Sunday, March 30, 2008

New York, New York

Eleven Madison Park
11 Madison Ave (at 24th St)
New York, NY 10010
212-889-0905

A couple of months ago, at dinner with my team from work, we happened upon the conversation topic of restaurants in New York. None of us lived there, and at an hour’s drive Michael was probably the closest, but the common consensus was – for fear of stating the obvious – that New York offered dining options that were far superior to our respective cities. I love DC, but in my opinion it just cannot compare. The sheer quantity and quality of fine dining in a city where everyone is a gourmand is something worth celebrating. So we decided that since we would find ourselves in the city in two weeks, we would throw caution to the wind, and go out for a nice meal.

I was charged with the task of picking a place, and to be honest I probably spent more time thinking about it than necessary. It was kind of like picking your fantasy baseball team, or your March Madness bracket. You check your watch and suddenly it’s four o’clock and you are nowhere near a decision. The occasion – and, more importantly, our budget – did not warrant a trip to one of the “holy quartet”: Per Se, Le Bernardin, Alain Ducasse or Daniel, but everything else was on the table, pardon the pun.

The list was long and distinguished, and I could fill pages upon pages just writing about my decision process, but that wouldn’t be very exciting, would it? Suffice to say that we wound up going to Eleven Madison Park. I had heard good things about it especially after the arrival of Daniel Humm as head chef, and the space was supposed to be excellent. It had not been my first choice but life is full of compromises. You do what you can and you do what you must, and you try not to lose too much of yourself along the way. In this case I hardly lost much by making this compromise.

I arrived on time, which as I have said many times before and will no doubt do so many times again, is early by my company standards. Very early, in fact. I had time for a pre-dinner glass of wine and opted for a glass of the house Châteauneuf du Pape. I don’t remember what it was but I remember not being impressed. I was impressed though, by the dining room. To enter, you walk through revolving doors into a vestibule that gives you no clue and in no way prepares you for the opulence of the dining room. I remember walking in and doing a double-take, pausing to take it all in. It was American Art Deco with a soaring ceiling and 35-foot windows, and was adorned with floral arrangements that belied that often-understated virtue that is so critical to class and taste – restraint. I thought to myself that this space had found its calling (or vice versa), for I could not think of many other things I wanted to do in that room other than eat, and eat well.

Morgan had trailed for a day in the kitchen at Eleven Madison, and remarked to me that Chef Humm ran a tight ship in the kitchen, and was very precise. That precision translated into the rest of the restaurant, with shiny flatware arranged just so on crisp white tablecloths and not a hair out of place. But where the precision shone through the most was the food. Clean lines and cubic shapes dominated the presentation and plates were sauced with care and meticulous exactitude. In a bizarre way it made you want to play with your food, just to mess things up, which I must confess made the meal more enjoyable.

The amuse-bouches threatened to dampen the evening, for out of a bite-sized selection of tuna tartare, sweetbread, and foie gras only the latter took my breath away. But the appetizers and entrées more than made up for the misstep. The beets in the beet salad came cubed (a cute touch), and the gnocchi came with just the right amount of sauce – another nod to the precision of the kitchen. I had never had gnocchi paired with seafood before (it came with shrimp and calamari in a Meyer lemon-based sauce), and the acidity of the sauce and seafood complemented the earthiness of the pasta perfectly.

I had the rabbit for an entrée, but I do not remember much of it because I was hit with the biggest pang of food envy ever known to mankind. Tom and Brody had ordered the Muscovy duck for two, glazed with lavender honey, and after I tried a slice the rest of my meal suddenly became bland and unpalatable. People have remarked that I close my eyes when I enjoy my food but as I ate the duck my eyes were wide open and remained that way for a long while as I muttered, “Wow.” over and over to myself, silently.

I have often wondered if other people’s food only tastes better because you only get one bite of it, but whatever the case I was extremely jealous and mildly bitter. The only reason that I had passed over the duck was because I’d had duck only two nights before (at an establishment not anywhere near the quality of Eleven Madison, unfortunately). But all is not lost. There is fortunately, in my experience, only one cure for this dreaded condition – to come back to the restaurant.

Next time I’m definitely getting the duck.


Wine Tasting Notes:

Gros Frere et Sœur, Clos Vougeot Musigni, 2005 (Jason’s choice)
I’d had this wine before at another similarly opulent dinner at Le Paradou in DC, and had been very impressed, so when I saw it on the wine list it almost picked itself. When he brought it over the sommelier remarked that this was one of his favourites, to which I scoffed, “You must tell that to everyone.” Thankfully he did not take offense at my spot of glibness, but went on to rather earnestly convince me that he really did like the wine. By the end of the conversation I was ready to buy insurance from him. The wine itself was medium to full-bodied, with a great nose and a long smooth finish. It had notes of the dark fruit that I am such a fan of – plums, cherries, blackberries – and also musk and oak. It was a little young, but showed signs of opening into a very lovely, very typically French wine.

Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe, Châteauneuf du Pape, 2000 (Michael’s choice)
I was introduced to Châteauneuf du Pape by Saskia, and have been a fan ever since. In keeping with the French theme Michael picked out this bottle. It was a small step down from the body and structure of the Burgundy that we’d had earlier but still entirely enjoyable. It had the same dark fruit but was sweeter, more fruit-forward and less tannic than the previous wine.

