I have been asked many times about how to plan a dinner party and it is something that can be done easily with a minimum of fuss. A few simple common sense rules can be followed to get perfect results all the time. First the most important thing is to decide what type of party you plan to do. It all depends of your skills in the kitchen and the way you are equipped, in deciding what exactly you can deliver. There is no way you should attempt an 8 course tasting dinner for 15 people, if you can barely boil water without melting the pot.
One of the most common problems is attempting too much with too high expectations. I have been cooking all of my life, and I would not attempt a complex dinner without a properly equipped kitchen. It can be done, but it leads to an enormous amount of work. I remember a few years back making a 6-7 dish Chinese meal for 8 people that needed to be cooked on the spot, in our very small apartment kitchen with only a single small wok to work with. I did managed to pull it off, but it needed some very careful planning and critical scheduling of the actual preparation. It also helped that I prepared recipes that I was very familiar with and that I could prepare with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back.
Normally when I plan something very special I try to reduce the audience to 4 to 6 people maximum, and try to keep to easier stuff for larger crowds. Another thing to remember is not to attempt a recipe or technique you are not familiar with in such a setting, as the stress is too much and your guests should not be guinea pigs for you culinary adventures, unless they know what they will be in for. I normally try to stick to tradition when I plan a dinner party at the last minute. I plan some nice hors d’oeuvre and/or snack for when the guests arrive, and make sure that we have a variety of drinks for the occasion.
Once I have chatted with the guests for about an hour or so I normally adjourn to the kitchen to get going on the final preps of the meal. I usually star with a lighter first course, either soup, a fish course, or something unusual if I am in the mood, normally served with some white wine, if it matches the food served. I follow that with the main course which would be heavier like a meat course, normally with a red wine, again matching the food. The tradition in my family is to follow that with a nice salad if people are still hungry, and then to the dessert course, and then a cheese platter, as I am of French descent and I love some nice cheeses with the best bottle of red wine or some port after the meal.
It sounds like a lot, but we normally spend 3-5 hours or more at the table, so it does not feel that bad. The main ingredient is to have interesting guests, and with good food and wine you tend to solve all the problems in the world in the conversation during the course of the meal. By keeping it simple and sticking with favorite recipes it can be made with a minimum of problems. If you plan something more elaborate, plan ahead and practice all of your recipes and techniques ahead of time, and make yourself a schedule of what need to be prepared when, and a list of all the ingredients you need for all the recipes. I normally stick on the refrigerator with magnets, the actual menu I make for the guests to make sure that I do not forget anything, and also a list of ingredients for all of the recipes to make sure that a crucial step or ingredient is not forgotten in the heat of the moment. With proper planning you can easily deliver the fanciest of dinner parties, as long as you organize yourself and stick to your abilities.
Lucito
After a somewhat longish absence due to several factors, including major electrical problems again, some more equipment failures, and the latest in a row of fun things happening to us, I come back tonight with a short off-topic rant.
Last week we went to a cocktail party in the Polanco area of town, and that evening Normita got her Movistar cell phone cloned. We are using prepaid plans as we do not use them enough to justify regular monthly plans, so we were somewhat lucky that it did not turn up into a major money loser. Normita had recharged the money on her phones some days before the event and she had not used it more than a few time before that evening. We made a call just before going in the restaurant where the cocktail party was held, and strangely enough when we came out she got an SMS that her balance was low and she needed to recharge again. Her phone was locked in her purse, and her purse was with here the full evening. During the entire evening she did not take the phone out ounce while we were at the party.
The next evening we checked her balance on the web it was empty and the log of the calls showed that from a few minutes after we arrived at the party to about the time we left there were a dozen calls made on her account, all to the same number, supposedly the WAP access number from Movistar.
