungry Mother."

An hour later, I was sipping a gin martini sweetened with honey syrup and sharing a bowl of boiled peanuts. And then this arrived.



A choucroute of collard greens topped with a pork rib, a thick slice of bacon, and the most amazing garlic sausage I've had in ages.

There's no place like home.

Estragon, Boston: my new tapas addiction

On Friday I discovered a new talent: I can see into the future. Not very far, admittedly, but still, I had a vision that sometime around the beginning of 2009, I will be feasting on an entire pig's head.

The cause of my pignostication? The menu at Estragon, the South End's newest tapas place, which features the porcine cranium as one of its signature dishes. Apparently it comes with all the parts attached: tongue, eyes, ears (the bartender particularly recommends the muscles at the back of the neck). Sounds like the perfect way to spend a doubtless freezing January birthday, don'tcha think?

Friday night's dinner was not quite as decadent, but still lovely. We started out at the bar. As our dining companion Tim is a regular visitor to Estragon's adjoining deli, Las Ventas (he recommends their manchego-jamón serrano sandwich), we were treated to plates of thin, delicate jamón, an incredible tortilla española flavored with lemon (genius!), and a dish of fried, paprika-dusted chickpeas that the Boston Globe's review accurately refers to as "chickpea crack"--it took serious restraint to eat a dainty handful at a time, because my instinct was to grab an enormous fistful and shove them in my face.

We also got to watch the sangria machine:



The one downside to Estragon was the noise level; between the roomful of happy diners and the cranked-up music, it was hard to have a conversation. But just as we finished fighting over the last dustings of chickpea crack, our table on the sidewalk patio opened up and we were led outside to relative peacefulness.

And then we ate more: shrimp in garlic butter; a giant scallop finished with almond cream; tender cod cheeks; another plate of jamón serrano and manchego; veal sweetbreads; and a dish of peppery housemade sausage that was so good, we ordered an encore.

And then to dessert. There were only three choices, so we got one of each: a dense, moist chickpea poundcake with grilled peaches, a lovely version of traditional flan, and a trio of ice creams--honey-thyme, salted caramel, and turrón. I'm not usually a gelato girl, but once again, it was hard to share. Give me an unlimited supply of Estragon's fried chickpeas and this dessert, and I'd follow you into battle. (As long as you didn't mind that I'd weigh 300 lbs.)

And there were all kinds of tapas we didn't get around to trying: the calamari with blood sausage, the beef tongue, the frogs' legs, the roasted eggplant with chorizo, and of course the sea urchin and foie gras sliders.

It looks as though Estragon's menu is still evolving; a steak-and-quail egg dish Tim had tried previously was no longer listed, and the menu on Estragon's website is not quite the same as the one we saw. Which means we'll probably need to make a return visit sooner than January.

Oh well.

Salts, Cambridge: good food, funny words

On Thursday nights, we have a tradition: meet up with friends at the Middlesex in Cambridge, have a couple of refreshing beverages, then go out to dinner. This has been going on for more than a decade. Originally, the evening started at the Miracle of Science, but the Middlesex makes for a much-less-crowded post-work destination.

Anyway. Long story short: this week, the four of us decided to eat around the corner at Salts, the tiny French-inspired place on Main Street. We'd been there a bunch of times before (also back when the space was Anago), and in a way, it was a marker of our gradual rise to financial stability that we now saw it as a place for a casual weekday dinner, rather than as a once-a-year celebratory treat.

The past few times we'd tried to do a Thursday dinner at Salts, we were unlucky: either there were no tables available, or it was reserved for a private party. This week, however, only three other tables were occupied, so they had no option but to let us in.

I accept that we may not have looked like high-rollers, turning up as we did in jeans and Chucks. But it was still a little annoying when the hostess said, "Now, you may find some funny words in the menu, so please ask if you have any questions about the food."

Funny words? Okay, here's a selection of dishes from the Salts spring menu (bizarre capitalization is all theirs):

• Spiced Tuna with petite garden vegetables, preserved lemon chickpea puree, and minted cucumber yogurt
• Pan roasted local Fluke with braised leeks, white grapes, almond,and Elderflower infused raisins
• Ballotine of free range Chicken with apricot white bean puree, Serrano ham chips, sage, and cocoa nib vinaigrette
• Painted Hills beef Sirloin with smoked potato cream, Morel mushrooms, and garden pea ragout
• Lavender honey glazed whole roasted boneless Duck for Two with leeks, roasted peaches, and Salts farm turnips

See anything funny in there? Neither did we.

(And yes, I admit I really just wanted to to drool over those descriptions.)

But then we managed to order without mis-pronouncing any of the words, and chose an appropriate wine, and it became clear that we didn't usually order food by yelling out a car window into a clown's mouth.

The food was as it should be. We started with shared apps of yellowfin tuna, crispy veal sweetbreads and pickled ramps, and a plate of hefty rabbit-filled tortellini, unusually accompanied by a sweet lemon curd-like confit. Good start, that.

