Month: December 2012

Apericubes Limited Collector’s Edition Saveurs: Grilled shrimp, sweet spice, blue and nuts, and truffle

Happy New Year’s Eve. I thought it might be fun to ring in 2013 with this new, awful level of cheese fuckery. There hasn’t been this much tampering with lactose since the Nesquik bunny got arrested for coke possession in ’06. I’m not sure what to say about these. I think they speak for themselves. Apericube Limited Collector’s Edition Saveurs features four clever, awful flavors for all of your party-ruining needs. All of them. Truffle, grilled shrimp, blue cheese with nuts, and sweet spices await your poor, wretched tongue.

The package is classy and also larger than most Apericube commitments. 48 cubes is a lot of cheese for one person. On the package is a chance to win a trip to the Lapland region of Scandinavia, for skiing or something. In French, it’s “Laponie.”

I prefer to think that Apericube has come up with a whimsically branded term for winning a French pony. I may be clinically depressed. The package is also filled with all sorts of hyperspecific humor gems for enhancing your holidays with little flavored cheese cubes.

For instance: trivia and cheese ornaments? Ain’t nobody got time for that shit, I got partying and drinking to do, in a world where “partying and drinking” is synonymous to eating an entire pizza alone in your apartment with the soulful croons of Johnny Cash. 2013, you devil! Besides, why bother going out when I can subject my guests to the musky, most certainly artificial flavor of truffle, a $350 trendy tasting menu with truffles all over the place compressed into one cube? And who could forget the allure of grilled shrimp, the cheese that forgot the grill? Grilled shrimp, you taste and smell like wet cat food.

Moving down the line, we have the surprisingly inoffensive blue cheese and nuts, surprising as I am usually disgusted by blue cheese, so for this to be very, very removed from its original inspiration is a boon. It is also perfectly smooth. Nuts? Finally, we finish off 2012 with the enigmatic “epices douces,” which translates to “sweet spices.” Is it gingerbread? Gingerbread cheese? I wouldn’t put it past the criminal masterminds at Le Vache Qui Rit. Regardless, it tastes like cinnamon and crushed pink peppercorn.

None of these are very good.

Happy 2013!

Shang Palace, Paris, France

Having survived dinner at Agape Substance and lived, albeit barely, to tell the tale, Miss Love and I were reluctant to commit to another potentially disastrous tasting menu while on this trip. We’re not averse to eating spaetzle and frites at home by any means, but we did want to go out for at least one other meal out before she left. As luck would have it, I was browsing David Lebovitz’s website late last night, in between post-writing jags and cell-phone shopping, (okay, and maybe I was also ogling motorcycles) when I saw a very positive post about Shang Palace, one of two restaurants at the Shangri-La Hotel in the 16th. 

Not that I’ve been seeking it out, but it seems that the only decent Chinese food in Paris can be found at 2AM when you’re inebriated. It can be found everywhere, with a sort of underground McDonald’s like eeriness in its frequency and consistency. You walk into the kiosk. Sometimes it says “traiteur,” sometimes not. Sometimes you can tell just because of the metallic aromas of nuked soy sauce. Hand the person at the counter 2-4 Euro, mumble your order. It doesn’t matter. In less than a minute, you will receive a dented microwaved plastic box with plastic wrap on top, noodles and chicken steaming the hermetically sealed packet. It tastes of MSG and heartbreak and will leave 3rd degree burns on the inside of your mouth. Because you are drunk, you will enjoy it and in the morning, remember little more than the blisters and heartburn.

It may be cheap, but it’s hardly satisfying, never scratching the itch that saucy, sweet, spicy noodles and crispy mong beans do. So Chinese, along with decent bagels, chicken salad, and mozzarella sticks, has been put on the back burner until I return to the States. When we saw this write-up, though, we thought it would be fun to go for lunch. Shang Palace has one Michelin star and the service and food is certainly implicit of this fact. Walking in, it was like we’d quietly shut the door to busy Paris and been ushered into a sound-proof museum, quietly playing piano music.
I’d never had a near-silent lunch before, but as the only patrons in the restaurant surrounded by imposing, maze-like woodwork panels and an impressively large table for two, it seemed as though we would soon be experiencing one, the waitstaff silently moving around us. You could hear a chopstick drop in there, so we were pleased when more customers started filing in for lunch. Everything about Shang Palace is poised, with a grand, yet tasteful power to its decor and design. I imagine it’s a popular spot for business dinners, as evidenced by its upper three and four digit wine list!

