The Omnivorous Fish

There’s something about the block of 18th Street in San Francisco between Guerrero and Oakwood. Maybe it’s the ancient spirit of the Mission, maybe it’s something in the water, maybe Jimmy Hoffa’s body is under Bi Rite, I’m not quite sure what it is, but some of the best things to eat in the city are right there.

On the corner of 18th is Tartine, which is a bakery and café in a big space, yet the tables and chairs are jammed inexplicably into a New York corner. Thanks to California’s progressive ideas about the sale of booze, it’s a proper café, where you can get anything from OJ to a bottle of wine to enjoy with your goodies, savory or sweet. In fact, the kids at the next table over came for a bottle of wine and three glasses to while away the afternoon discussing Marxism. It was so undergrad.

Huge, unsubtle but delicious croissants come in plain; (Niman Ranch) ham and gruyere; chocolate and other permutations (though be warned; they cook them dark). Tarts, cakes, cookies, quiches, quick and yeast breads all make appearances, and I have to say they range from pretty good to underwear-changing good. Lemon lovers look out for the lemon meringue cake; a baked Alaska filled with lemon curd. Cute hipster kids swarm both in front of and behind the counters from which they make excellent coffee (though SF has some of the oldest hipsters I’ve ever seen).

The Bay Area, I must say, has the most consistently good coffee from the greatest number of independents than any city I have ever been (calm down, Seattle, I haven’t been there- yet).

Speaking of places I hadn’t been, I took a suggestion and went to dinner at Delfina, almost next door. It looks like your typical urban hip place, easily transported to New York, LA, Philly, Chicago or Boston, with distressed metal this and marble that. I didn’t take note of too much of the décor since I was flying solo and ate at the bar, but I did have a nice view of the open kitchen and the very young, mostly cute crew behind the line.

It was an absolute madhouse when I got there at 9, but being a party of one, I snagged the end seat at the bar, next to two completely odious 20-something women that were there to see, be seen and eat expensive food they don’t deserve before going home to vomit it up. The advantage to eating so late (and planning to eat everything in the place) is that you get to watch the place slow down and see how the machine contracts to its slower pace. I have always been fascinated by the operation of restaurants, and this process is perhaps the most interesting bit of theater.

At any rate, I sat down and was brought some dense-crumbed, crusty, but noticeably cold bread, and remarkably good butter, anointed with one of the new salts that all the cool kids have. This was soon followed by mint tagliatelle with porcini. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Well, so does string theory, but it’s not. This pasta was the kind of pasta that grandmothers make, but flecked with fresh mint, in a butter sauce light enough to keep you hungry, inundated with paper thin shavings of boletus edulis that kicked you in the teeth when you bit into them. The whole thing was earth, sex and light-colored sin in my mouth, and I regretted getting the half portion one bite in. Since, however, details haunt me, I have to note that I scratched down ‘tagliatelle’ in my notebook, and the website confirms that’s what the menu had written on it, and it is a free country, but in reality what I was served is tagliarini. No harm no foul.

With this, I drank a Gavi from Villa Sparini, one of a few half bottles available on the short but functional wine list. I was struggling between it and a colline they had by the glass, and the bartender’s rec was right-on. It had just the right amount of citrus to lighten it up.

Next I had quail stuffed with sausage and fennel, a little polenta and a brown, nectarous sauce made of stock and vin santo. It was one of those dishes which is merely excellent, that is to say, I wasn’t annoyed by the lengthy list of ingredients or put off by dubious combinations. I had a red wine with this that was being served by the glass after much discussion with the bartender, but I was having much too good a time by then to write anything down.

Delfina is one of those places where everybody loves food. Everyone who works there wants to talk about the wine list and the ingredients and they genuinely want you to have a good time. Unlike the clientele, I observed no posturing. I started talking to the bartender, a mysteriously beautiful young woman who lit up to chat about the minutiae of Gavi. And I got to hear her story since, like New York, nobody is from San Francisco, so everybody has a story.