We tried to contact customer service over the weekend and their phone systems did not have any method of dealing with any support incident, or even talking to an human being. We contacted their customer service via email twice and still are waiting to have an answer. On Monday she took some time from work to go to the Movistar office on Masaryk near her work in Polanco, and she wasted over an hour with some inefficient girl there who could not answer any of her questions on how this could have happened, and could not even give her any hints on how to prevent this in the future. After waiting for an hour for that person to do something, the only thing that was done was to fill a report as they cannot do anything at the store.
That evening she got an SMS that bluntly said that the adjustment was not accepted as the number dialed was the WAP number and that essentially they were telling here as a long time customer to just stuff it. She managed to reach on the phone somebody from sales, who assured her that she would try to find somebody to help her, but of course nobody ever contacted her. Today she finally managed to reach somebody from customer service on the phone, in a call center in Guatemala, and she explained the situation. Like in the store they cannot do anything, and they cannot answer any questions on how this happened and on how to prevent it in the future. The only thing that they can do is input the complain in their system as that kind of things is handled by another department that does not talk to customers.
Later today she got a similar SMS that the charge will not be reimbursed, and we never could talk to anybody about this complaint that actually could provide any feedback. It seems that the complaint department is behind a firewall from the people who take the calls, and that their only mean of answering is via SMS. If it had been an isolated incident I might have given them a second chance, but at the same time a coworker of hers, in an office with only 5 people, had the same problem happen to him, and he got essentially the same response from Movistar.
Since Movistar cannot or does not want to talk to its long term customers about their problem with cloning, or whatever other technical problems that get a bunch of calls billed to you when you are not even using your phone, since they are not willing to even discuss what you can do to prevent it in the future, and since they cannot even talk to you period, we definitely will not be recharging our phones just to given them more money. We can get another chip for the phone, but how do we know that it will not happen again next week or next month, if we do not know how the problem happened in the first place. We will take our business elsewhere, even though I am not crazy about losing phone numbers that we have been using for over two years, but the alternative of giving them money for bad service is worse than that. The other person at Normita’s office was not using his phone much so he will simply just stop using it.
We are looking at other cell phone companies, so if any one of you around Mexico City have any good or bad experiences with other cell providers drop us a line at info@igourmand.com or in the comment section. I would advise anybody who has a Movistar account to check the calls placed on their phones to make sure that they are not ripped off by them. If you manage to find a way to contact somebody who can help please also let us know. We will not stay with them, but I would not mind getting the small amount that was stolen from us back, just so we know that they are not total frauds who do not care about their customers at all…
Lucito
I had promised a few weeks back to publish this recipe, but work took the better of me, and I never got around to it. Last night I was still in the office late in the evening cleaning up odds and ends that needed to be attended to, and I finally decided to do something about it. I was planning to post the recipe last night, but the pictures were on Normita’s computer instead of on a network drive and I was too lazy to start her machine to move the files.
‘Pouding au Pain’ is a typical French Canadian dessert from my natal Québec. It was originally a recipe made by the poorer classes of society as it is based on stale bread and was usually made with leftover bread to make a cheap dessert that did not use to much fresh products beside some milk and sugar. The version I created here is more upscale and make for a great end to a nice meal. I replace the traditional brown sugar or molasses with maple syrup. Luckily, when I made it the other week when we had invited Normita’s friends over for lunch, I still had a can of nice maple syrup from Québec in the cupboard, as it can be difficult to find here in Mexico City. The last time I saw some was a few years back at Costco, and I have not checked recently if they still have it in stock. I am sure that the gourmet section of the major department stores like Liverpool or Palacio de Hierro might have some, but probably at a price I would not want to pay for it.
Pouding au Pain is better made with stale bread, and I used a variety of leftover sweet Mexican breads, plus whatever was left in the cupboard that was not fresh. You can freeze your leftover bread like I did, once it is somewhat stale, and use it at a later date. You can use anything from sliced white bread, to leftover hotdog or hamburger buns, to whatever stale bread you have. The sweet Mexican breads I used are typically eaten here in the evening as a light supper accompanied by ‘atole’, a flavored drink made and thickened with cornstarch.