We opted to share a teapot of green jasmine tea, easily the best beverage deal in the restaurant. One pot yielded at least five steaming mugs of very elegant, naturally sweet tea for us both.

As David’s review had warned of oversized portions, we opted to share the Dim Sum menu, with a side selection of caramelized barbecued Cantonese meats, one of the specialties of the restaurant. This was an excellent choice for two people. It was the perfect amount of food for us. The pacing and service of the lunch was impeccable, some of the nicest I’ve ever had. Highlights included fresh, steaming plates every two courses, steamed towels at the beginning and end of the meal, and careful, attentive service without coming off as nosy. Our waitress noticed that my chopstick and sauce spoon was placed on my right side, but that I kept using my left hand to eat. Not two bites in, she swiftly picked the set up, cleaned them off, and placed them on my left side once more.

I think Shang Palace speaks to the interesting differences in the sensibilities of restaurants based on the average age of the clietele and cultural desires. When we’ve eaten tasting menus at newer, relatively trendy restaurants, there seems to have been an overarching desire for the waitstaff in New York to explain and chat, to analyze every element of the food and provide background information on individual ingredients. While there is a time and place for that, sometimes it’s refreshing to allow the food to speak for itself, something Shang Palace has obviously seen and touched upon.

We started with Ha Kao, shrimp dumplings, and Siu Mai, shrimp and pork dumplings with a little fish roe on top. These complimented each other perfectly, with the delicate, sticky shrimp dumplings, perfumed and saline, contrasting the robust, almost hefty Siu Mai. Neither of these required soy sauce or even the transcendent and fresh hot chili sauce I kept close to my side.

After our first few bites, the meat platter was brought out, a hefty plate of roasted duck, marinated chicken, and crispy pork brisket, each with their own accompanying condiment. Each meat was impeccably prepared, generously portioned, and none felt like an afterthought in the selection. However, I was most impressed with the duck, served with a sweet orange and prawn sauce, its lacquered skin crispy and crackling with a tender, moist chew. That being said, the savory chicken and crunchy pork with hot mustard were not to be left behind!
Our next dim sum course was brought out, Shanghai steamed pork buns. I expected these to be more akin to the traditionally fluffy buns, but in retrospect, they were more like soup dumplings, served with a piquant black vinegar and ginger sauce. The subtle flavors in this played well with the boldness of the sauce, the dumpling skin fresh, stretchy, and tender.
Moving on to soup, we shared a steaming bowl of white tofu soup (with a self-described superior crystal broth) with a giant crab dumpling. Eating this was like slurping down Chinese matzah ball soup, from the finely ground texture of the crab meat to the hot, savory broth– admittedly superior. It was comforting and cozy on such a damp day.

After finishing up the last of our meat and drinking another mug of tea, the table was again cleared and made way for a huge bowl of fried egg noodles with chicken, bean sprouts, and onions. Perfectly cooked, not over salted, and pleasantly grilled in flavor…this was one dish I couldn’t resist spooning a little chili sauce over. With or without the sauce, it was a great end to the savory part of our meal.

Miss Love’s menu came with a dessert, a chilled mango cream with pomelo and sago. Originally, we thought this would be served in steamed bun form, a dessert that looked delicious on David’s blog, but instead, we received a small pot of this sumptuous cream, delicate and floral with small beads of sago and individual grains of pomelo.

I ordered dessert, too, a special double-cream almond pudding inside a sweet, thin sesame shell. The presentation on this was stunning, with a toasty, almost savory exterior counterbalancing the sweetness of the thick almond cream. The inner part of the shell absorbed the cream and with time, got glutenous and chewy, like a mochi. The perfect ending to the meal.

Shang Palace is impeccable in every respect, achieving a quiet dignity through their flavors and service that some restaurants would benefit from adhering to. It is obvious that they have maintained a style that many find irresistible. It’s definitely somewhere I’d love to go back to!

