The dish

If you ever should find yourself in North Adams – and if so, I’m sorry to tell you that you’re probably lost – take heart, because despite your isolated location there’s an unexpected treat: a very good fine-dining establishment called Gramercy Bistro, which (conveniently for me) is about a ten-minute walk from the ballpark. Gramercy boasts a pretty substantial wine list, which of course is lost on me, but the food itself was excellent. I started with a green salad with champagne vinaigrette and fresh local goat cheese; the cheese was excellent, creamy with just a little bit of tang, and the dressing was very good but needed salt (remember that). For an entrée, I went with a seared halibut fillet with French lentils and asparagus, topped with a saffron beurre blanc. The fish was outstanding – very fresh, which is impressive given how hard it must be to get fresh fish in a place that’s a solid two hours from even a medium-sized airport. The saffron beurre blanc was also excellent, as were the sides – but again, we were a little light with the salt, especially on the fish, which I think always needs a heavy hand with the NaCl. Total cost, including a small bottle of sparkling water and a 20% tip, was $39, and I was in and out inside of 45 minutes.

The next morning I found myself in Brattleboro, Vermont – not sure how I got there – and went to Chelsea Royal Diner for a classic Vermont breakfast. They get massive points for their menu, which offered the sort of combo plate I always want when I’m having breakfast somewhere for the first time. Their Royal Feast comes with two eggs, bacon, ham, hash browns, two pancakes, and half a Belgian waffle. The waitress asked if I wanted real maple syrup – I said yes, because I couldn’t even believe this was a question – and it turns out that that costs extra ($1.25 for about a half-cup), which wouldn’t have deterred me from ordering it but struck me as really weird. Anyway, the rundown: the eggs (scrambled) were fine; the hashbrowns and bacon were excellent, with the bacon not overcooked and the hashbrowns still soft in the middle; the pancakes and waffle were fine, nothing spectacular, and both definitely needed the syrup for flavor and also because they were a touch dry. (I told them to skip the ham, because I can’t stand it.) That with a cup of tea (Lipton – meh) ran about $11 plus tip.

Next stop was Keene, New Hampshire, where I went back to a Thai restaurant on Main Street, Thai Garden, that I’ve been to several times before. I’d liked it in the past – nothing great, but solid-average, a 50 on the all-purpose scouting scale – but was really disappointed this time. They had pad see ew on the specials menu, so I went with that, and found the dish too sweet, and the chicken tasted a little past its prime. Main Street’s pretty hoppin’, at least by NECBL standards, so I’ll pick another place next year.

I stayed in Hanover the next two nights and ate two meals at Lou’s, a bit of a local legend and the kind of greasy-spoon place I really fall for. Their lunch menu is very heavy on hamburgers; I didn’t want to go that way, and my meal was so-so. I ordered a special, the “Chicken Philly Bomb,” a sandwich served on a warm ciabatta roll with marinated chicken, onions, peppers, and mushrooms (I had them hold the cheese). Everything was clearly fresh, but the sandwich tasted completely unsalted. I have no idea if there’s some law that says restaurants in tiny New England podunks have to hold the salt, but it was a recurring problem. I was tempted to stop by a McDonald’s and stuff my pockets with the little white-with-red-printing salt packets, fearing there might be an unreported shortage of sodium chloride plaguing the region. These fears were only partly assuaged the next morning at breakfast; I went with another special, the “Southern Country Breakfast,” which was a simple plate of eggs, bacon, sausage, a corn muffin that had been split and grilled, and grits. The grits had no taste, and, as you might expect, no salt, but I don’t like grits anyway so this was no loss. The muffin was delicious, and splitting and grilling a corn muffin is something I intend to try at home, but serving that sugar-filled corn cake anywhere south of Baltimore will get you shot. The eggs were clearly made to order, and only required a tiny bit of additional salt.

My lunch visit to Lou’s included an interesting run-in with two loonies. I was seated next to a professor and a grad student, who were bloviating in only the way that Ivy League professors and grad students can do. My personal favorite tidbit was the assertion that because the Microsoft Word spellchecker does not recognize the words “heteronormative” and “neoliberal” (I can now confirm this, as I now have two red squigglies mocking me for, as it were, making up words), the program clearly represents a right-wing bias on the part of the programmers and/or Microsoft. The grad student had a friend who was writing his dissertation on this very subject, which did little to restore any faith I might have left in American higher education. This silliness degenerated into a diatribe by the professor on how liberals are smarter than conservatives and therefore they use longer words in their works – setting E.B. White spinning on his axis at 800 miles an hour. (Oddly enough, Firefox’s spell-checker doesn’t recognize “heteronormative” or “neoliberal” either, so apparently I’m using a right-wing browser. It also doesn’t recognize “squigglies.” I’m not sure what that means.)