Domaine de la Grange des Peres, 2003 (Brody’s choice)
This was surprisingly very, very good. I don’t know why I had expected so little from it, but I was very, very surprised. In a good way. For the price (it was the cheapest of the three), it was an excellent bottle. Very well rounded and hit every part of your tongue and taste buds with a harmonious balance of sweetness, acidity and tannins. Some wines are good to taste, some wines are good to savour, and some wines are good for just drinking. This one was all three.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Tasting Notes 3/22/2008

I have never been one to believe in Zodiac signs and how people born under certain signs get along better with people of certain other signs; but when the birthdays of all your dearest friends seem to cluster together, it does appear to lend credence to that theory, doesn’t it? I find that everyone I know seems to have been born in March, May or October (I myself was born in October). Morgan came down this past weekend to visit and I took the opportunity to throw a dinner party in celebration of his birthday as well as Brian’s and Jenna’s, which are also upcoming.

Beer-braised Mussels with Chicken Sausage:
Morgan and I picked up a 2 lb bag of mussels from Whole Foods and were thoroughly outraged as we picked through them. More than half of them were bad and we wound up with so few to work with that we had to add sausage to the recipe to make a substantial dish. The ones that we did wind up cooking tasted a little flat and had none of the natural sweetness of fresh mussels. The one saving grace was that they were rather large and fleshy but in our minds it was the sort of travesty that class action suits were made of.

Venica & Venica Sauvignon, Ronco delle mele, 2006:
Cool, crisp and not overly sugary, with strong grapefruit and melon accents. Sometimes you have a good wine and it is such an intense experience that you really cannot drink too much of it too quickly, as if every sip took something out of you. The absolute opposite is true of this wine – I just want to gulp it down. It is that enjoyable. My first experience with this wine came last year at Babbo in New York. I remember being secretly delighted that Elisabeth, who was also at the table, did not drink – for that meant more for the rest of us. I am an evil person, I know.

Gaja, Ca’Marcanda Promis, 2005:
My boss told me a story one time of how he was in a dusty town somewhere in Italy, found himself in a winebar in the early afternoon, and asked if the proprietor had any Gaja. The proprietor told him to wait right there and left him and his wife alone in the store, to run the several blocks home to his own cellars. He returned not only with a bottle of Gaja, but with two friends, for the only reason that opening a good bottle of wine is worth it, is if you have good people to drink it with. Apparently they had been waiting for just the occasion to open the bottle together, and my boss’ random question had somehow convinced the proprietor that that was the day it was going to happen. The story then goes, that when asked for his opinion on the wine, my boss had, in a characteristic fit of pomp and circumstance, declared, “E come latte di mamma (It’s like mother’s milk).” The proprietor, taken aback at the verity and eloquence of this statement, finally managed a smile and closed the discussion with equal gravitas – “Signore, cosa dici è molto forte, ma vero (Sir, what you say is very strong – but true).”

Now, Gaja wines are very expensive, especially the ones from the original Gaja estate in Piedmont, and I have no business even thinking about buying them, but fortunately in 1996 Angelo Gaja bought a second vineyard in Tuscany where he now makes three wines – Promis, Magari and the one that carries the estate’s name, Ca’Marcanda – in that order of price and quality. I have not had the Magari, but I remember the Ca’Marcanda to be spicy, complex and very playful. The other day I saw the Promis selling in my neighbourhood liquor store – the probability of which I had previously thought akin to me making out with Nicole Kidman, which is to say on the seventh of never. I decided, on a whim, to purchase several bottles. We opened a bottle of it between dinner courses, and it was perhaps a little too young, but with definite character. I tasted both fruits and nuts – specifically cherries, a hint of pistachios – but it was not as full bodied as I like my red wines. I suppose it is wrong to expect anybody or any thing to be something that they aren’t or it isn’t, so I tried my hardest to appreciate it for what it was.

Duck Leg Confit and Pan-Seared Duck Breast in a Juniper Berry and Honey Sauce, with Roasted Beets and Caramelised Onions:
I love duck. I’d tried a taste of an absolutely phenomenal duck dish at Eleven Madison Park in New York recently, spiced with herbs en Provence and lavender honey, and wanted to recreate it. Unfortunately Whole Foods (those bastards really ruined my meal) did not carry any lavender so we bought some dried juniper berries instead. I’d cured the duck legs in salt, thyme and bay leaves for two days before the meal, and roasted them in rendered duck fat and many, many cloves of garlic. They turned out really, really salty (I might cure them for less time the next time) but crispy and delicious all the same. Morgan timed the duck breasts to perfection and they were remarkably tender. He also did the beets, which were excellent, so that was two for two on his part. Well done Morgan.

Ciacci Piccolomini, Brunello di Montalcino, 2002
2002 was widely acknowledged to be a disastrous year for Brunellos, so I was able to pick up several bottles of my favourite Brunello for under 30 dollars a bottle. I figured that even if it were crap, it was still a Brunello, which should count for something. Now I have had the ‘97s, ‘98s, ‘99s and ‘01s (and have been remarkably lucky in that regard) and there is no doubt that this is by far the worst of the lot, but it is still pretty good. Like the other vintages, this had dark fruit and spice, but nowhere near the levels of body and depth of the others. It was kind of like taking a piece of paper, photocopying it, running the copy through the copier again, and then repeating that step twenty times. The 2002 was a pale shadow of the best Ciacci Brunellos, muted and not as complex, but still entirely enjoyable, especially if you are three bottles into the night.
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