Red Bull: Blue, Silver, and Red Edition

Christmas is over, the bounty of Thanksgiving leftovers has come and gone. Soon, the world will be getting ready for New Year’s Eve, the unloved drunken baby of the winter holidays. These days, staying up late and getting drunk is roughly as edgy as a Snuggie-wrapped newborn. Fresh on the heels of surviving yet another threat of an apocalypse, we need to up our game and appreciate life as the Mayans could not. And what better to up it with than three new flavors of Red Bull, the official drink of 2007, er, 2013?
Well, maybe you should wait before answering my rhetorical question, because it turns out there are a few better things to celebrate another orbit with than Cranberry, Lime, and Blueberry Red Bull, like milk, chocolate milk, milkshakes, straight up caffeine yo, soda, ice cream, raw sewage, Go Go Juice, champagne and scotch, chocolate syrup from the bottle, and bleach, to name a few palatable beverages off the top of my head. Despite an aggressive and patriotically-colored marketing campaign in all of the countries for whom blue, white, and red are relevant (suck it, Belgium!) these liquid Benedict Arnold Palmers are shameful mars on an otherwise decent year.

Classified in “editions” like some sort of limited release Encyclopedia Brittanica set or a numbered Audemars, the terrible triad features a sleek can design aping off the majesty of the Lamborghini without the finesse in engineering. In fact, the only thing they have in common with the cars are their mutual shared usage, or in the case of the Red Bull, incorporation, of motor oil. At least, as the texture of these drinks would imply. If motor oil wasn’t used in the composition of this beverage, someone on the staff was surely drinking it. I don’t see how it made it off the production line otherwise. The drinks are viscous and lurid in color, moreso than the traditional Red Bull and have an aggressive, slightly sinister overarching sweet scent to them, like the drink itself is trying to conceal its contents and drug you.

The first of our ill-fated ingestibles is the Red Edition, not unlike the Red Edition your piss will later be emulating. This is easily the most offensive of the drinks, mollified only by the fact that it is the sole soda of the three to not contain the creepy-sounding “bleu brilliant FCF” food coloring. However, it comes out of the bottle as red as the can, smelling like Jell-O powder. It tastes like a mixture of various red-colored and red-flavored hard candies, with a flat, sweet flavor and a sour aftertaste, not tart like a cranberry ought to be, but metallic. Next is the lime-flavored Silver Edition. This one goes down with the least resistance with a seltzer-like flavor, but has a powerful Windex nose. I’m thinking that this would make a fantastic knock-off Sprite. We’ll call it “Spite.”

Finally, the most intriguing of the special flavors, blueberry Red Bull, which sounds like the first of many unsuccessful cocktails on the Absentee Parent happy hour menu. This has a mild blueberry flavor, with a slightly acidic aftertaste like blueberry yogurt, but the resemblance ends there and it tastes like Warheads. I won’t even recommend this for New Year’s Eve cocktail shenanigans. If you need to chug these to stay up until midnight, you are either twelve, or out of touch like this MAD Magazine hilarity. Either way, the perfect demographic for these weird limited editions. I still wish I could have tried Mango Fratboy Heave. Stay classy!

Agape Substance, Paris, France

I am literally agape right now. Agape at the lack of substance at Agape Substance in Paris tonight. 500 Euro and an agonizing three hours later, Miss Love and I are trying to piece together the shards of a confusing evening of Beckett-esque futility. TL;DR: I have never had a worse meal in my life.

To put it succinctly, Agape Substance is best left for a clientele tired of being beaten with birch switches and paying for it, a special type of customer who wants something a little more public. To them, I recommend this tasting menu, accompanied by dim fluorescent lighting and sallow-toned smoked mirrors. A scarily accurate glimpse into the future, I now know how it will look when I go to the DMV when I’m 40. Throughout the course of an evening, we went through over 20 courses of incongruent, vapid bites with strange visual cues and a seemingly Freudian undertone in a restaurant best suited to a 1980’s swinger’s club. This is the fucking Dorsia of the Left Bank.

We started with butternut squash tuile. It tasted like dessicated Fruit Roll-Up housed in a customized slab of china, overly sweet to start a meal.

Following that were pork trotter chicharrones with minced dory fish on top. Crispy and porky, they gave us a vague sense of hope for the meal to come.

I was anxiously anticipating our next dish, a berce sponge with hogweed flower. Agape is known for its flagrant usage of berce, but the improbably bright Soylent Green coloring and kitchen sponge-like flavor were disconcerting.

A mini-pizza with pine nuts and caviar was tasty, if meager.

