St. Louis Eats and Drinks With Joe and Ann Pollack

Red Truck Bakery

Lovely little towns are not a dime a dozen, and finding another one is always a pleasure. The outskirts of such spots are almost inevitably deceiving, so it wasn't until my second visit to Warrenton, VA, that I found myself happily neck-swiveling in the neighborhood around the old courthouse.

This being Virginia, there's an historical anecdote about every couple of feet, of course - I thought about Bill McClellan, whose possible ancestor, the general, gave his farewell speech here, as a number of plaques and signs pointed out. It's near the Virginia wine country, and the countryside itself - well, it's easy to understand why the English settlers felt at home here; the drive from I-66 and Manassas has spots that look like the West Country of England.

The World's Greatest Daughter-in-Law and I had slipped out of preparation for family festivities and aimed for a spot Marian Burros had written about in the New York Times. Alas: We reached the Red Truck Bakery after every sandwich in the place had sold out. Clearly this was one of those occasions when the tough get going. The vegan sweet potato-plantain-coconut soup was velvet, a hit of Thai red curry in it, rich and wondrous. Foccacia alongside had fresh rosemary and a glaze that looked like sugar but was sea salt. And the house coffee was splendid. We ate at a communal table next to the old service station's sales room - one bay is for dining and the other is where owner Brian Noyes bakes his magic - said table being made from timbers of a barn that General Sheridan set afire as he marched through the Shenandoah Valley.

Lots of local ingredients including local eggs for the egg salads and housemade pickles for it, too. Check the website, where the soup of the day is also announced. We left with an armful of bakery goods, including some caramel and peanut cookies, a loaf of bread with oatmeal, cranberries and walnuts and - fanfare, if you please, maestro - a moonshine cake. Noyes is using real, legal, 'shine in this, and while it makes things distinctive, it's not so deeply alcoholic that kids go "oh, yuck!" Lightly sweet, and a little spicy, it's a ring cake with a drizzle of chocolate ganache on it. Much polite argument over the last piece.

They also do mail order, including pies made with their own mincemeat when that season arrives. Not far from the Blue Ridge Parkway, and Luray Caverns as well, so lots of excuses to go visit. And yes, there's breakfast, too.

 

Red Truck Bakery

22 Waterloo Street at the Courthouse

Warrenton, VA

540-347-2224

www.redtruckbakery.com

Breakfast and Lunch Mon.-Sat.

Credit cards: Yes

New York City: La Antojeria Popular

Once upon a time, lower Manhattan, say, below 14th Street, had not been Discovered except by the locals and a few arty types. It was a series of real neighborhoods. Many small businesses were located on the first 2 floors of 5- and 6- story buildings, apartments upstairs. The first floor was actually about halfway below ground level, with stairs to go down to the door and the small area across the front of the building where pots of shrubs tried unsuccessfully to hide trash cans. Windows gave a truncated view of life on the street, and ceilings were low - there was a certain feeling of being in a burrow, but that added to the romance of any restaurant in such a setting. And there were plenty of them, cozy dark spots run by families dishing up coq au vin or spaghetti or kebabs, travel posters on the wall and stubby candles here and there. (Fans of old, old movies will immediately recognize the setting; Hollywood always knew romantic.)

So when I saw Antojeria La Popular, walked in the front door and down a few steps, I couldn't help but smile. No travel posters, and a modern bar, but cozy and lit like a scene from one of those old movies. The food is Mexican, but it's like few Mexican restaurants around. They're doing, to mix Spanish metaphors, Mexican tapas. No cliches, including no margaritas, but plenty of interesting cocktails. Sangria, too, red and white, as well as limited wine and beer.

