Knife's Edge - Restaurant Rants & Raves

Menu Shorthand

One of the big losers on the menu change is the ling cod with paprika marinated leeks and rosemary aioli. We're pretty sure it's because of the leeks. This is somehow related to a topic that has been churning around in my head for a while.

Years ago menus were simpler in some ways. Many restaurants served European (essentially French) classic cuisine and many diners knew what they were getting when they ordered say,  Consomme Madrilene (bouillon with tomatoes and cayenne), Duck Alsacienne (garnished with sauerkraut, Strasbourg sausages and boiled potatoes), or Sweetbreads a la Toulouse (garnished with chicken quenelles, cock's comb and kidneys, braised lamb, mushrooms and shredded truffles, topped with a Sauce Allemande, itself an egg thickened veloute).

These days we have to describe everything on the menu, there is increasingly no shorthand. Even with dishes I consider to be classic in the American repertoire the expansion of our palate and insistence on uniqueness and novelty gets in the way. Take for example chicken & dumplings. Fix that in your mind. Now, go order that dish in a restaurant near us and you will be served a dish which has chicken, topped with sweetish biscuits and a generous amount of red bell pepper in the mixture. To paraphrase Bill Monroe, that ain't no part of chicken & dumplings. That ain't no part of nothin'.

When I put the leeks with the cod I was heartened to read this from David Lebovitz. Leeks vinaigrette is still alive in France.

The problem is multi-faceted. Our horizons as consumers have broadened and now include food from everywhere imaginable. The number of restaurants has increased amazingly. The cooking profession is now glamorous. Imagine that, the help is now out in the dining room and the majority of cooks at American restaurants are now learning their trade at a vocational school rather than prison. Food journalism, to say nothing of blogging, has exploded. Writers needing to keep a jaded audience interested tout new & interesting above all else. I understand the fascination, I like new and interesting. I also like classic and time-tested.

As an owner my needs are occasionally in conflict with my desires as a chef. The chef wants to feed people, make them happy, delight their spirits and takes any rejection of a dish personally. That's why we have an open kitchen so I don't have to fume like the poor chef in The Big Night, wondering what kind of idiot wants pasta with their risotto. The owner wants to pay the bills.

In this instance the chef is thinking, "eat your leeks people, you'll like them. I swear, this is a classic preparation. People in France are still eating this." The owner is thinking "the leeks are killing this dish. We've gotta lose them." The middle ground? Keep the leeks but don't tell people they are there. Among the many allergies on the increase I have yet to see leek. It won't be long I'm sure, but for now we're safe.

I have a lot more to say about this. It's part of what may be a paper written for a volume of Food and Philosophy to which I've been invited to submit an abstract. However, I don't think the guy who invited me likes my topic so I may not be asked to actually write the paper.

Oh, the other dish that isn't selling is the scallops with tuna tartare and lemon-pepper gelee. But I already knew that wasn't going to sell.

Late Winter Menu

Here's how the menu thing shook out. After talking with the cooks we decided to do the mussels with ancho puree, garlic and lime; the tuna with fingerling potato/grilled asparagus salad, red wine vinaigrette, red wine syrup and sieved egg (kind of a Nicoise riff with a good dose of Ital-American thrown in with a garlicky vinaigrette); ling cod with paprika marinated leeks and rosemary aioli; lamb sirloin with morel jus, Tuscan kale and sweet potato fries; chicken pot pie; short ribs with grated horseradish and potato croquettes; fettuccine with peas, paprika, onions and cream; bucatini with asparagus, house cured bacon and Parmesan; and since one of mainstays, rock shrimp, are not available due to the continuing aftermath of hurricanes in the Gulf, spaghetti with Dungeness crab, fennel, lemon and butter. Oh yeah, I decided to go with scallops, tuna tartare and lemon-pepper gelee. I'll let you know how it sells.