Then I had cheese, which I will quote right from their website:

Wrinkled pagliarina with marcona almonds
Piemonte- cow, sheep, and goat milks
Moliterno tartufato with housemade quince paste
Sardegna- sheep’s milk
Parmigiano Reggiano with saba
Blu del Moncensio with brachetto gelatina
Piemonte - cow’s milk
Tumin rutulin with wildflower honey
Piemonte- goat’s milk

They were mostly fantastic, and the braccheto gelatina kind of haunts me still. By this point I had fallen completely in love with the bartender, and was overwhelmed emotionally and gastronomically by a big pedestal-dish of strawberry ice cream she put in front of me. It was rich and cold and ambrosial and frankly almost surreal. It was like sitting at the bar chatting with a giant strawberry breathing strawberry breath on you, inundating you with his strawberry presence. It was smooth and subtle, yet frosty and poignant. It was perhaps the best ice cream I’ve ever had in my life.

Delfina. Go there. Fall in love.

Delfina Restaurant
3621 18th Street
San Francisco, CA
415.552.4055

I’m going to say something scandalous:

Prune is probably the best restaurant in New York City.

Wow. I said it.

Prune is as close as it gets to what I would cook for myself, which is one of the reasons I love it so much. That, and everything I have ever eaten there has made me emote audibly. It’s truly a wonderful restaurant.

It’s teeny tiny, but rather than make you feel like fish in a can who should thank them for letting you in, the staff smiles and somehow makes more room, although I am sure how they do it involves witchcraft. The staff is mostly young and, if not pretty, perky. They all seem to be excited about food and wine, and many realize what an extraordinary thing they are part of. It’s kind of fun to watch them know how good the food they’re bringing you is.

All this, and it’s somewhat affordable, with an intrepid if not impressive wine list. It’s organized “Sparkling, White, Red,” but what’s there is worth taking a look through, especially given the very democratic prices (although markup is no less than standard).

So I guess what I’m saying is, go there.

Prune

54 E 1st St, New York 10003
Btwn 1st & 2nd Ave

Phone: 212-677-6221

Listening: NPR. Fair Game is on. She’s funny.

I had brunch today, like a good gay New Yorker. And I had it in the neighborhood, at the sort-of famed New Leaf Cafe in Fort Tryon Park. Having been to pretty destination restaurants before, I withheld enthusiasm. After having the most mediocre $20 hamburger of my life at the Central Park Boathouse, I stand wary of anyplace with a view. The menu didn’t exactly inspire confidence either, loaded with old brunch standbys with a slightly upscale pallor.

Turns out that the eggs benedict- at least- are a solid, predictable favorite in a beautiful space with a beautiful view. Not cheap at 17.95, but all inclusive with coffee and juice and a nice selection of wines, aperitifs and cocktails for your hair of the dog pleasure. They go out of their way to note that the eggs are local and farm fresh, and they were. Not the same as an hours-old Gorzynski egg, but far and away above anything from the supermarket or food distributor.

Very nice flatware, also. Heavy, and good in your hand, but not too fancy. And four tines on the fork, Haddock would be pleased.

New Leaf Cafe, Fort Tryon Park

Listening: “Fly Me Away From Baltimore” Eddie From Ohio

There are great restaurants (Wallse), and there are good restaurants (Elmo). There are bad restaurants (Artepasta) and mediocre restaurants (Good). There are even restaurants that aren’t that good, but you want to be good because they’re nearby (Trattoria Daniela) or they have a beautiful dining room (Valbella) or a great wine list (Bellavitae). Then, of course, there are restaurants that are egregiously awful, so bad that when offered a choice between them and Wendy’s, Wendy’s wins with unfettered enthusiasm (Malibu). Rarer still are those restaurants that are sub-Wendy’s that have the the trappings and reputation of something greater.

In a previous post, I mentioned Northampton Wines and Spirits, a fantastic little wine store here in Greenville, SC. I took the opportunity to eat there between shows on Saturday, and I have to say, although I fell asleep on the floor of the booth in the throes of epic food-coma, it was well worth it.