Torrington, the last stop on my tour, was a culinary dud. An Ecuadorian restaurant that used to be a five-minute walk from the ballpark has apparently closed, and its replacement wasn’t open for dinner. (The Ecuadorian place was an offshoot of a still-extant restaurant on Winsted Street, Northern Galapagos, so if you end up stuck in Torrington, you might not starve.)

One final note: At the Vermont Mountaineers’ stadium in Montpelier, there’s a concession stand that serves some pretty good barbecue – so good, as one local put it, that nearby residents will call in take-out orders during games without actually watching any baseball. I had a pulled-pork sandwich with their homemade “medium” sauce, which I thought was a little on the hot side. The portion was generous, and the meat was pretty tasty; the pork was finely shredded, so it got a little bit dry. I’ve had better Q down south, but this definitely wins the prize for the best Q I’ve ever had at a ballpark.

Troquet brings a different concept to fine dining by trying to integrate the wine into the meal experience. Each appetizer and entrée is paired with a set of three wines which can be ordered by the glass or half-glass or which can be ordered as a full tasting. It’s a clever idea, and if you’re more oenophile than gourmet, it’s probably a dream restaurant. I’m much more interested in the food, however, and I thought Troquet really fell short there. I ordered a seared sea bass served with a corn and potato succotash; the bass was seared perfectly, but the dish was bland and unremarkable. My wife ordered the ricotta cavatelli with wild mushrooms, which was better, mostly because of the impressive mix of fresh mushrooms, but not the type of dish I’d expect at a high-end restaurant. The dessert menu was totally uninspiring as well, without a major chocolate dish. Granted, I’m not a wine guy – I drink it but can’t say I really know it – so perhaps it was just a poor choice.

Given the lack of an appealing dessert option, we headed to the dessert buffet at the Four Seasons Hotel’s Bristol Lounge. We hadn’t been in probably three years; the quality was still really high – they had a chocolate mousse and raspberry sauce “cocktail” that was superb – but I thought the selection was a little smaller, and the price is now up to $26 a head, not including drinks. I think they still serve the best restaurant coffee in Boston, though.

The next morning we headed to the Pour House Bar & Grill to try out their breakfast … can’t say I was optimistic about heading to what looked like a dive for breakfast, but I’d read some good reviews online about what they offered. And it was legit – some of the best pancakes I’ve had in ages, so light that I could eat them without syrup. My wife had the French toast and also liked it, although it didn’t measure up to the brioche version offered at Arlington’s Tryst, which offers brunch on Sundays from Labor Day till Father’s Day.

Finally, we found a great little Greek place in Needham called Fresco, where they only offer breakfast and lunch. We were there for the latter and even my mother-in-law (who’s roughly half Greek) approved. Their avgolemono (an egg-and-lemon soup) was outstanding, nice and thick with a solid chicken-stock base. The fresh feta appetizer was huge, and the cheese was delicious with a great texture and that tang you only get from good, imported feta. I went with a lamb kabob with rice and a Greek salad; everything was solid, with good flavor on the lamb, although it was cooked rare and I prefer my lamb closer to medium. My wife went with the spanikopita and approved, although I’m not a fan and can’t vouch for it. We’ll definitely head back there for breakfast, since they offered a large menu of breakfast standards like the menu at the Pour House.

My trip Albuquerque last week was my first visit to the fine state of New Mexico (43 down, seven to go), and one I was really looking forward to because of its reputation for outstanding chili pepper-based food. Calvin Trillin’s Feeding a Yen first turned me on to the existence of a whole new cuisine within the borders of the U.S., and I’ve been dying to get out there. Granted, Santa Fe was my first choice, but the game in question was in Albuquerque.

I only ended up hitting two places for four meals – more on that in a moment – but both places were hits. Frontier Restaurant is apparently something of a local icon; it’s open 24 hours and works from the not-always-successful strategy of giving large quantities of food for a low price. The food at Frontier really is outstanding, and it’s fast and cheap. I can’t see how any fast-food joint within five miles stays in business. For dinner – twice – I went with an enchilada plate with the “green chile stew” topping, which is apparently the mildest of the three offered (the others being red chile sauce and chopped green chiles). For $7, the dish includes two enchiladas, rice, and two fresh flour tortillas. It was enough food that on my second night there, I ate that full meal around 6:30 and still wasn’t hungry when I got on my redeye five hours later. I did try the guacamole on the first night, but it was kind of bland and was puréed smooth – not my favorite style.