We ended our selection of amuse bouches with a dried salsify with white chocolate creme fraiche and olive. Wow, this dish was confusing. Texturally, it was like eating flaccid carrots with slightly stale dip, as though the inspiration for this was found rooting in the back of the chef’s refrigerator one late evening. The chocolate was dulled by the richness of the cream, a white sploogy void on the plate.
Our first savory course, king crab with grapefruit, mint, and artichoke consomme was inoffensive and tasty, with a vibrant sweet and savory component from the citrus fruit and herbs.

Parsnip with smoked sea salt, olive, and rye came shortly after. Tasted like a loaded baked potato sans Bacos. It was also at this point that we noticed that the “special truffle supplement,” an additional 50 Euro per person, merely consisted of hunks of truffles shaved over this, as well as other dishes, we received throughout the evening. A must to avoid.
Following this was a runny half-boiled egg with orgeat syrup, blanched almonds, and polenta. I do not know why this was placed where it was in the menu, or really, what purpose it served all. It was, as Camus may have said, an indicator of a wholly indifferent universe. It raised some important questions about taste and the meaning of life. For instance: Why am I eating raw cookie dough-flavored food sandwiched between the appetizer and main course? Who wants to see their date awkwardly dribble gooey, raw organic fluid down the corner of their mouth in public? As tasty as it was, reminiscent of marzipan, it was existentially confusing to a fault.
Duck liver with raspberry consomme, inoffensive and unremarkable. Fresh tasting but bland. The spongy liver could have easily been replaced with mushrooms and I wouldn’t have known.
A hollowed sea urchin with chestnut soup was visually impressive if boring. The richness of the soup cut the urchin’s naturally sweet, briny flavor and neutralized the effect of both.
Carrots and mustard, a trial in mental tenacity. Why, I ask, would any self-respecting restaurant toss hot carrots and mustard on a plate halfway through the meat courses? In a recent review of Agape, Alexander Lobrano praised a similarly simple dish as “lucid.” This, too, was lucid, though more in a Ken Kesey fashion than a Kubrickian genius as he would have us believe. Mindfuckery served with bread and butter.
Sea scallop with seaweed butter and chestnut foam had a dated elegance straight out of American Psycho. Served in a whole scallop shell on a massive slab of frosted, custom-cut Lucite with the pomp and ritual of a Patek, I wish I had worn big shoulder pads and Paloma Picasso to match. Shoddy preparation and repeated themes characterized this dish- the scallops had not been detached from the shell and were nearly impossible to remove whole. It wasn’t reassuring to already see overlapping flavors (seaweed butter and chestnut foam) so early on in the meal.
Sole with charred turnips, white chocolate sauce, and seabean. Nicely prepared, but too polite and impossible to eat together. The group therapy of dishes, everything participated minimally, but never really contributed to a congruent entirety.

Well-prepared venison, served with one stuffed shell straight out of le Stouffer’s. Unfortunately, the sauce appeared -how can I say this tactfully- “hand” made by the chef.

St. Nectaire cheese was tasty, if only for the novelty of eating a wedge of more expensive St. Nectaire than I normally purchase at home.

Raw cubes of kabocha squash, raw flour ice cream (really), and squash caramel. Easily the most puritanical dessert I’ve ever had. This literally hurt to eat. It was chalky, unsweetened, and vegetal. In retrospect, ordering the shredded Kiton atop crushed diamonds would have been more palatable. I witnessed another diner reach an emotional breaking point when he tasted this dish.

Blackberry ice cream, macadamia nuts, lychee, and meringue was bizarre and also clash-heavy; the buttery, oily nuts greasy mingling with icy sorbet and slippery fruit pieces.

100% chocolate, or as we came to know it, the “Everybody Poops” dessert. Overly sweetened mousse, chocolate bark, and sauce with shapes and textures more resembling emissions from our kitten than a decadent end to a meal. Tasted of Nutella, ganache, and sugar.

Passionfruit and mango caramels came with the bill, a tearful 500 Euro for two including the decent, if inconsistent, blind wine tasting. Shameful. Everything about eating here felt like an exercise in sexual transgression, from the backless chairs to the smoked yellow mirrors to the strange swathes of cowhide strategically placed around the table, and of course, the weird surprises and punishment food. I pity the waiters and waitresses, the only bright spot in the dinner service. Usually, in a situation of this nature, at least you get to see a killer rack for the price. We paid for it both in our wallets (thanks for taking one for the team, Miss Love) and in our palates and are now self-medicating with Lindt, Ambien, and chocolate milk. 