Our friends like this bread pudding so much that we ended up sending them home with most of the leftovers, so I guess that I will have to make more in the coming weeks as I still have some maple syrup left from the last batch.
Ingredients
6 cups stale bread cut in cubes
1 1/2 milk
3/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup chopped mixed nuts
1/2 cup raising soaked in 3 tbs dark rum
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup brandy
5 eggs
2 tbs melted butter
2 tbs cinnamon
1 tbs nutmeg
1 tbs pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
Maple syrup and vanilla ice cream
Preparation
1. Place the stale bread cubes in a large buttered ovenproof baking dish
2. Mix the milk and heavy cream and pour over the bread and make sure that all the bread is well soaked
3. Let the bread absorb the milk mixture for 10 minutes
4. Dust the surface of the bread with the cinnamon and nutmeg
5. Spread the chopped nuts and the soaked raising evenly on the surface and push some of them in the soaked bread
6. In a bowl place the eggs and whisk them well
7. Add salt, vanilla, maple syrup, melted butter, and brandy, then whisk until well incorporated
8. Pour the egg mixture evenly over the bread making sure that there is some everywhere
9. Let soak for 10 minutes and then bake in a preheated 375F oven for around 30 minutes until the pudding is set
10. Serve warm with some maple syrup on it and a scoop of vanilla ice cream
Lucito
Yesterday we were entertaining some friends and people were in the mood for tequila. The traditional way of serving it is with some sangrita, a spicy tomato-based drink that is served on the side. Normally you serve a shotglass of tequila, called a caballito, with a second caballito of sangrita. A small plate of limes cut in half and seeded is also normal. I have never seen the locals go through the ritual of putting lime in the fold of their thumbs with a bit of salt and sucking this before drinking the tequila. The only people you normally see doing that are tourists. Most people either drink their tequila straight, or squeeze half a lime in it, and maybe add just a little bit of salt. I also see some people biting into the half lime and sucking the juice, then drinking the tequila, but it rarer than just squeezing lime juice in it.
I used to prefer my tequila, normally a decent ‘reposado’, meaning rested, a tequila that is aged. or rested, in wooden tanks for at least 2 months up to about a year. Those tequilas lose their white color and take a nice golden hue, and they are normally much smoother to drink than white tequila. If they are aged longer than a year, they can then be called ‘añejo’, the smoothest of the tequilas that I normally prefer as an after dinner drink. I recently tried a few times my tequila on the rocks in a scotch glass with the juice of a lime in it and find it both very refreshing and very smooth going down. I like it a lot like that when I am in the mood for it.
Usually the sangrita, literally little blood, is served with tequila before a meal. In restaurants they can be pretty uneven depending if they make their own, or buy the commercial stuff. I tend to never buy any as I find the commercial sangrita very expensive, about the same price of a similar sized bottle of vodka locally, and normally the taste is too sweet and not spicy enough. Since we were having people over I decided to experiment a bit and I created a very simple recipe that turned out both better than the commercial ones, and most importantly about 4-5 times less expensive. It takes only a minute to mix the ingredients to taste, and you then serve your guests a caballito of tequila with a caballito of sangrita, a small plate with cut limes, and maybe a salt shaker if they are in the mood for that. You can put some lime in and/or salt in your tequila if you wish, and simply alternatively sip a bit of tequila followed by a sip of sangrita. A great way to spend a lazy afternoon with friends…
Ingredients
2 cups tomato juice
1 cup orange juice
4 limes, juiced
2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
Spicy chile sauce to taste, I normally used a smooth one like the Bufalo Clasica
Salt and pepper to taste
Preparation
1. In a large measuring jar, put all the ingredients and mix with a spoon
Lucito
Today I started on something that was long overdue. I moved the various recipes posted in the blog to some generic high level categories as I was somewhat losing track of if I posted this or that recipe in the past. This is only a start to facilitate navigations, and I will probably refine the sub-categories in the future, and also add another level or two in the hierarchy.
