I had one of the best meals of my life in Raleigh last week, so much so that I opened up my Notes app and started writing down every restaurant that made me say the same thing, ending up with about 15 of them (which will eventually become a post here) of which I could remember the names and the meals. This dinner came at Figulina, an Italian restaurant that focuses on fresh pastas and a lot of traditional ingredients, while the recipes run the gamut from the very traditional (a straight pasta alla carbonara with guanciale, the ideal cured pork for that dish) to the modern. Chef-owner David Ellis was previously chef de cuisine at Ashley Christensen’s Poole’s Diner, located just a few blocks away. Every single thing I ate was superb, the cocktails were also outstanding, and the service was just exemplary across the board. I even thought about going back a second time on this trip to try more things before I realized that was a little silly and also I didn’t have time.
I ordered a little out of my usual comfort zone because I figured this was a rare chance to try some things I don’t eat often or even see much on menus. For a starter, I had the salt cod tartine, and if you gave me two of those it would be the most divine and complete lunch. I like baccalà, the dried salt cod pioneered by Basque sailors and still popular across southern Europe, although I had to acquire the taste. This dish mixes the salt cod, which is rinsed and prepared to remove the preserving salt and reduce the fishiness of the flavor, with artichoke leaves, parsley, onion, some extremely good olive oil, and a light touch of vinegar and serves the combination on a thick slice of crusty bread from nearby Boulted Bread. It was bright and balanced, with the cod present in the flavor but not overwhelming with its saltiness. I’ve had salt cod a few ways, but never like this, and actually never in a cold preparation that I liked.
For my main, I had the cappelletti with gorgonzola dolce, served with walnut pesto, fig mostarda, and fresh rosemary. I don’t care for blue cheese in general, not on principle but because I have never become accustomed to the signature flavor of those cheeses, which my palate (and my nose) will forever interpret as “spoiled.” My bartender assured me that the filling of their pasta was a mixture of house-made ricotta and gorgonzola dolce, and that the blue cheese flavor is subtle because there is so much else going on in the dish. (I also knew that if I was ever going to like or tolerate a blue cheese, it was probably gorgonzola dolce; dolce means sweet, and this cheese is aged far less than most blue cheeses, so it’s nowhere near as pungent.) I took the leap of faith and followed his advice to try to get every element in each bite – one of the little hats of pasta, a good bit of the walnut sauce, and some of the dollops of fig mostarda. He was right about everything; I’m struggling to describe the overall flavor because it contained such a broad array of different flavors and notes that worked together so that, no, you don’t get a big hit of blue cheese or of the vinegar in the mostarda. The best comparison I can offer is the perfect cheese board, where you pair a creamy young cheese with a fruit paste and some toasted nuts, but with the glory of fresh pasta involved too. And rosemary. Their menu changes often but I hope this one sticks around for the season.
I have largely been skipping dessert while traveling because I just don’t need it or even crave it like I used to, but given how good the first two items were, I had to give it a look. They had three desserts, one of which held no interest for me and the other contained an ingredient that I’ve had an allergic reaction to twice (although I’m not sure it was the culprit), so I settled on the Bakewell tart, a very not-Italian dessert that I only know because my wife has made it a few times. Figulina’s version was traditional, and rich, so much so that I had just half and … uh … had the rest with lunch the next day. I think it was less sweet than others I’ve had, but I’ve found that’s typical in a lot of fine-dining desserts.
Then there were the cocktails … I told the bartender that I enjoy a Negroni, but that I saw they had an extensive collection of amari (potable bitters, like Montenegro and Cynar), so would he be interested in concocting a negroni-like drink for me? I’ve done this now and then at bars and always get a good response, plus I get to try new things. He did, and it was good … but the better drink was their Escape from Manhattan, containing barrel-aged Conniption gin, Mancino rosso sweet vermouth, and Cardamaro. Cardamaro is a cardoon-based amaro, similar to Cynar but less artichokey; the Conniption gin is 94 proof and is aged ten months in bourbon barrels, although to be honest I’m not sure that last bit is a good thing in gin. Anyway, it was sort of a cross between a Negroni and a Manhattan, but better, less sweet than either drink, with some nice bitter notes and a strong base of herbal flavors. (I’m pretty sure he used Cardamaro in the Negroni riff he made for me as well.)
Anything beyond that will probably seem a bit anticlimactic, I suppose. The second-best meal I had was actually tacos from a gas station in Cary – Taqueria La Esquina, which runs a decent-sized kitchen in a Shell station. I tried their pork al pastor and chicken, which both come with cilantro and grilled onions, with the pork the better of the two; both were good but the chicken was a little dry, while the pork retained its moisture and generally had more flavor to it, although neither was spicy at all. Their menu runs a little heavy on red meat, so it’s not ideal for me (I don’t eat beef at all).
I found them because they were just up the street from Milos, a little coffee shop that has just ordinary espresso drinks with Illy beans but offers single-origin pour-overs from different roasters. I’m still a big fan of Jubala over in Raleigh, but Milos is closer to the USA Baseball Complex, which is often where I’m headed anyway.
Located right in downtown Durham, Bar Virgile does classic cocktails and a simple gastropub menu. They do a classic daiquiri, just rum, lime, and simple syrup, which isn’t hard to make but which I think has lost its luster because of fruity, blended nonsense that has appropriated the name. Hemingway liked them, and I don’t think he was sitting poolside with a giant glass of slushy mango juice and rum. Anyway, I don’t know why I ordered fish and chips when I was kind of feeling like getting something light, but it was the right choice – Bar Virgile’s version has just a light breading, and the cod could not have been more perfectly cooked, enough so that I ended up eating most of it with a fork because I couldn’t pick it up. I was having dinner with my friend from middle school, and after we went across the foyer to their cocktail bar, Annexe, where I had a drink called the Lazy Monk that was clearly their twist on a Last Word, using gin, génépy, Luxardo maraschino, lime, and a rosemary-thyme simple syrup. With green Chartreuse becoming hard to find, everyone’s looking for alternatives – Luxardo has one called Del Santo that gets good reviews from folks who use it in a Last Word – and this was a great twist, with the syrup bringing herbal notes to the front but not enough to throw off the drink and make it too sweet. It’s not a Last Word, which is one of my favorite cocktails ever, but it’s damn good. I got to Durham a little early after an aborted attempt to go to Blacksburg (the game was rained out about 90 minutes into my drive), and parked at Yonder Coffee, located inside The Daily, to have some tea and sit for a little bit. They have a credible selection of teas available, including hojicha, my favorite green tea – the leaves are roasted, so it’s less grassy than most green teas.
I tried Big Dom’s Bagel Shop, which is only open Wednesday through Sunday, and then only until they sell out. The everything bagel was covered with seeds and salt, and it had the right consistency in the center and enough chew to the crust. I ordered an egg sandwich, and the eggs came in one of those pre-cooked blocks of scrambled eggs, which, fine, I’m here for the bagels, but I feel like a good bagel deserves better than that.
One Blacksburg restaurant to mention – Café Mekong, a pan-Asian spot in a strip mall a little south of downtown. They clearly do a thriving take-out business, although their handful of tables were full the whole time I was there. The papaya salad was standard-issue, just average, but their Singapore noodles were a 55.
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