[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: August 25, 2008]
Where was I, before so rudely interrupted by techno-gremlins?
Right: lazing around New York before being shot out of the business cannon again on brief trips to the west coast and the windy city.
I've never found much great Mexican dining (as opposed to street-snacking) in New York, and Maya was no exception. Some shrimp tacos were followed by duck with a mole sauce. Rice beans, fruit punch: a pretty rosy dining room, but otherwise a fairly unmemorable evening.
The next day, after some German water-colors at the Frick, a casual supper at the "finer diner" - the Brooklyn Diner on 57th Street. It's still there, of course, a rather silly, Happy Days-like facsimile of a nineteen fifties diner, but the food is actually quite good (and not cheap). Clam chowder was followed by the pot roast with a hunk of savory kugel.
A return to my local standby San Domenico for a rather lavish Monday evening supper:
Salt cod and chickpea salad
Spaghetti with lobster and cherry tomatoes
Sea scallops with apples and porcini mushrooms
Venison with hazelnut sauce
Black grape tart
Cantuccini
I suppose I was peckish. Anyway, it set me up for my first, fleeting visit to Los Angeles. I stayed on the Santa Monica boardwalk - or rather, not on the boardwalk itself but at the Loew's Beach Hotel. Dinner the firs night was in a casual restaurant, James' Beach on Venice Beach. It continues to thrive, offering a long menu of salads, seafoods and pizza. I started with shrimp "Louis", an old west coast take on the shrimp cocktail with iceberg lettuce and avocado. Grilled yellowtail to follow.
A more formal business dinner the next evening, at the hotel's resturant, Lavande. The chef, Alain Giraud, had been cooking with Michel Richard at Citrus, and ten years ago at Lavande he was still on his way to the successful launch of Bastide in L.A.. This was a very good, classic meal:
Sautéed foie gras served over sweet vidalia onion
Daube de veau Provençale
Crêpes with crême Catalan
Veuve Clicquot and a Caymus Cabernet accompanied the meal. I just remember the exemplary daube -dark and rich, with spoon-tender meat and the rich accent of orange peel.
And the final night in L.A., off-duty casual: The Ivy, a sort of celebrity cottage restaurant in Beverley Hills. A paparazzi magnet, but the cooking wasn't very special. Some soft shell crab, fried chicken with mashed potato, two chardonnays - one from Far Niente, the other a Puligny-Montrachet. I suppose this was a kind of west coast precursor of the Spotted Pig.
Back to New York for one night only. I marked the occasion with my first supper at Roul's, that stalwart, pubby haunt of models and other young women in darkest SoHo. I snagged a nice table in the back garden and enjoyed a reasonable dinner of bistro standards: a coarse paté with cornichons, duckling roast and served with pommes frites. A red premier cru Chassagne-Montrachet, 1994, helped it down.
And so out to Chicago one Sunday evening for a Monday morning meeting. Rather a night at the Fairmont than catch the red-eye. Despite a late flight, I made it to dinner at Gordon, a restaurant which would close the following year (I believe Restaurant Naha is now in the same spot).
A glass of Veuve Clicquot to decompress. Then a comforting short rib raviolo with horseradish and capers. A suitably lighter scallop sashimi (with its orange coral) followed; then Australian lamb loin with fava beans.
Not my usual dessert - I bet I shared it with someone: banana and chocolate tart. I might have shared the 1996 Au Bon Climat pinot noir too. And that's enough travelling for now.