The basic WordPress software can display the hierarchy of the categories pretty well, but things get a bit cluttered when you start to have too many nested categories. I will look around to see if the newer version of WordPress is better at handling this out of the box, and if is I might decide to upgrade the version I am running for the blog. This will have to wait though as I do not want to take a chance in ruining the blog, so I will need to setup an internal test site first and I will not have time to do that until some urgent work around the office is done. I will also look around to see if there is some plugin available that makes navigating the categories smoother, and if not it might be worth writing one in my spare time.
In the meantime if you have any suggestions in organizing the categories, and if you know a good plugin that might help and making the navigation of them smoother don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments or directly at suggestion@igourmand.com
Lucito
It seems that in the last month we went to more restaurants than we have been in the last 3 years. As mentioned yesterday we went to eat some goat with the in-laws at a restaurant about 20 minutes from home, when there is not traffic. The place is called ‘La Ribera’ and it is located in the Colonia Doctores, on Avenida Cuauhtemoc. It has a reputation of being the best place in town for goat, and I have a feeling that the reputation is somewhat overrated, but since I have not had any other goat in town I have no real way to corroborate this.
The place is a nice large dining room and has the typical atmosphere of these kinds of places in Mexico, which means it is full of activity and noisy. Only part of the family showed up as Normita’s older brother could not make it as he was out of town. Both her parents were there and Normita’s younger sister, Marce, with her new husband and her two young kids. There is a varied menu of typical Mexican dishes, but the baby goat (cabrito) is the house’s specialty. Since this was the reason to be there, everybody had the cabrito, and most people opted for the leg (pierna), which would be the lower leg, but the lower leg bone was bare and the meaty part was actually the thigh, so I’m not sure why they called it like that.
The place was somewhat busy and there was a huge number of waiting staff, but despite that the service was slow and uneven. We waited a lot for the different course, and yet again at the end of the meal for the bill. The main course of goat comes with a bowl of shrimp broth as starters. The broth was flavorful, with a strong shrimp taste as it was made with dried shrimps. The consensus of the table was that it was too spicy, and I agree with that. I am not crazy about dried shrimps, as they can be overpowering, and they are so much a pain to eat that I preferred to leave them in the bowl and just eat the broth. It was a bit overpowering as the only thing that we had to drink at the time was tequila, as they took about half an hour to bring us the mineral water we had ordered.
The cabrito was accompanied with a small dish of grilled onions and jalapeños, and a small dish of guacamole per two people, and was simply a plate with the small leg, a chunk of shoulder, and half a baby goat’s head for the brain and tongue. There was no side dish to be had, but at least for me the leg was very juicy and tender. The guacamole was simply crushed unseasoned avocado, thus really not guacamole, and some of the batches we had were probably leftovers from the day before as it tasted stale. There was some ‘salsa roja’ that was served with the bread, but it was very liquid and flavorless. The plates were accompanied by small corn and flour tortillas to make tacos, but without any decent condiment to put in them they were really bland. My plate was luckily very nice and moist, but the meat was disapointingly devoid of any taste and seasoning. Normita’s was dry and not as tender, but she mentioned that there was a hint of garlic taste to the meat, which would have been welcome to mine.
While we were in the middle of the meal a decent Mariachi band started playing, but in a crowded busy room the noise level was deafening. Luckily they were good, but I ended up with a bad headache soon after they started. Even the kids thought it was too loud, so you can appreciate the noise level. After the Mariachis finished their show, as we were leaving, there was a magic show for the kids that was starting at a little stage by the entrance.
Overall the place is typically Mexican in both atmosphere and food, but we found the food overpriced, and the drinks definitely so. The service was uneven and very slow. The goat, that was supposed to be their specialty, was disappointing and boringly served with no side dish, and I would only recommend this restaurant for people visiting town who want to have an idea of what a typical local restaurant can be, but that in itself is not a recommendation. On Sunday afternoons the place is booming with local families on their weekly restaurant meal, and during the week I hear that there are a lot of regulars going there to play dominos. For people who want to eat goat I will try to find a better place, and also to try to find a better restaurant of that type to recommend, as I cannot give it a recommendation.