Some of the dishes work well for sharing. Others, well, not so much except for close personal friends. But all of them we tried were delectable. By chance, the only ones that had semi-serious heat were the first two that arrived, which are shown in the picture. (Note the sign on the table.) Four different ceviches are available; our Distrito Federal contained sirloin slices as well as shrimp, tilapia, serrano chile and red onion in a slightly thickened sauce described only as a Triblin sauce. Not particularly handsome but tasty. Alongside was the creamy, warm corn dish Tabasco, named for the state in Mexico, not the sauce. It was almost a pudding in consistency, with strips of roasted poblano in it, giving it a slow-growing kick, but that was partly offset by plenty of Chihuahua cheese.

Continuing, came next tostadas, one called Michoacan, with chicken in a mole sauce topped with lettuce and a toasted sesame crema, and another, Zacatecas, with pieces of sirloin and a green sauce. Tucked into a pita was a combination of shrimp, bacon, avocado, and a little poblano chile, lightly dressed in a smoky mayonnaise, particularly remarkable. And then a real surprise, raw tuna diced with mango, just a little hit of habanero pepper (don't be frightened - this really sings) and again just a little binding with mayo, all on a large, thin slice of jicama to provide crunch. Practically brilliant.

Yes, flan is a cliche of a dessert. But that was what was available. This is probably the best flan I've ever eaten, exquisitely silky and rich but not rubbery, and somehow managing to be delicate. Like the seviche, not remarkably beautiful but worth pursuing.

A few blocks below Houston Street, it's possible for pre-theater dining for some of the tiny off--off Broadway spots, or to finish off a day of shopping in the neighborhood. (And the Spring Street subway station is at the other end of the block for tired feet.) Very small, very cozy, good people-watching. And they offer different kinds of chilaquiles, a sort of scrambled egg with tortilla dish, on weekends,  and of Mexican chocolate, so it's a brunch option, too. Plenty of vegetarian and gluten-free choices are noted on the menu.

 

 La Antojeria Popular

50 Spring Street, New York City

646-476-3567

www lapopularnyc com  

Lunch and Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes 

Wheelchair access: No

Smoking: No

Tapas: $4-$7

New York City: Bar Boulud

The neighborhood of Lincoln Center in Manhattan is full of venues for music, dance and theater, and that means plenty of opportunities for restaurateurs to offer brunch, lunch, dinner and post-performance noshing. And sure enough, the area is teeming with options. One restaurateur with excellent credentials is Daniel Boulud, who first gained major acclaim running the kitchen at Le Cirque. Soon he opened his own restaurant, Daniel, where Joe and I met him one night as we dined with Tim and Nina Zagat. (Apparently, in the kitchen were two guys whose names you might recognize, Jim Fiala and Carey McDowell, who ended up here in St. Louis.)

Daniel Boulud traded his whites for a suit and tie, and now has a group of carefully planned outposts, including three bearing his name across the street from Lincoln Center. One is a bakery/retail/seafood bar, called Epicerie Bolud, flanked to the east by Boulud Sud, which focuses on Mediterranean food, and to the south is Bar Bolud, where I ended up with friends.

In a storefront whose large windows frame the glittering Metropolitan Opera across Dante Park, the arched ceiling somehow manages to hold the noise to a manageable din, notable these days. With only slight effort, we could hear each other across the table. We opted for a series of small bites rather than having entrees, and no one gave us a fish eye over that choice; indeed, service was as good as you'd expect from a high-end New York restaurant that was jumping. And jumping it was; don't try this without a reservation unless you have a secure backup plan.

An amuse of gougeres, still warm, arrived and met with universal acclaim. My pals hadn't come across them before - they're a choux paste dough, what cream puffs are made of, that has cheese beaten into it. No filling required; the interior is soft and slightly chewy, the outside crisp. These were perhaps an inch in diameter, and we could probably have eaten a dozen of them.

The house version of a salade lyonnaise is close to traditional, a lovely tangle of curly, crisp endive, lightly dressed with vinaigrette, thick chunks of bacon, and a perfectly poached egg. What makes it distinctive is not just the sourdough croutons, but quickly sauteed lobes of chicken liver, giving another layer of savory flavor and a creamy texture to the mixture.