Dead night and tomorrow will be slow as well. The local winegrower's are having a cioppino feed and the local college is having its big fundraiser tomorrow so that knocks out a good chunk of our local business. We're still regarded a little warily by out-of-towners, they prefer to stick to the better known places, although we are more and more falling into that category. I suppose if we have to be slow it might as well be during a menu change. Also when the GM has to make an emergency trip to pick up one of our young bussers who will be returning from San Bernardino where she will be attending college this fall.

Cooking with Tristan Tzara, Brion Gysin and David Bowie

Hey that got your attention huh?

As I mentioned in the last post, we're doing a little juggling of the menu. After 7 years in one venue, you fear repeating yourself. Particularly when your venue is in a small town and the people you're relying on to fill your seats are not the most adventurous of souls. Not exactly geriatrics from Peoria as a fellow chef described one local reviewer, but many would be hard pressed to find something they liked at Gary Danko, much less The Fat Duck. Not that repeating yourself is necessarily bad. After all, how else do things get to be classics?

Mining the same territory for 7 years you look for other sources of inspiration. At least I do. I see ingredients in certain ways and sometimes forget they can be used differently. For other inspiration sometimes it's music, sometimes a new cookbook, sometimes literature, sometimes an ingredient. Last night we watched a film called "Inspirations", a documentary about the creative processes of artists which was far less interesting or inspirational than I thought it would be. However, one of the artists was David Bowie, for whom I have an abiding love (at least his music from say, 1969-1977, the rest is a bag of shit) and he was talking about the old Dada technique of cut-ups.

I decided I might try it out on new dishes, although in a safer way than completely random. After all, I am not interested in writing The Futurist Cookbook. Anyway, I've got some tables of ingredients which work well together and using a random number generator came up with the following things on two successive nights. I wasn't sure the number generator was random after getting exactly the same results for the tuna two nights in a row. All others, however, were different. Interestingly the results on the first night for the cod were pretty close to what's on the menu currently. The bold type is the main portion of the dish, the others are flavors/ingredients to pair with them. I did 4 for each ingredient.

Night 1
Tuna: Beans, artichokes, teriyaki, caviar

Lamb: Breadcrumbs, currants, almonds, zucchini

Scallops: Lemon, almonds, ginger, black pepper

Cod: Olives, vinaigrette, parsley, rosemary

Artichokes: Goat cheese, aioli, vinaigrette, sausage

Night 2
Tuna: Beans, artichokes, teriyaki, caviar

Lamb: Apple, tarragon, breadcrumbs, currants

Scallops: Almonds, white wine, pumpkin, lemon

Cod: Aioli, leeks, pepper, white wine

Artichokes: Mushrooms, white truffle, onion, pepper (black or red)

I did another try on the tuna the second night since I couldn't wrap my head around teriyaki caviar.

Tuna: Caviar, bay leaves, wasabi, thyme

Where this leads, who knows. Probably just into procrastination to avoid finishing the dishes.  But a few suggestions come to minds. One is a raisin-caper tapenade with a little splash of apple balsamic vinegar for the lamb. Another is Scallops with Tuna Tartare and Lemon-Pepper Gelee but that's a little out there for my clientele. I'm tempted to run the tuna with beans since that's reappeared twice but for some reason beans are not a seller for us although they are among my favorite foods. If I use the beans I have to use a surefire seller like asparagus in there somewhere. Even then, half the orders will come in Tuna sub mashed potatoes for beans.

Another thing which comes to mind is to leave the cod alone for the time being since night one gets pretty close to the current item. Although incorporating a bit from night 2 brings up Pan Roasted Cod with Paprika Marinated Leeks, and Rosemary Aioli.

This is fun. It's a little like a mystery basket. I'll do another set in the morning and see what turns up.

