In The Small Dirt Candy Restaurant

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  November 17, 2008]

Times do change.  From the nineteenth century hobo dreaming of gin lakes and cigarette trees and the big rock candy mountain.

 

To twenty-first century downtown New Yorkers crowding into the tiny Dirt Candy to eat moderately priced and well-made vegetarian/vegan dishes  with not a gin bottle or cigarette pack in sight.

Well, the name Dirt Candy is surely designed to provoke discussion, and not everyone loves it.  I did succeed in explaining it quite simply to my seven year-old daughter as we paused to peer through the window one day.  "I see," she said, "vegetables are like candy and they grow in the ground which is like dirt."  Exactly, I replied, and made a dinner reservation.

Chef-owner Amanda Cohen has left her mark on several of the city's best vegetarian restaurants.  She worked at my personal favorite, Pure Food & Wine, and headed the kitchen at the short-lived Heirloom, where I was distracted from the food by my very bizarre waiter.  She has consulted at Blossom, another of New York's best, and now commands this almost miniscule dining room from a kitchen so open that it scarcely qualifies as a separate space.

I say almost miniscule because I recently made the absurd dining decision to choose Graffiti for a business dinner in preference to Dirt Candy, on the grounds that Dirt Candy was rumored to be small.  The whisky must have been good that night, because Graffiti - for all its virtues - is about the most inappropriate spot for a business meeting imaginable, and in comparison Dirt Candy provides diners with acres of breathing space and elbow room.  But only in comparison to Graffiti.

Tables on both sides of the brightly lit room (the chefs need to see what they're doing) are indeed tight, and servers elbows sweep dangerously close to your ears if you're sitting on the outside.  But this is Manhattan, and we live in each others' pockets.  The good news it that, despite the skeletal nature of the kitchen operation, service is prompt.  The cuisine demands light, floral wines, and a bottle of Riesling arrived to accompany the jalapeño hush puppies, the kind of snacky starter any meat-eater would enjoy.

The light,  fluffy dough-balls, crispy outside and melting within,  are gently spicy - and the maple butter is seductive.  Indeed, although foccaccia arrived with a herb-infused oil, I just kept dunking it in the sweet butter. 

Kimchi doughnuts sound like a great idea too; spinach soup less so - I fear green soups.  But in the interest of balance, the next dish was a salad.  Greek salad, so-called, although I detected no hunks of feta cheese.

Olives were present though, and - in a trick, or dare I say a trompe la langue - worthy of Pure F&W - what appeared to be ringlets of succulent squid.  Couldn't be, of course, and in a demonstration of the extent to which we eat with our eyes, I concluded that these must be breaded onion rings.

That wasn't right either.  No: neatly moulded hoops of trumpet royale mushrooms, with a crunchy coating.  Dipped in the delicate lemon mayo which streaked the plate, and accented with the house-pickled onions, each ring made a fine, balanced mouthful.

I recalled after re-reading chef Cohen's bio that she served a grits dish at Heirloom.  It's one of the main events here, and I wonder if it wouldn't be better served in a smaller portion as an appetizer.  Yes, there are those weekend mornings when nothing but a pile of grits (and arguably half a pound of bacon) will do: but however well-made, grits can be too substantial for a dinner course.

They didn't seem to like being photographed either (sorry for that mess of a picture).  Important evidence, though, of the current poached-fried egg trend.  This winter, do not be seen eating dinner without a softly poached egg, finished by being coated in panko crumbs (as at Blue Hill) or a light tempura batter (as here) and dropped in the oil.  One would need to sample several of the Dirt Candy eggs to judge the consistency with which the preparation is successful: mine was just a little overdone - not hard, but I suspect it was meant to remain runny in the center.

The grits, which are fine, were texturally enhanced by the interweaving of threads of fresh herbs and some crumbling of cheese.  Dark dots around the plate were introduced as huitlacoche oil, but they lacked the strong pungency I associate with the Mexican fungus; they added only a mild earthy note.

Skilled textural and visual trickery again in another entrée, the crispy tofu with green ragout.

Firm white tofu is topped by its crisped skin, and the overall effect of biting into the two is very like biting into a precisely cooked piece of fish.  Eyebrows are often raised at the extent to which some vegetarian cuisines invest great ingenuity in reproducing meat or fish dishes (I think of the staggeringly duck-like Peking snow-dried tofu at Broadway East, where Amanda has also consulted).  Personally, I don't believe this necessarily indicates a nostalgia for eating dead critters.  Rather, it reflects a deep craving for certain textures which vegetables don't readily provide without some skilful intervention in the kitchen.  Certainly, a bean has come a long way when it resembles a nice turbot filet.

A ragout of sweet young green things - lovely little brussel sprouts - and a lime-tinged butter sauce finish the satisfying dish.

I confess the battle with the grits had left little space for Debbie Lee's dessert, but I managed to enjoy some of the sweet potato sorbet which came with an alleged chocolate cake.  The real surprise, though, was the arrival of complimentary candied pink grapefruit slices.  Right - you know candied apples: well, imagine a large, cold, juicy segment of grapefruit, encased in brittle clear sugar and served on a stick.

Oh, these are fun and difficult to eat.  Every time I tried to bite my segment, it swirled around the stick just out of reach.  It was worth the struggle though; a real taste of childhood.

The inventive food comes at a kind price: you can eat a full meal for around $35, and you can do even better sharing dishes like the salads.  The wine was around $40, and was not the cheapest on the list.   Note also that any dishes can be made vegan.

Keep your elbows tucked in and enjoy it.  A chatty web-site with a blog and some better pictures than mine can be found here.