First of all, it’s a beautiful building, brick (like most buildings in Greenville), old brick, with a brick overhang and brick chalmers and gaslight-period lamps on the outside. The cafe area is glassed in under the overhang (it may have been the stable at one time) and brick steps lead you up to the vestibule. The store has a bar along one side that has several wines by the glass, and will open anything in the store for VERY reasonable corkage: $5 for 1/2 bottles, $10 for full-size. There is an adjacent restaurant, but that doesn’t open until 5:30PM (too late for me to make it back to the theater- besides, who wants to eat sit-down alone?), but they serve the full menu at the bar starting around 4:30. They have cheeses and charcuterie during store hours (9-9).

I made a beeline for the half bottle of Martinelli Seven Mules pinot noir, 2003. I hadn’t forgotten it from Thursday.

Another boon at the bar: before 6:30 you can order any entree on the menu in a half-portion for half-price (except the salmon). I started with “Pan Roasted Alaskan Halibut With Andouille Sausage & Bacon Cheese Grits, Asparagus & Sundried Tomato-Lump Crab Beurre Blanc.” Yeah, it’s a, er, mouthful, but oh so good. Smoked pork is, despite what you might think, a classic foil for fish (as is sauerkraut) and the gentle but present kick of the andouille perked up the bland but rich grits. The halibut was a moist, flaky punk-rocker, with its crispy orange-tinged mohawk of skin; the fish was perfect: perfectly cooked, perfectly fresh, perfectly good to eat. I was concerned, at first, that the sauce would be too rich for what was going on, but the tomato lightened the butter and the crab made it savory. It could have been three meals.

Next, I took a chance on wild boar tenderloin, which came roasted medium rare and thinly sliced: unsurprisingly, it was very well executed. The chance I took was on the corn relish it sat on. I am often skeptical of anything that looks like or quacks like what came to be known, in the nineties, as Southwestern cuisine. This was a carefully but poignantly spiced jumble of corn, enlivened with lime juice and balanced by honey. Subtle, flavorful and quite crunchy, it stood up to both the flavor and meatiness of the boar and its deep brown sauce espagnole, a meat stock reduction flavored with onions and thickened. It is among the great sauces of haute cuisine, but rarely seen on a menu, presumably because it is merely good, and not flashy enough for what this country has come to expect from its restaurants. The fact that the sauce is hot, brown and extraordinary isn’t enough for some. It was enough for me. There was also some lackluster sauteed spinach heaped beneath one side of the corn. Alone in its category for the whole meal, it was undercooked and forgettable.

The last savory thing in my flight of half-portions was a cold-smoked pork chop, boneless from the loin, which, although juicy, was slightly overcooked. Not as overcooked, certainly, as 95% of the pork served in restaurants in this country, but it was cooked just to the point of being grainy. This didn’t stop me, however, from nearly swallowing it whole. The smoke flavor was that tiffany lamp or silver frame that you don’t stare at, but makes the room what it is. The chop came lounged on sweet roasted carrots and parsnips (unfortunately, probably my annual parsnips; I never seem to eat enough of them) by the pool of brown sauce of Madeira and molasses. The sauce was good, but I may have expected too much from it. Here, two days later, it’s the only thing I can’t come up with a taste memory for. Would this prevent me from ordering it again? No.

What about the elusive Martinelli? The mythic Helen Turley love child of the best vineyards of Sonoma? Well, to be honest, I think it was damaged. It had a hint of that crumpled-cardboard taste that often accompanies heat damage. Not enough to refuse the bottle, certainly, but enough that I don’t think it’s fair to review it, either. It certainly did the job with the fish and the boar, and although not out of place with the pork, it struggled with the smoke, where a syrah or zin would have run with it.

I befriended a lovely woman while at the bar whom the chef came out to visit with. He was an intense, but smiling guy who was happy that we were happy, but completely unable to take a compliment. He came back out with chocolate mousse for us, which I wouldn’t normally order, being unimpressed with the caring/calorie ratio of most, but this was everything chocolate mousse was made to be.

It was somewhere between a Westin hotel pillow and a cloud, with a profound flavor of chocolate, deep like the Mississippi, like the Grand Canyon, like the lines in Donald Sutherland’s face. It’s made with Callebaut cocoa powder, he told us, and when I get back to my kitchen it will become my mission to recreate.

The Martinelli soared with the chocolate mousse.

Now I’m in Toledo, looking for their answer to Northampton wines.