I’ve got to say, it felt like the central theme for this dinner was divorce on a plate, because the menu seemed hell-bent on ruining more than a few celebrations and anniversaries that night. Our meal was punctuated with sounds of shame and annoyance and more than one justification- “I swear, this never happens!”- the edible erectile dysfunction to disappointed dates. Come for the promise of phenomenal reviews and stay for the bitter end. You paid for the prix fixe, baby, so wipe that egg yolk off your chin, smile, and say “Merci.”

Heinz Hot Sauce: Chipotle and Garlic, Green Jalapeno, and Yellow Habanero

Yes, tomorrow is the end of the world, so you’re going to have to expect to see strange memes, awfully photoshopped photos of skulls and Microsoft Word texts from the mid 90’s, and liveblogging from the apocalypse, courtesy of the Foodette Isn’t Going Anywhere foundation, circa 2012. Incidentally, the number of strange coincidences, like France releasing limited-edition products in sets of threes, has me intrigued and slightly convinced that the world might end. I’ve been here four months already with no sign of strange things, and all of a sudden, special editions of products are popping up all over the place. 

Another thing that leads me to believe that we’re all going to hell in a handbasket: France has finally embraced the idea of hot sauces, commercially available, in stores, and made by large, familiar companies for lonely ex-pats and curious Europeans. Like Pago, and the new Red Bull, these, too, were released in three, which explains my most recent grocery bill:

Harry’s white bread: 0,98 Euro
Apricot juice: 1,8 Euro
Heinz hot sauce: 6 Euro
Apricot jam: 1 Euro
Butter: 1.5 Euro

Three new hot sauces! In three new-ish flavors! Obviously, I had to get all three of them, and prominently display them on my kitchen table next to a Parisian cinderblock and quickly overflowing ashtray. Hashtag bohemian, my friends! This appears to be one of the only markets Heinz uses for hot sauce, so I figured they had to be good. In fact, they aren’t even on the company website yet. In Green Jalapeno, Chipotle and Garlic, and Yellow Habanero, they looked both minimal in ingredients and high-end enough to accompany the pulled pork and corn flakes I’ve been noshing in the end of days.

Well, there’s some good and bad to these. On one hand, they are hot sauces, and I refuse to believe that this is the last attempt for France to jump on the “spicy good, bland bad” bandwagon. On the other hand, the perfectly-tailored John Lobb shoe has dropped, and the verdict remains that these sauces are not damned spicy. They’re trying- they are spiced, but they are not spicy, so to speak. Their quantifiers of “medium, hot, and very hot” are as useful as putting warning signs on pipe cleaners and stuffed animals. Why bother? They have the intensity of gingerbread despite a vibrant color. It’s a pity, as they are really impeccably flavored, with a very rich, natural taste and easily distinguishable between the three. Their succinct ingredients gave them a wholesome edge that allowed them to blend easily with all manner of meat, bread, or spread.

My favorite of the three was the green jalapeno, followed by the yellow habanero. Both allowed the pepper to be showcased front and center with very little additional spice or herb encumbering the vegetal flavors. Like I said, they weren’t spicy, unfortunately, but at the very least, they imparted a more developed flavor onto meat. A zesty warmth, if you will, disappointing for the habanero as we approached that with trepidation only to find that it was bland as all hell. As for the chipotle and garlic, while I liked it, it wasn’t too far from the Cholula or taco sauce I typically use back home. Tasty, but not really hot. They tried, though, and if that doesn’t say “delicious end of the world snack” to me, I don’t know what does! I’m looking forward to seeing these become a coveted item on the post-apocalyptic black market once all the Tabasco has been rationed for emergency energy supplements. Vive la France!

Verjus, Paris

When my mother and family were here a few weeks back, we decided to try a tasting menu from a new, but quickly lauded restaurant in Paris a few blocks down from their apartment. Verjus has already been tagged and bagged by the likes of David Lebovitz and Barbra Allen, so it’s well-known, but it is well-worth a try if you’re keen on a multi-course tasting menu (not a formule) and aren’t interested in ponying up upwards of $600 per person on Pierre Gagnaire. The tasting menu at Verjus features eight courses, with a few treats in between, and a sweet, intimate atmosphere for any manner of event.