Then came a fresh veggie couscous, tuna, trout and fluke, all of which were carefully prepared and nicely executed (though the fluke, with grapes and floral raisins, was just a little too sweet).

But most notable of the night was our waitron's word choice. She came to clear our appetizer plates and asked, "Was that enjoyed?"

So there were some funny words after all.

A hearty (New) English pub lunch

As part of our goal of not wasting yet another summer sitting around (and then spending the fall bemoaning the fact that we did nothing all summer), The Boy and I came up with a plan to take a few day trips and see some new places.

Our first ride was back to Portsmouth, NH. Okay, that wasn't a completely new place, but I hadn't been able to get the scotch eggs out of my mind. So the real point of the trip was to have lunch at the Coat of Arms pub.

The Coat of Arms is a pretty fair approximation of the real English pub experience: it's a dark room with a long, solid bar, a snooker table, dart boards, footie on the telly and the pervasive odor of stale cigarette smoke. It also has a good selection of beer on tap, including Old Speckled Hen, McEwans, Courage and Tetley.



And, of course, our main reason for visiting: a menu that includes such traditional, artery-clogging delicacies as scotch eggs,



a surprisingly good steak and kidney pie,



a sausage, fish and chips basket meal that renders future visits to the rather overpriced A Salt and Battery in NYC unnecessary,



and a treacle pudding and custard that wasn't quite perfect--the treacle had soaked into the sponge instead of sitting on top, and the "homemade" custard tasted suspiciously like the canned Ambrosia version--but certainly nostalgically lovely enough under the circumstances.



It's probably not the healthiest thing to be an hour's drive from such greasy, stodgy, salty temptation. But it's good to know that, when the urge strikes, there's a place to indulge occasional cravings for the food of My People.

Mochica, Montreal: a call to llamas

Our other fab meal in Montreal was at Mochica, a Peruvian restaurant on Rue Saint-Denis. This meant we got to speak English, French and Spanish all in one meal.



We ate there on our previous trip; that was my first encounter with Peruvian culture, and were I less well-educated, I'd have come away with the impression that the Peruvian diet consisted largely of llama and pisco.

Oh, and, at least according to the (non-work-safe) statuary in the restroom, that Peruvian men are extraordinarily talented.

It turned out we were lucky to get a table on this occasion; they were expecting a party of 21, a graduation celebration, which would occupy half the restaurant. This is their table, but really it's just an excuse to show you the cool wall work:



The waitstaff were lovely all night, beginning with the point at which our waiter, referring to the imminent arrival of the large group, said, "You might want to order now, if you can; I'd hate for your order to get lost in the crush."

We started with the rellenos de papa de llama:



Rellenos de papa are a Puerto Rican favorite: fist-sized balls of mashed potato, stuffed with meat and deep-fried (here's a recipe; check out this vid of chef Wilo Benet's easy instructions for putting them together).

At Mochica, they're loaded with llama and olives; the potato is light and fluffy, with the lightest crunch on the outside.

Our other app, ceviche de pescado, is also popular in Puerto Rico. The difference at Mochica is that rather than serving the fish in bite-sized chunks, they slice it paper-thin—almost translucent—so it melts on the tongue with a bright bite of lime.



(By this point, the large party had arrived and spent an hour taking turns in giving speeches, from which I am forced to conclude that Peruvian dinnertime is traditionally a long and overly formal occasion.)

Then to our mains; sadly (as may be evident from the above images) the light in the restaurant wasn't quite bright enough for photos, so you'll just have to take my word for it that everything was lovely. The Boy's dad had llama a la parilla, a generous grilled llama steak with rosemary; The Boy went for goat stew, which came tender and warmly spicy and (for a nice change) had very few bones.

I had llama a la Cuzqueña, a spicy, complex llama stew. On the menu it noted that the llama was "from Compton," which I assume means this Compton, rather than this Compton.

Only The Boy's mom wasn't completely happy, in part because the food was spicier than she liked, and also because it wasn't quite what she expected. She'd been hoping for something closer to the simple, hearty, home-cooked meals of her childhood (which sounded fabulous) rather than this light, modern take. But otherwise, the evening was lovely.

And a final example of Mochica's customer service: The Boy's dad couldn't find his gold chain, and thought he might have lost it in the restaurant. I called Mochica the next morning and left a message, explaining we were leaving for Boston so needed a rapid response. The co-owner quickly got back to me to say they'd searched the place but couldn't find the chain, and he hoped that hadn't spoiled our experience, and wished us a safe trip home.

(We found the chain in the car later that day; it had fallen off and slipped down the passenger-side seat. D'oh!)

Montreal, like New York, is so generously stuffed with restaurants that it would be easy to eat at a different place every night. But along with Au Pied de Cochon, I think of Mochica as becoming one of our defaults: a restaurant we could easily visit on every trip and try something new and interesting.

(But more importantly: are all the guys like that??)