Lucito
I have been asked a lot in the past about what to do with leftovers. I always try to use all the food that we buy as I do not like throwing things away and wasting them. Yesterday was our usual shopping-for-the-week day and we bought some stunning fresh chucked oysters in their juice, and some nice small cooked shrimps that were unbelievably tender and sweet. That fish merchant that we discovered at the Jamaica market last month really has some stunning fresh fish and seafood, and at a very low rice as the shrimps and oysters came up to a total of around $6.
For supper last night Normita prepared her world famous shrimp and oyster cocktail and I have to confess that we did throw out the nice oyster juice, as it does not really keep and we were not planning to cook anything else within the day, as today we are going out for lunch with the in-laws for an early father’s day and mother in law’s birthday celebration, as they will be out of town on a trip during both occasions. The family will meet at a restaurant that specializes in roasted goat, I think, and I will be sure to let you know how it turns out.
Going back to my story, I was in the mood for a nice fresh baguette to go with the shrimp cocktails, and we were doing our rounds of shopping and I realized that we did not pick up any bread when we passed by the supermarket. Since we both were dead tired, and did not feel like making another stop on our way back home, I looked for some baguettes in the store we were at the moment, and the only thing they had was packages of 3 freshly baked baguettes. It was a tad more than even I can eat in one sitting, but I was dead set in having my baguette. I assured Normita that I would find something to do with the leftover bread and we took it back home with us.
Last night we were discussing that Normita would invite some of her friends for supper next Saturday night, and I was starting to plan the meal ahead. The last few months have been totally crazy and I have not had the chance to spend as much time in the kitchen as I normally do, and I am looking forward to plan a decent meal. Time will be tight, as we will both be busy at work all week, and Friday night the cleaning people are coming to clean up the place, and they normally leave around 9pm, thus not leaving me with much room to prepare things ahead of time, and I do not want to spend all of my day in the kitchen on Saturday, especially since we will have to go pickup some fresh ingredients at the market early Saturday morning.
As a first course I will do my Vichyssoise, as I still have not had time to do it since I posted the recipe the other week, and I still have a nice craving for it. I can easily prepare that after the cleaners leave of Friday night. I settled for preparing my shrimps with chile guajillo as the main dish, as the fish merchant always has some stunning juicy ones, and it is a very quick and easy plate to prepare, as the only time consuming part is removing the heads and shelling the shrimps. I have still to settle the side dish for that main course but I have all week to think about it. I also though of a quick an easy way to accompany the meal, and at the same time take care of the leftover baguette. I decided to prepare some nice garlic bread this morning and to freeze it, and then I will only have to broil it before serving next week, as is or with some nice grated cheese on top.
We had also picked up some nice sweat Mexican bread for breakfast today, and we shared one piece, and we were both stuffed. I still have two pieces leftover, and they are too heavy for my regular weekday breakfast. I decided to salvage them again by preparing a typical dessert from my native Québec, some ‘pouding au pain au sirop d’érable’, a bread pudding made with stale bread and maple syrup. I will post the recipe later in the week once I actually prepare it. For now I will let the bread go stale for a few days, and then freeze it until I decide to prepare the pudding, probably Saturday afternoon. Enjoy these simple leftover recipes, and I will make sure to post more whenever I prepare some.
Ingredients
3 French baguettes
1/2 pound room temperature butter or margarine
4 large cloves garlic
1 tbs finely chopped fresh parsley
1 tbs finely chopped fresh basil
1/2 pound grated cheese (optional)
Pinch of salt
Preparation
1. Chop the garlic finely and but in a bowl.
2. Add the softened butter or margarine, the parsley, the basil, and the salt and mix thoroughly with a fork.
3. Cut the baguettes in half lengthwise, and then again in half in the thickness.
4. Cut the split baguettes in 3" pieces and spread a generous amount of the butter mixture in them.
5. If you plan to eat them right away, place on cookie sheet and sprinkle with some grated cheese if you want it.
6. Place in a hot over under the broiler until the bread is golden, or until the cheese is melted if you prefer the bread with cheese.