Because it was a few days before Thanksgiving, the restaurant paid homage to the holiday with a tastefully festive menu. Strangely enough, though, none of the items incorporated turkey! We started with an amuse bouche of rosemary egg nog and a cheddar cracker topped with wild rice and a cinnamon espuma. (My more comprehensive notes on this are lost on my no-longer functioning iPod, but I will try to remember the components as best as I can.)
This two-part bite wasn’t exactly coherent together, but definitely got us in the winter spirit. The rosemary nog was served in a carefully cut eggshell, with the cracker balanced on top. It was a mildly sweet hors d’ouevre not unlike something you’d pick up off a tray at a holiday party.

Our next course dabbled into Nordic holiday traditions- smoked Basque salmon in thin shavings with heirloom radishes, pumpkinseed oil, dried olive powder, grapefruit segments, and fennel. The salmon was impeccable- firm and flavorful on its own with a wonderful, subtle smokiness. It gave Nova lox a run for its money! With the earthiness of the oil and bitter olive powder, it made for an intriguing plate. The radishes cut the intensity of the flavors and added a bit of a spice to it. However, the grapefruit and fennel seemed disconnected, as though they’d hopped onto this dish from another. Their acidity clashed with the rest of the items.
We opted not to go for the wine tasting, but requested this bottle of wine in the middle of our salad course. A quiet, tight, young Hermitage with strong, if fleeting notes of black olive and inky cherries.

Following the fish course was a hearty salad of pork belly, Parmesan cheese, porcini mushrooms, and baked grapes with greens. It was a dish that had the potential to have a stupendous balance of flavors. Unfortunately, the distribution and amount of each ingredient caused it to fall somewhat flat. I only found two huge strips of pork belly, perfectly crisped and meaty, and wished they’d been cut up in smaller chunks. The mushrooms, which I ate due to my tasting menu clause (see Wd~50) were paper-thin and melted on the tongue with the cheese, a pleasurable duality. The grapes were the only element I felt were neglected. My dish had three of them at the bottom. They were delightful and jammy, so I was surprised to see them thrown on as an afterthought.

The next two dishes, a pasta and meat course, were executed much more swiftly. The pasta, an intimate preparation of chicken foie gras and prune cappeletti with crispy sesame sweetbreads in a rosemary chicken broth, was comforting and rustic with an international flair. If the chefs at Verjus tire of the restaurant racket, they could surely make a killing selling freshly-made pasta like this one. The prunes, dark and sweet, lent a richness to the dish without weighing it down. This dish made everything- the wine, the atmosphere, and the music (appropriately, AIR) merge together seamlessly, toeing the line so beautifully between the unctuousness of Gallic country ingredients and new American cuisine. My favorite of the evening.

The steak dish was cleverly done, using ingredients that recalled farm-to-table dinners back in the States. For French standards, it was on the interpretive side, using French ingredients- bone marrow, rare steak, and carrots with a few unexpected international treats like almond and cardamom. Everything tasted meaty and simply adorned, with a crisp, tender texture.

Our final savory course was a cheese supplement, featuring cheeses aged by Maitresse Fromagere Madame Hisada. One was a Basque Cantal, a Comte, and an ash-coated chevre, accompanied by house-pickled red currants, olives, and thin, sushi-like shavings of cucumber. All were delicious, but with a little mixing and matching, I found myself spearing cubes of the buttery, grassy Cantal with a currant more than once.

Desserts were served together, starting with a lemon and bergamot curd atop a brown butter crust with soft and crispy meringues. The cookies were mixed on top, so one bite could be a fluffy, sweet puff of a mouthful, another, a crispy exterior yielding to citrine delight inside. Light, effervescent, and not too sweet, although the additional lime zest on top was a bit of a shock to the senses– the curd had an extremely concentrated flavor.

Our final dessert, decidedly more autumnal and reminiscent of the hectic pace of autumn as well. Pumpkin spice cake with Chai ice cream, walnut meringue pieces, carrot jelly, candied yuzu, whipped mascarpone, and salted caramel. For a dish with so much going on, it came together well, although frankly, I preferred to treat it as a fondue, using the dense pumpkin cake as a base for each component rather than tasting them all together. The carrot jelly, pure and unsweetened, was my favorite, along with the almost aggressively salted caramel. The perfect ending to such a seasonal meal.
Verjus is boldly going where no classic French restaurant has gone before- to the boundaries of Modern American cuisine! Its quiet ease and eclecticism causes it to stand above and beyond the stuffy three-course prix fixe menus on either side of the Tuileries. It is definitely somewhere I’d go back to, whether for a tasting menu or just a simple glass of wine.