Who Loves the Sun

The weather here is shifting to brilliant-crisp pre-spring. This begins our absolute slowest time of year. While we are a locals oriented restaurant in a tourist area we need out of towners as well. January and early February are good to us because so many restaurants here close for a winter break. By Valentine's Day everyone who is going to be open for the season is and so we have the same amount of diners available but 1/3 more restaurants open. Plus, since places have been closed for 6 weeks or so many locals want to see what's on the opening menu and get a change of scenery. Every year I tell myself to be prepared mentally for the slowdown and every year I never am. Beyond the tight financial aspect, it's demoralizing to be slow. I still have to spend about the same amount of time at work. Working long hours and being busy is one thing, being slow is a killer.

We are fortunate in getting another great article in the Chronicle recently. The press seems to save our ass every late winter, and as I've maintained, it seems that press breeds press. Once you get a few good things come your way a few more follow rather quickly.

This shift in season is also difficult menu-wise. Real spring is still a month away, even if flowers are popping up. Plus, no matter how long I spend in California (20 plus years now) I'm not used to things like apricots, blackberries and raspberries being spring ripeners. Admittedly late spring but here in Northern California there is far less demarcation of the seasons than in the Northeast. My mom calls spring here "the brief window between mud and dust."

This is a long winded way of saying it's time to change some of the dishes on the menu. The pork shoulder confit with celery root puree, the cocoa-coffee rubbed venison with Jerusalem artichokes, the candy cap creme brulee are all sounding a little fall-wintery. Time for some lamb sirloin, maybe with whole grained mustard aioli and onion rings, or perhaps with raisin-caper tapenade, or with sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts and a Parmesan custard or with green olives and a little skillet of mac & cheese. The albacore preparation may change also. Perhaps with a Portuguese marinade, since our region was settled by Italians, Portuguese and Finns. Even though braising season is coming to a close I'm still thinking of putting short ribs on with a nice, bracing horseradish kick to them. I've got chicken cacciatore with one of our pastas because we always need to use the dark meat. The menu is set up so you can order a 1/4 chicken, either light or dark and we always have legs and thighs to use up. The cacciatore is nice because it also uses the stems of the portobellos. However, I'd like to move on and since Linda Carucci, dean of CCA when I attended and author of Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks, is coming to town for a book signing I thought of our chicken pot pie. She used the recipe in her cookbook and it's a good way to use the chicken while bridging the winter/spring gap.

Desserts I'll do next week. I try not to change everything at once since our crew is pretty small. New savory items one week and sweet items the next seems to be right in terms of a sane amount of production for us. Plus I've had a week then to think about cross-utilization on the dessert menu with any new savory ingredients.

A heads-up for Bay Area-ites. We'll be down your way the 13th-16th. If anyone wants to get together and have a bite send an email to ngaudi@yahoo.com

Seafood Choices

I thought to write more about the Seafood Summit but realized that I said essentially everything I needed to say in the last post. Large corporations are going "sustainable". A speaker from Cascadian Farms who has played both the "small organic" and the "big organic" fields sent the message that now the little guy needs to go beyond organic, to a higher standard. While I respect him I have to wonder when the little guy gets to enjoy some of the fruits of his labor. It seems that everywhere passionate, dedicated people put their effort into something which as soon as it becomes commercially successful is co-opted by others whose only motivation is cash. Not that I believe life is static. That there is some point at which you "arrive" and cease working and innovating, only that it's painful to watch someone else profit not only by virtue of another's hard work but then actually make sure they  earn less for doing what they've done.

I won't go over every panel. Some were repeats of what I already knew, some were misrepresented, like the panel that claimed to be about assessing data deficient fish stocks. I thought it would give me some resources to check on a variety of fish stocks but instead was a puff piece for the South Georgia Islands toothfish fishery and a pat on the back for the Caspian Sea caviar ban. Not that either of those aren't interesting or valid. They just don't help me feel I'm getting the real story about say, Pacific rockfish.

There were a few highlights. One was listening to the presentation by Nick Joy, managing director of Loch Duart, the sustainable salmon company as they call themselves. Mr. Joy is a salmon open net pen farmer, something you would think would be about as welcome at a sustainability conference as a piranha at a tilapia farm. If you don't know about the problems associated with salmon open net pen farming you might not know what I mean. I won't go over them all but they include escapees, antibiotic and sulfa drug use, excrement accumulation, large scale removal of small pelagic fish for feed and death of seabirds entangled in netting.