7. If you plan to freeze it, place the separated pieces of bread back together without any cheese, buttered side against butter side, and place them in zip-closure bags. Put in the freezer and they will keep for about a month if well sealed. Thaw and broil as above with or without the cheese.
Lucito
Normally I prefer to make a nice pâté during the cold season, but the weather has been cool and rainy all day and I suddenly had a craving for some nice pâté and I thought about a recipe I invented years ago for our usual family Christmas party. It is fairly simple to make and improves in flavor for the first few days and keeps up to a week well wrapped in the refrigerator. For a party I normally like to present it on the buffet table molded in some interestingly shaped mold. You can also prepare it in small glass or ceramic dishes and serve it in individual portions as an interesting first course or appetizer with some nice fresh bread or crackers. It is very versatile and I normally prepare large quantities of it as everybody wants to bring some back home with them after the event. You can easily plan ahead by molding some nice smaller portions for your guests to bring back home, or dividing the leftovers for them at the end of the evening, but be careful not to start too many fights between your guests trying to score the biggest portion.
Ingredients
2 French shallots or 4 green onions finely chopped
1 large garlic clove finely chopped
1 1/2 Tbs butter
1 1/2 pounds of fresh chicken livers with all the fat removed and rinsed with water and lime juice
15-20 slices of dried mushroom or 4-5 chopped fresh mushrooms
1/4 Tsp salt
1/4 Tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 Tsp freshly ground white pepper
A grating of nutmeg
A pinch of ground dry ginger
A pinch of ground cinnamon
4 Oz of finely chopped pistachios
4 Oz of coarsely chopped pistachios
4 Tbs of heavy cream
3 Tbs of Brandy
3 Tbs of dark Rum
2 Tbs of Port wine
Preparation
1. Prepare a mold for the pâté by putting a layer of aluminum foil in it and greasing it with spray oil, margarine, or butter.
2. In a large sauté pan melt the butter over medium-high fire.
3. Add the shallots and garlic an sauté for 1 minute.
4. Add the liver and mushrooms and sauté for 1 minute.
5. Add the spices and the salt.
6. Sauté the livers until they loose their pink color in the center.
7. Add the finely chopped pistachios.
8. Pour the brandy and rum in a glass and poor the glass in the pan.
9. When the liquid boil light it to flambé the livers.
10. When the flames have died off add the Porto and reduce the liquid by half.
11. Remove from the heat and let cool.
12. Put the contents of the pan in a blender or food processor and mix until it is of a creamy consistency.
13. Add the cream and mix until you have a thick liquid without any lumps.
14. Pour the liquid in a bowl and add the coarsely chopped pistachios and mix with a spoon until you have a homogenous mixture.
15. Pour in your prepared mold and cover with some plastic wrap.
16. Refrigerate at least 24 hours for the pâté to set and the flavors to mix well.
17. Unmold and put on a presentation dish.
Lucito
A few months back I had a bet going with Normita about something that I have totally forgotten about, and the loser was supposed to buy a nice restaurant meal for the other. I thought that I had fulfilled my duties last week, but it seems that the meal’s absolute fiasco did not comply with the nice meal part of the deal. This morning we went to see a movie at the World Trade Center (WTC) here in Mexico City, which happens to be about 5 minutes walk from home. The movie was a long one, and before someone asks it was Da Vinci’s Code, which was exactly like the book, very long, slow paced and boring. At least Normita somewhat enjoyed it despite the excessive length, but I think that they could have cut about an hour from it and made a better, tighter movie. I also had problems with the casting of the film as I always feel like Tom Hanks plays only one character, himself, in every movie he stars in. I did enjoy Ian McKellen’s portrayal of Sir Leigh Teabing, and thought that they underused Jean Reno one of my favorite actors, but this is not a movie review, so let’s move to other things…
On the way out, since the movie was so long, we both were starting to feel hungry and since the chicken that was defrosting in the refrigerator was sure not to be ready to cook for some more hours, we decided to look around for a place to eat. Since I still owed Normita that meal, we decided to try a new Italian restaurant that is located in the Crowne Plaza hotel next door to the WTC. A few clients she had sent there had reported that the restaurant was both good and inexpensive, so it was worth a try.