Au Pied de Cochon: pig-out, Montreal style

The Boy's birthday coincided with our trip to Montreal, so when I asked where he wanted to go for his celebratory meal, he had an immediate answer: Au Pied de Cochon.

Both our previous Montreal trips had included visits to this palace of porkiness; it's one of those restaurants that, when brought up in conversation, causes a Pavlovian reaction for us. And we were pretty sure The Boy's parents would approve. (They did. Oh, boy, they did.)

Au Pied de Cochon is a long, narrow, noisy room, with clusters of tables at both ends and a bar that runs the length of the intervening space. If you sit at the bar, you get to watch the chefs at work in the tiny kitchen.

On past visits, we've sat at a table in front, squished between other diners and subject to waiter traffic. This time, we got a table at the back of the room, which felt a little calmer (though no less cacophonous).



We started with a plate of cochonailles (which, as we learned from the pig-fest at Craigie Street Bistrot, kind of translates to "little bits of porkular loveliness"). And then to the main event.

The Boy's mom went for the signature dish, a fabulous plate of pig's foot braised until fall-apart tender, with pommes purées and a crispy mushroom-cream-filled cake.



The Boy's dad had the lamb shank confit.



Do I even need to say how gloriously moist and juicy and fatty it was? (Wanna make it yourself? Here's a recipe. Stock up on duck fat.)

I had the PDC Melting Pot, a crock stuffed with pommes purées topped with garlic pork sausage, blood sausage, pork belly and bacon, as well as a couple of sweet roasted onions. Yes, it looks obscene. No, I couldn't eat the whole thing, though I gave it a damn good try.



And The Boy?

On our first visit, he'd considered getting the poutine with foie gras because it seemed so decadent. On our second--having actually tried poutine--he thought about it but passed for something else. And then we made our own version of posh poutine at home, and he came to fully grasp its potential.

When we started to talk about taking his parents to Montreal, he mentioned the poutine with foie gras. When we discussed going to Au Pied de Cochon, he observed that they had poutine with foie gras.

And so, finally, he got what he wanted. It may look like hell, but it tastes like heaven.



Au Pied de Cochon is a fun, lively place. (And loud. Did I mention it's loud?) The crowd is young and hip, the staff are cute in a tousled punk/pirate sort of way, and the restroom is awesome:



Yes, that's a full-on dishwashing sink with rinsing nozzle. And yes, the hand towels are in a steam table.

Oh, and they have a dish called canard en conserve--or, en anglais, the less-romantic-sounding duck in a can. The adorable chef/waiter couple from Toronto, sitting at the next table (close enough that we could follow their conversation, apparently) ordered it, and we got to watch as it was served. From the can. A can-opener is involved.

I wasn't able to take photos, so I direct you to Claudine's gorgeous frame-by-frame reveal on Flickr. And take a look at the rest of her PDC set; her camera skeelz are much better than mine!

Anyway, we have to go back. We still haven't tried the duck carpaccio, or the bison tongue, or the venison tongue, or the (gasp!) pied de cochon stuffed with (gasp!) foie gras, or ...

Sabur, Somerville: it's all a blur

This week I had a complaint (a complaint, I tells ya!) that I hadn't posted any pictures of food in more than a week.

My excuse? I keep eating in dark places.

I'm not a professional photographer (as you may have noticed), and even though I try to take photos of as many dishes as possible, it's hard to get good shots in restaurants with ambiances that are romantic, moody or just cheap and underlit.

Take last night, for example, when we braved the 85-degree humidity to go to Sabur, the Mediterranean restaurant halfway between Davis and Teele Squares in Somerville.

(How humid was it? So humid that we elected to sit in the air-conditioned interior instead of on the intimate outdoor patio. That humid.)

The decor at Sabur is simple and rustic: highbacked wooden chairs, an open brick grill, beaten copper tables. The lighting, while pretty, is similarly low-key:



Which means I had two choices, snapshot-wise. I could sit the camera on the table, which produced shots like this:



(Doesn't that tomato-cucumber-feta salad look lovely?)

Or I could hold the camera and balance my elbows on the table, which produced shots with a less-than-appetizing blur. This photo does nothing for the grilled Balkan sausages, which are tender and juicy and spicy:



Likewise, Sabur does zucchini and feta fritters that have a light crunch on the outside and a soft, yielding center. They're sitting in ajvar, a roasted red pepper and eggplant spread that's both fresh and complex. But you wouldn't know it from this shaky shot:



The round pastry in back is burek, which is close enough to a Cornish pasty that it satisfies my occasional cravings.

I should point out that any shakiness is purely the result of the slightly irregular surface of the beaten copper table, and has nothing to do with this:



Mine was the one on the left, a cocktail of house-made fig-infused vodka and pomegranate that was both refreshingly light and earthily complex. The dark fruit lurking in the bottom of the glass is an entire vodka-soaked fig: a potent little bomb.

So I asks you: which would you prefer? Clear, well-lit images that appear only occasionally, or a regular cavalcade of blurry, dark, confusing shots?

'Cause let me tell you, I got plenty of those.