Mr Joy presented a compelling case for being able to farm salmon in a sustainable way. Their practices include:

• Full-year fallows -      as in traditional rotational land farming
• No antifouling treatments      on nets or moorings
• No antibiotics
• Fish feed from sustainable      sources
• Environmental Management      System (ISO 14001)
• Respect for the salmon,      the environment and the local community

For a more in-depth explanation you should visit their site. His presentation was compelling not only because it was heartening to see a company which seemed to be trying to do things right but because he believed that people were capable of intelligent thought and that 10 second sound bites of "wild fish good, farmed bad" weren't capable of conveying any real meaning. We struggle with dogma up here and the bullshit is just as thick as in any red-state barroom. I agree with much of what gets slung around up here but still retain the capacity for independent thought and that gets me in trouble. If you're out of step with the party line you leave yourself open for brickbats. Actually the GM is much less susceptible than I to swallowing a tall tale just because it's been wrapped up in pretty, liberal packaging. I'm a little easier to fool.

What I'm getting at with Mr Joy is that food has become increasingly complicated for us. Thank you Shuna for suggesting trying to hear some of the political food talks at UC Berkeley. If we're in town I will. But this serves as a good example for the dilemmas we face. We're 3.5 hours away from Berkeley so to drive down to hear a lecture uses how much fossil fuel? I try to keep abreast of the topics presented in other ways and would rather see my seat taken by someone who hasn't considered where their food comes from. If I am in town I will certainly try to make it. However, the only one we're around for is possibly the least interesting to me.

When I buy seafood I'm juggling a lot of variables. Wild or farmed? There are some fish I only buy wild, like salmon. Impressed though I was by Mr Joy, salmon is also an excellent educational fish. By that I mean by only serving wild fish when people get to the restaurant looking for salmon and it's October I can tell them it's not salmon season. Many people have never considered that fish might be seasonal. Many people these days don't get that produce is seasonal. Some people leave, in search of salmon. Most stay and discover something else to eat.

After wild or farmed, is how is it handled? And by that I mean what kind of gear is used to catch it, where are the fishing grounds, are the stocks healthy, is the fishery well-managed? Then,  how does it get here? How many miles does it have to travel before it gets on the plate? Then, will people buy it? There are plenty of fish out there which are delicious but that people just won't try.

It's not as though I have a logarithm that I can feed the info in and get clear answers. It's always a balancing act and sometimes just a drawing a line in the sand. Is serving line-caught mahi-mahi from Peru better than line-caught rock cod from our own harbor? Maybe, all things considered. Why do I not serve lobster but do serve Prince Edward Island mussels? They're both from the East Coast. Both can be done sustainably. Because the customers who insist on lobster are typically not the customers I want to attract. They're often like the ones we will encounter tonight. They go out infrequently, put unreasonably high expectations on their dining experience and order things society has told them are dining out foods like lobster and prime rib. They run the staff ragged and then don't tip. How's that for a dogmatic, sweeping generalization?

Speaking of which, everything on the prep list is marked. Time to go.

Seafood Summit 2006

In years past the big topic at culinary conferences focused on sustainability was "How do we get the mainstream (media and industry) to take us seriously?" We've certainly figured that out. You can't open a paper or magazine without seeing buzzwords like organic, sustainable, natural, etc. repeated over and over and increasingly applied to things which may have none of the those qualities.

Years ago Joan Gussow, professor emeritus at Columbia University, said of the debate about national organic standards essentially, watch out how we proceed with this because I can see the day when the organic Twinkie arrives. That day has come. Agribusiness has been able to enter the organic market. Safeway has their own line of organic products. And many of the small farmers I know and work with are considering dropping their certification because they can't afford the fees, manage the paperwork and still have time to farm and money to support their families. They're not intending to do anything differently. They just won't be labeling their stuff organic.