The hotel has only recently opened so the restaurant is a new operation. The decor is open and airy and the ambiance relaxed. At what would have been a busy lunchtime for locals (2pm), the place was mainly empty as the hotel caters to foreigner here on business. The service was attentive, but somewhat disorganized. I think that the newness of the restaurant was showing, and the waiter mentioned that he was very new in a very new restaurant so we will have to try again in a few months to see if the place has improved.
We ordered our meal, with the starters being for Normita carpaccio of salmon and for me carpaccio de vitello, veal in Italian, but strangely translated in the menu to Spanish and English as beef, for the main course linguini al pesto for Normita and spaghetti carbonara for me. We wanted some wine with the meal, and they failed to bring a wine list, and when the first course arrived I inquired again about the wine list and they told us that they had Italian wines by the bottle, but no wine list, and also had unnamed Italian house wines by the glass at a fairly high price of ~$7, which I would have like to know exactly what I was buying at that price. We wanted to know what wines they had by the bottle, and they could not tell us for a good 10 minutes while our first course was waiting for us, because nobody had the key to the nice cellar at one end of the room.
This reminded me of another restaurant incident, again with the Padrino, in New York City at Windows on the Worlds at the other WTC, where they could not find the key to the storage room to bring us some cheese at the end of the meal and where the waiter also brought us a bottle of 1975 Gruaud Larose shaken not stirred, but that story will have to wait for another day…
Luckily during the time we were waiting we enjoyed some of their delicious bread, baked on the premises, with a nice salsa of olive oil, tomatoes, onions, and basil. Of course, when they finally managed to find the person with the key to the cellar, the whites were at room temperature, so since our first course had already been served for 15 minutes, we did not want to wait for the wine to cool down. We decided to look at the reds. The waiter brought 3 random bottles to the table and asked for a choice without telling us the prices. A few more minutes were wasted while he found a price list, and when the offering were in the $40-55 range, and I really had nothing to compare in price with a known value to assess if the price was fair, we decided to forego the wines entirely.
We started on our carpaccio and noticed that they did not bring us the usual thin toasts to eat it with. The waiter told us that they might have to get their storeroom open as they only had their regular bread. The problem was fixed quickly though, when he brought us some toast, that unluckily was somewhat limp instead of crisp, as it had been serve in a towel on the bread plate, where it steamed itself.
The quality of both the veal/beef and salmon was excellent, but strangely enough the delicate thin slices were not dressed at all. Even a few drops of olive oil would have given an extra dimension to the plate. Mine had a small dab of what seemed like a mixture of mayonnaise and mustard on one side and a nice pile of chopped mushrooms in the middle, and Normita had some chopped onions, chopped parsley, chopped capers, and chopped egg yolks, a nice combination, but a tad dry without any dressing. We remedied the problem by drizzling some of the nice olive oil from the salsa and using some of their nice thin house bread instead of the limp toasts.
While we were starting the first course, the waiter brought each of us a courtesy glass of white wine, because of out problems with the inexistent wine list. The wine was crisp and somewhat vegetal in taste, reminding me a bit of a Pinot Grigio, but I might be wrong there. There was a faint hint of oxidation on the finish, but we were not about to complain… I hope that the poor waiter did not get into trouble because of this, as he was swept away to a meeting with what I think was a supervisor near the end of our meal.
The main course was solid fare with nice al dente homemade pasta, and a delectable sauce though not exceptionally so. Luckily the portions were not overwhelming like they tend to be in some Italian restaurant and we finished our meal well fed, but not stuffed. I definitely was not in the mood for a dessert, but Normita was and asked for some Baileys ice cream and I settled for an espresso. The espresso was concentrated and bitter the way I like it, and while I was finishing it, they told Normita that they did not have the Baileys ice cream, so she decided to go without her dessert.