Their breakfast is what really set them apart. I hadn’t originally intended to go to Frontier again for breakfast, but the place I’d picked out, Perea, was closed for three days that week, and when I stopped into the Flying Star nearby, the menu looked very … corporate. So I kept driving and ended up back at Frontier, which turned out to be a huge stroke of luck. I went with the #1 special – two eggs (scrambled), meat (carne adovada – hey, when in Rome), hash browns, and tortillas – plus a side of pancakes, which you can order by the flapjack. The pancakes were to die for – buttery, fluffy, and not at all like the leadcakes you get at most chain restaurants and even some mom-and-pops perpetrating breakfast fraud on unsuspecting diners. The hash browns were almost like a rösti, with a crunchy brown crust on the outside but soft and moist potatoes on the inside; they could have used more salt, but that was easily remedied. The only misses were the carne adovada, which was extremely acidic and wasn’t really hot in temperature – mind you, I’m no expert in that genre – and the coffee. I ordered tea and didn’t realize I had coffee until I took a sip, which tells you something about how weak it was.

The one other meal was Monday’s lunch, when I headed west to El Charrito at 4703 Central Ave NW. (Props to Dan McKay, a poster on McCovey Chronicles, for suggesting this place.) The menu is simple – seems to be a theme out there – and the service was excellent. They had no problem preparing one of their combo plates – a tamale, an enchilada, and a taco – without cheese for me, which is usually a great sign because it means everything’s made to order. Despite that substitution, the food still came out pretty quickly, with the tamale and enchilada served Christmas style (red and green sauces). The taco was good, straightforward, just served as ground beef in the shell so you can fix it as you’d like. The tamale was a little too spicy for my Northeastern (read: untrained) palate, but the pork inside was delicious. The enchilada wasn’t quite as good as Frontier’s, with the chicken tasting a little blander to me, but was otherwise fine. The green sauce was definitely the less spicy of the two. The dish was also served with fresh sopapillas and a big squeeze bottle of honey. I left full. The one negative on El Charrito came when I left – the counter was covered with political stickers and pamphlets, all left-leaning and mostly anti-Bush. I don’t care how these people vote or what their beliefs are, but I don’t want to be assaulted by it while I’m eating there. Food and politics don’t mix, because the politics invariably spoil the food.

Anyway, sorry for the long lag between posts, but with the draft over I should be writing a little more frequently.

So last Monday, my wife and I headed into Manhattan – I had a scheduled TV appearance and she wanted to hit a fabric store in Soho. We decided to have lunch and headed to Mario Batali’s Otto Pizzeria, which promised authentic, Italian-style pizzas, an enormous wine list (wasted on me, but I thought I’d mention it), and – according to at least two things I read on line – the best gelato in Manhattan. The pizza could be Velveeta served on cardboard for all I care, as long as there’s real gelato on the premises.

Unfortunately, the experience ended up reinforcing for me why I tend to avoid celebrity-chef restaurants. The food was a disappointment, and the menu was too heavily influenced by the chef’s whims, not by the food itself. It surprised me to run into this at a Batali restaurant; one reason I like his shows and his books is that his agenda seems to be a noble one: to celebrate regional Italian cuisine using authentic recipes and ingredients.

We ordered a funghi misti appetizer – mixed wild mushrooms marinated in herbs and garlic, delicious, earthy, and reasonable at $4 for close to a cup’s worth of ‘shrooms. I went with the pizza of the day, a pesto pizza with fresh mozzarella. Pesto genovese is made with basil, which doesn’t take heat very well, so pizzas made with pesto typically are cooked partway before a thin layer of pesto is added. Instead, I got a pizza with a thin crust (not as thin as the ones I’ve had in Italy) and a thick layer of bitter pesto that tasted like it contained spinach rather than basil (I asked – the waitress said there was no spinach in it). There was also very little cheese, so I was eating a cracker with bad pesto on it.

My wife’s entrée was better, as she ordered spaghetti carbonara. The pasta was really al dente – I’m all for some tooth to the pasta, but even I would have left this in the water another sixty seconds – and the sauce was done right. The one problem was that the dish was extremely salty, probably the result of the huge amount of pancetta in it.

As for the gelato … we didn’t have any. The dessert menu came – it took forever, now that I mention it, and the service in general was inattentive at best – and the list of flavors read something like this: olive oil, vanilla, pistachio, coconut, ginger, hazelnut straciatella, mint chocolate chip. I might have forgotten one, but you get the idea. Notice anything missing? That’s right – nothing chocolate or coffee. Not even tiramisu-flavored gelato, which was in every gelateria I visited on my trips to Italy. At $7 for three scoops, those flavors weren’t enough to get me to stick around.