La Fermiere Riz au Lait au Rhum-Raisin

Cole Porter’s song has a few things right. Paris is great in the springtime, yes. Romantic in the fall. Sizzling in the summer, attractive in the winter. However, we encounter a loophole of dastardly clever proportions when he casually brushes over the ever-generic and wide range of “drizzling.” What kind of drizzling, Cole Porter? Because right now, in Paris, it’s definitely not the kind of liplocking drizzle featured in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or even A Perfect Storm. It’s spastic, cold and drives people indoors. If you tried to kiss, your lips would bleed profusely from the brush of friction against chapped, dead exposed body parts. 

Which is why I picked up this pudding. Fumbling its glass jars in my gloved, frozen fingers, I realized I needed some sort of summery diversion to distract from the slow transformation from Paris to dark Gotham City at 10AM. Recently, for reasons yet unexplained, La Fermiere has released its new Negrita rum-spiked rice pudding in the middle of winter. Intrigued by the bright packaging and summery motif, I decided to give it a try.

I’ve written about La Fermiere before. They make a solid quality pudding with some of the best, if superfluous, packaging I’ve ever seen. I hadn’t had the opportunity to try their new rice pudding line, so I figured this would be a good one to cut my teeth on, so to speak. To my surprise, it was spiked with a healthy dose of booze, its sharpness softened by the milky pudding base. In turn, the deep flavor of the rum, almost molasses-tinged, ensured that the pudding would not be too sweet. A very symbiotic combination.

The pudding, looser in texture than your average Kozy Shack, felt more homemade and rustic than the starchy puddings of home. It had less rice to cream, making it more like a soupy creme anglaise, but was still very pleasing. The coup de grace was the addition of raisins– they absorbed most of the rum and were plump, adding a bright burst of flavor to the base. It was a clever take on an old classic– something that I imagine might be fun to whip up for the family at home, grandma included!

Food Fun in Frankfurt, Germany

I spent a few days (okay, about 40 hours) in Frankfurt, Germany, earlier this week. Like my June trip to Seattle, I tried to fit as much as I possibly could into a very short amount of time. I arrived at 6AM Tuesday morning, and spent my first morning acclimating myself with the streets and practicing my esszet (ß) to the chagrin of the people around me.
The first stop on my list was the Kaisermarkthalle, a large daily indoor market with meat, fish, cheese, and specialty food vendors. The Kaisermarkthalle is very pretty and open, with large windows to let the sun shine in. I picked up my first meal in Germany here, as well as some gifts for friends and family before heading off on my walk.

This is mett, a traditional pork tartare sandwich. I watched the quiet woman grind the pork in front of me- curly, creamy-white pieces of fat shaved on pink meat, packed with sweet, juicy pieces of onion atop a freshly baked bun slathered with mustard. Yes, it’s raw pork. No, I didn’t get sick, although in retrospect, it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to eat on an empty stomach at 8AM, but you live and learn, right? What was really amazing, though, was the apple juice, or burg apfelsaft, I had with the sandwich. This was the premier cru, single-origin, artisanal apple juice of my dreams. It blew fresh cider out of the water with a clean, crisp, very concentrated apple flavor, like sticking a straw in a Golden Delicious. I figured it would be a good introduction to another Frankfurt specialty, apfelwein, which I definitely didn’t want to start drinking so early on!

There were plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, and even a few flower vendors.

On my way back, I stumbled across the Christmas market, a famed favorite in Frankfurt. Plenty of vendors, from handcrafted ornament sellers to pretty young girls hawking griebenbrot, (fat-smeared bread with crisp onions) a winning combination if I’ve ever seen one, there’s always something fun to find and see. I walked by when they were preparing their wares for the day. The temptation for fresh, hot currywurst was hindered only by the rain trickling down from the sky.

Back near my hostel, (I swear I didn’t plan this) another small farmer’s market was setting up for the lunchtime crowd- financiers from the Deutschebank across the street and hungry travelers popping out of the Metro. After getting lost and briefly ending up in the red light district of the city, I was ready for a little lunch. Look at the above photo and see if you can guess what I ordered!