Overall the restaurant definitely shows some promise, but is in a definite need of organization. The quality of the food is high, but a bit of refining of the recipes is in order, and definitely they have a serious need of creating a decent wine list, as their haphazard method of presenting their wines will lead to lost clients. Another peeve was that I though it was a bit excessive to charge $2.50 for a can of mineral water. I think that we will give them a few more months to get their act in order and try again before making out final judgment. The food is good now and could easily become great, especially since the basic constituents are of good quality, but I will withhold my recommendation until they have straightened their organizational problems. It was good enough though to count as the nice restaurant meal I owed Normita. Maybe we just caught them on a bad day…
Lucito
PS. While I was writing this, Normita had another bet with me about another Tom Hanks movie, as she thought he was working for DHL in Castaway, and I was sure he was working for FedEx. I am glad that I did indeed win my bet, and now she is the one who owes me a nice restaurant meal.
I have not been able to really cook over the last few weeks as we had company and also work has been crazier than usual. Normita has been making nice large pots of vegetable soup for daily lunches and I have taken into eating a bowl of it, cold and in front of the computer, as part of my daily lunch. Normita is not a fan of cold soups and she cannot understand my love of them.
Most of this love it comes from my experiments with Vichyssoise when I started cooking. During the summer school holidays, I had gone to a nice French restaurant with my Grandmother in Ste-Agathe, a neighboring village to where I was born, and I experienced Vichyssoise for the first time. My Grandmother loved going to good restaurants and of course this place was top notch. I really enjoyed the soup’s creamy texture and its cold élégance.
When I started to be interested in cooking I experimented with various recipes of Vichyssoise, and I was never satisfied as on the first day I had tasted it in that restaurant with my Grandmother. One day at our cottage in the woods, when I was in a rush to prepare a meal as some friends were supposed to drop by for an unexpected visit at the end of the day, I looked at the ingredients I had in the refrigerator and found that I had some fresh leeks and parsley and some nice yellow potatoes. Since we would be out most of the day I wanted to prepare something hearty for a starter, and then grill something for the main course. I do not remember what I cooked for the main course on that faithful day, but I remember the hurriedly put together Vichyssoise I made as it was both easy to prepare and it reminded me of my first love of that soup.
I just threw it together in the morning in less than half an hour before leaving for our day’s activities, and finished it in 5 minutes before the meal. You cannot ask for an easier to prepare soup that will make you look like you slaved for hours in the kitchen, and if you are like Normita you can always heat it up before serving, but in my book this is sacrilège. I definitely will make a pot for the next week for my lunch…
Ingredients
2 medium to large leeks
4-5 medium potatoes (about the same quantity as the pared down leeks)
6 cups hearty chicken stock
1 1/2 cup of heavy cream
2 tbs butter
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup chopped parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
Preparation
1. Peel potatoes and cut into cubes to speed up cooking.
2. Cut the tip of the leek and remove the dark green part leaving the white and the tender green ones.
3. Make a cut from almost the tip to the other end completely through, and then turn 90 degrees and repeat.
4. Wash the leeks thoroughly to remove any trace of dirt, and then pat dry and chop in thick slices.
5. In a heavy lidded sauté pan melt the butter in the olive oil and then sauté the leeks with the lid on until they turn translucent and soft.
6. In a large soup pot put the potatoes, the broth, the parsley, and salt and pepper to taste and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the potatoes are cooked.
7. In a blender or food processor put the soup and the leeks together and blend until a creamy consistency is achieved. Do not overblend it, or the potatoes might turn rubbery.
8. You can refrigerate at this point for 3-4 hours up to a few days.
9. For serving place the cold soup in the blender and add the heavy creamy and blend. Adjust the salt and pepper and serve cold with a sprig of parsley and a splash of cream on top for decoration.
Lucito