I suppose if there is going to be agribusiness in the first place it's better for them to be "organic" than not. Reducing the amount of chemicals spread over the planet is undoubtedly a good thing. I am however more in favor of the concept "organic" in a more philosophical sense. One which allows a small farmer to make a living. One which doesn't embrace mono-cropping. One which understands we are dealing with complex systems and that while not using chemical herbicides and fertilizers is part of good practice, it doesn't start and end there. In other words, a standard that doesn't allow for the organic Twinkie.

There are a multitude of debatable items contained within the above sentiments. I'm not going to even try to address the very real issues about global food production. You can find scientists who claim studies and models which support any point of view, from intense, genetically modified mono-culture is the only way we are going to feed the global population to those who say there is no shortage of food, that the problem is all in the distribution. Some support the idea of the Green Revolution as being just that, others maintain the only thing green about that "revolution" is the steady stream of profits Dow, Monsanto and other chemical companies reap. If there was an easy, clear-cut scientific way to proceed fine. But there's not. So we're left with choosing the science which supports our moral or spiritual world-view.

Both Wal-Mart & Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden and others) have announced their intent to vastly increase the amount of MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) certified seafood sold in their operations. Whole Foods says they only apply the word sustainable to MSC certified seafood. Interestingly, although they now claim to be a fully independent non-profit organization, MSC was created through a partnership between the WWF and Unilever, the world's largest buyer of seafood. Their brands include, Bertolli, Country Crock, Hellman's, Wish-Bone, Bird's-Eye, Knorr, Lipton and Slim-Fast. These are just the familiar to US consumers food companies, they also own a variety of soaps like Lux, Pond's and Dove as well as Vaseline. Call me cynical but when I see the world's largest anything supporting a philosophy which could be seen as cutting into their bottom line I get a little suspicious. Particularly after hearing the guy from Unilever speak. And after him the guy who just left Carrefour, the number one retailer in Europe, number two worldwide. That's right, right behind Wal-Mart. They both said they wouldn't be paying any more for sustainable products than for non sustainable.

WHAT? If they're not going to pay, who is? Because it costs more to do things sustainably, period. So, if you're a fisherman selling to any of these companies your costs go up because they want you to meet certain standards but they won't pay you any more. I'm sorry but any definition of sustainability which doesn't include economic sustainability for all concerned doesn't work.

I'm trying hard not to tread the moral high ground here. I'm sure there are great and dedicated scientists working for the MSC who really believe they are doing the right thing. And maybe they are. I can't help but draw an analogy from Noam Chomsky though. When talking about censorship in the media he points out that while no one may tell RW Apple what to write, no one has to. He is only in the position he's in because he is thoroughly indoctrinated and self-censoring. Perhaps the same might be true with some of MSC's scientists.

I'll write about the particulars of the summit tomorrow. The main impression though was that the new activism seems to be based on cooperation, which is nice. But when you are partnering with corporations who issue statements which read they will protect species "when practical" how much conservation are you actually achieving? Aim higher my friends. Aim higher.

Coincidentally Seattle

Back from Seattle and now on the way to SF. The Seafood Summit was the catalyst that brought me to Seattle and I'll report on that in another post. The other reason was to visit a good friend who has lived there for a dozen years who shamefully, I had never gone to see.

B. or la milanesa as Giacinto used to refer to her, managed restaurants in Seattle though she now is a freelance business adviser/bookkeeper/organizer. She is the daughter of a textile tycoon father and journalist mother and is indeed from Milan. We traveled in France about 12 years ago and we both love to eat.

She took me to Marco's Supper Club, the last restaurant she managed. We had already had appetizers at the opening reception for the summit so we just had a couple of entrees. Marco sent us a plate of one of the new menu items, a lamb lollipop- strips of lamb smeared with goat cheese and pine nuts, rolled, skewered, breaded and sauteed with a hoisin BBQ sauce. Unfortunately for me I was required to eat all four of them because B. doesn't eat lamb and didn't want to hurt Marco's feelings. They weren't horrible but the combination was to me, ill-advised. My duck confit ravioli sounded promising but was undercooked. Marco also sent a creme brulee which caused B. to remark that need to get a pastry chef. Not that it was bad, but just like many places, the desserts had become an afterthought.