That’s right, smoked wild boar sausage with spicy, sinus-clearing fresh mustard on a buttered bun. Perfection. It was snappy and had just the right amount of fat. It was heavily smoked and seasoned, so I’m not sure that I’d be able to tell identify its swinely origins in a blind test. Regardless, on a chilly day, it was exactly what I needed. Paired with a glass of crisp Riesling to cut the rich flavor, it beat a sit-down restaurant meal hands down.

Dinner that night (and the night after) was delicious pasta, courtesy of the free pasta party at the hostel. I wasn’t very adventurous the next day, as I had a few important things to get done, so I ate a quick breakfast and went on my way.

However, later on that day, I was in the business district of Frankfurt and walked by a currywurst stand I’d seen reviews of online. That stand was Best Worscht in Town, a sharp, varied stand with sauces and spices atop various links of meat, not to mention some of the friendliest service I’ve ever seen. A casual inquiry into t-shirts had the young waiter nearly tugging the shirt off his back to give me after seeing that they were out of clean ones. I didn’t take the shirt, but I did order a hot plate of the currywurst of the month. Luck had it that it was a speculoos-infused currywurst, with speculoos cookie paste mixed into the curry sauce and spicy cookie crumbs on top. This was incredible, and probably one of the best meals I’ve eaten in Europe so far. The sausage was crispy and robustly spicy on its own. When doused with the sauce and seasoning, bracingly intense in flavor, it was utterly blissful. The perfect way to bid Frankfurt goodbye- until next time, that is!

Pago World of Nature: Asia, Africa, and Amazon

Sometimes my best-laid efforts tend to fall apart. It’s not that I don’t try hard, or that I don’t put enough effort into the game, it’s more what I see as a crossing of wires. A little bit of handiwork that trips me up every time. What I’m trying to say is, even when I make a grocery list, even when I set myself a budget, write prices down, and pass by the 15 Euro three-pack of truffled mustard, a salty tear in the corner of my eye, inevitably, strangely, somehow, 10 Euro’s worth of limited-edition juice makes its way into my basket.

I honestly don’t know how this happened, especially when I’d spent ten minutes mentally calculating the best value of juice I could potentially purchase, given the number of fruits in each bottle and the price per kilo. Why I’d then gone and picked up the most expensive juice, put it in my basket, and then hurried back for its siblings, remains a mystery to me.

And yet, here we are.

My initial reaction is to blame Dillinger for my Pago addition, yet realizing that this addiction manifested itself long before and after his departure brings the blame squarely back in my quart. I see what I did there. Regardless, I’m now the proud owner of three empty bottles of limited-edition Pago World of Nature juice, in Africa, Amazon, and Asia flavors. They sound like a majestic theme park attraction. These are special, not only because they are themed, much like a half-hearted Bat Mitzvah, like the above three continents/places-that-begin-with-A-because-gee-Pago-America-didn’t-want-to-anyway, but because their fruits are sourced exclusively from these continents/loosely-defined regions as well.

Pago Asia has Thai pineapple with Indian mango, Taiwanese lychee, pure coconut water and tamarind and 100% less Szechuan pepper, much to my dismay, Pago Africa has South African grapes with pineapple, pink guava, the marula “elephant” fruit, and hot pepper, and Pago Amazon has Brazilian oranges, passion fruit, bananas and the acerola, which I’ve heard some women find to be extremely sensitive to the touch. Pago Amazon, you devil!

With all three juices, I could taste the raw, harsh Vitamin C radiating down my throat, scalding any and all germs on its way to my digestive system. The Amazon unfortunately bore the brunt of this vital assault, and combined with its overarching sweetness, ended up tasting like a fancy Juicy Juice, minus the story and the idyllic innocence of childhood. Pago Asia fared better, its sweetness tamed by the coconut water and earthy notes of tamarind. It was my favorite of the three, and had a nice tang to it. It was the only one whose components all shone through. Pago Africa was a tough one. I wanted to love it as I am conditioned to love almost anything that contains hot peppers and grapes and baby elephants, but was unimpressed by the muddled flavors and abrasive prank-levels of spice at the end of each sip. Pago describes its World of Nature array as having a “dazzling, worldly presentation.” Ultimately, though, this cross-continental trip was derailed by inconsistency and the juice equivalent of handsy TSA agents.