Marco was a sweet guy, goofy tall and curly-haired, a first-time dad at 50. I felt bad for him because I knew from B.'s description of the halcyon days his restaurant was a place in decline.

The next night we had pho at a place I could find again (Rainier near McClellan) but couldn't tell you the name of. Not the best bowl I've ever had but it was what I needed for a rainy Seattle night.

Tuesday night we tried Crow, a would be hip neighborhood sort of place serving the Queen Anne district. We sat at the counter and the first thing I noticed was their American Range hot line. When I was in the market for a new stove a while ago I kept looking at these things, trying to find good in them because they were affordable. OK, cheap. The steel was thin, there were sharp edges waiting to gash forearms, the back shelves were wobbly. But Crow had 12 burners and a grill the size of a range top and seemed to be putting them to reasonable use. However, I am glad I have my Montague instead.

We started with Manchego, which had been wrapped in grape leaves, grilled and set on ratatouille. The Manchego/grape leaf combo was tasty but the ratatouille, besides being completely wrong for the season was just a mushy glop. My cassoulet had great flavor but the pork shoulder was undercooked, not falling apart tender like it needs to be. The same was true of B's short ribs. Maybe those shitty American Ranges don't do the trick when braising. I know we had dessert, but right now I can't remember what it was, so that should say something.

By Wednesday the summit was over and I was on my own during the day. I emailed Kate the Accidental Hedonist for some Chinese recommendations since B is not a Chinese food lover. She suggested either Seven Stars Pepper Szechuan or Malay Satay Hut, essentially across the street from each other, about an hour's walk from B's apartment. Did I mention that B gets up at 6am? No? Well she does and for the time I spent there, so did I. So by the time I get to 12th and Jackson, it's still 10:30 and neither place is open. I didn't want to go too far away so I walked around their respective strip malls, checking things out, noticing that many places were closed for the week, celebrating Chinese New Year. It's getting closer to 11, the posted opening hour of Seven Stars and no sign of life inside. Nothing, nothing, finally at literally 3 minutes to 11 the entire day crew of the restaurant arrives and unlock the door.

I tried pork with dry bean curd which was delicious and broccoli with hot garlic sauce which was less so. I'd like to go again, closer to 1pm when the wok is sizzling and the staff is really in gear.

Now starts the series of Seattle co-incidences. Walking down Jackson, after stopping at the Wing Luke museum I find myself in front of Salumi, which I had of course heard about but didn't even really remember it was in Seattle. I did no research for this trip, leaving myself really in B's hands. Of course I had just eaten but never one to let that stop me I went in to get B a few sausages for her hospitality. I have to say I've had better service at a deli. The list of sausages had a few post-it's reading out, next to a few choices, but every other one I tried to order they were out of as well. If you're going to bother to note that you've sold out of things, be consistent. I finally managed to get some winter sausage, sopressata and prosciutto. I had a piece or two of each a few days but didn't really get to appreciate them, as they were cold from the fridge.

Another place I had heard about was Earth & Ocean at the W Hotel. The W PR machine has been in full swing about this place for a good year now. I can't pick up a trade paper without seeing something about either chef Maria Hines, or pastry chef Sue McCown. Whoops, excuse me, put the word executive before each of their titles. As it turns out, B has known Sue for years and is actually going to be her financial manager when she opens her new pastry shop, later this year. So Sue came out and sat with us for a while, as did Maria.

We opted for the chef's tasting menu. The first course, porcini creme brulee was probably my favorite. The brulee top really worked with the earthy custard although the olive dust didn't add much in the way of flavor. I think people put that stuff on the menu/plates so diners will say, "Wow, olive dust. Who'da thunk?" Dungeness crab and apple salad was fine but the tuna with chickpea cake and piperade was better, although the charmoula was not what I would call charmoula but that's OK because I'm sure what I call charmoula would be just as alien to a Moroccan. The veal sweetbreads with blood orange gratin were tasty as well, but again I really liked the sugary crunch of the bruleed blood orange both texturally and flavor-wise. The black cod with fennel and preserved lemon foam didn't register much. Sue sent us a cheese course and a couple desserts. One was the ubiquitous molten chocolate cake with orange and milk chocolate. The other made me smile. It was a hazelnut/caramel mousse that she was calling some sort of can-can thing because it had tuiles in the shape of legs sticking up from the mousse. I was smiling because she got the template for the tuiles from this dessert book that I often leaf through. In this book, the tuiles are used in a banana concoction called a Rockette or something like that. I've often considered poaching the idea but never have, being unwilling to carry the thievery that far. So I chuckled to see a star pastry chef, getting ready to cook for a DC fundraiser for Hilary Clinton, consult for a Louisville place, turn down the Beard House invite and open her own high-end shop doing what I hesitated to do. Not that I blame her. It looks great.

On my own again Wednesday morning I wound up at Coastal Kitchen for breakfast. Nice atmosphere, great service, decent breakfast. Then I was to meet B at another of her client's places, Vios. After arriving I had the strong feeling that I had seen the place before. Not in a deja vu way, just having seen the place. I realized it had been featured in the Meaning of Food series on PBS. The owner's wife, suffering from post-partum depression had killed herself not long before the opening of the restaurant and the show dealt with him trying to be dad, run a restaurant and survive his own loss. I was still full from breakfast so didn't have much room but did try a gigantes bean salad. I'd certainly go again if I were in the neighborhood.

That night we had the best meal of the trip at Lark. Owned by an Earth & Ocean alum, actually the chef before Maria who had evidently created quite a stir in Seattle. We tried the pommes de terre "Robuchon", the tuna tartare, mackerel with cabbage, apple and apple balsamic, pork belly with pear conserva and polenta integrale, wild boar ragout with white beans and and wild mushrooms, vanilla bean and lime panna cotta with Satsumas and citrus lace cookies and Bartlett pear tarte tatin
with grappa caramel and goat cheese sorbet. Only the pork belly and the panna cotta failed to deliver. The belly hadn't been rendered enough and was just too fatty, although the polenta and pear conserva were tasty. The panna cotta was just bland and the citrus cookie didn't help it much. The mackerel on the other hand was stellar, as was the boar ragout. The tarte tatin completely rocked. The goat cheese sorbet pushed it over the top.

I also tried a few bakeries. Macrina in Belltown, on my own for a quick hot chocolate and a pecan diamond. Diamond good, chocolate not. There are few places that know how to make a good hot chocolate. I should wise up and just not order one unless I have a rock solid recommendation but like Charlie Brown with the football I keep trying. I can't remember that name of the other bakery, just that it was in Ballard and started with a B. The ginger biscuits were great.

Before heading out to the airport I knew I would need some fortification so B suggested her friend's place Le Pichet. After seeing the menu I saw I was in for another coincidence. Kudzu had just given me the new Charcuterie book and one of the recipes was for a crispy pork belly confit. Strips of confit which are deep fried! Fried pork fat, yum. So of course we tried the recipe at our place and loved it. Well, here I was at the origin of the dish. I figured that and raclette would set me up for the flight. I have to say, our rendition was better than what I was served. At Le Pichet the meat spent a little too long in the fryer. It was good, but not as good as it could have been. Raclette, can't go wrong there and I left Seattle well-fed.

I'm glad to say I didn't care for Seattle all that much as a city. Glad because I didn't want to come home pining for another place. No insult intended to any Seattle-ites. I didn't dislike your town. It just didn't grab me and pull me in.

So after only one day of work, the GM (who stayed at home during my Seattle jaunt) and I are headed for the Bay Area, cheesesteaks, Korean BBQ, and whatever other craving she can come up with.