Soups should be superb at a restaurant with French bloodlines, and both ours were. The mini-tureens are heavy enough to keep them properly hot, and while a celery and chestnut soup was lush, velvety and as rich as the dress circle across the street at the opera house, its balance of flavors and cream didn't mutter, "Too much, too much." Fish soup featured on the pre-theater menu was a cream version, too, equally smooth and punctuated by brunoise of potato and several mussels barely poached. Brunoise? Beautiful word. It's chef-talk for dice about an eighth of an inch across.

From the charcuterie list came a slice of terrine made with leg of lamb, with some eggplant and sweet potato added in for texture as well as taste, little hits of garlic and pepper and one of the sweet spices singing along. The single letdown in the meal was the beef tartare, good quality beef, to be sure, but topped with what seemed to be a mayonnaise type of sauce, rather than the traditional egg yolk. Who knows if Health Department regulations or a caution in this age of immunodeficiencies and lawsuits helped this come to pass? It seemed to be part of a texture problem that surprised, a gooeyness that was unexpected.

But the dessert....ah, the dessert. Called le lion (and pronounced like the cat, not the city in France), it was held in shape by a shallow cup-shaped chocolate cookie that floated in a cloud of passion fruit- and yuzu-flavored whipped cream. Inside the cup, was a denser chocolate cream, more whipped cream on top, and then a scoop of chocolate-passion fruit ice cream, and yes, those are a few gold flakes on there. Why gild the lily when you can gild chocolate? Sheer bliss. Who knew passion fruit and chocolate could make such wow together?

There's a late-night menu, a pre-theater special, and they do brunch. But call ahead, even if it's only a half-hour's lead time. Restaurants in this neighborhood get very busy, even the so-so ones. And this is far beyond that.

 

Bar Boulud

1900 Broadway, New York City

212-595-0303

Website

Lunch Mon.-Fri., Dinner nightly, Brunch Sat.-Sun.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Fair

Smoking: No

Entrees: $28-$40

London: Classic British Eats

Tea, fish and chips, and a full English breakfast marked my stopover in London en route to Italy this fall. Herewith, the tale.

Eating in Italy

More pictures of food in Italy and a link to a story about it.

Here's an antipasto table, something often greeting guests on entering restaurants.

And a food market in Rome, this one in the Campo di Fiori:

Finally, a patient would-be diner awaiting lunch opening at a small restaurant in the Trastevere
neighborhood in Rome:

Gelato, and a Little More in Rome

Somehow, nearly always my first meal when I visit Italy is gelato. The post-arrival stroll designed to lift the fog of jet lag inevitably passes one, two, three gelato spots, and for a while I'm resistant, just too glad to be back and too curious about what's around the next corner. But then I lag, still doggedly hoofing it along, but thinking about where to go, where to go...and I end up with three scoops of gelato and a broad smile.

Gelato is everywhere, and don't think it's just a tourist thing - although there is definitely some that is made more for the, uh, unsuspecting. The quick giveaway is visible from the front door: Garish colors. Real flavors of gelato don't seem to glow in the dark. A ripe banana is not bright yellow - it's more of a cream color. No berry in existence gives an electric blue juice. And Sarah, the food tour guide of whom I wrote last week, says that billowing piles of gelato are another giveaway that this is the industrial stuff. The immense dollops looking like so much Marshmallow Fluff are, I admit, appealing, especially to an American eye accustomed to the more-is-better school. But the really good stuff is pretty subdued in color and seldom stays around long enough for the casual observer to notice mounds of it towering above the individual metal containers in the glass cases.

Gelato is not ice cream. It's lower in fat, and there is much less air beaten into the mixture than in ice creams. (Interesting side observation: Try lifting two or three different brands of ice cream that have the same size marked on them. Some will be heavier - usually the premium brands - because they have less air. This could lead to a discussion of the confusion between ounces of weight and ounces of volume, but that's for another time.) It's also softer than ice cream, as you will find with your first lick. And in Italy, it's quite acceptable to eat it as you walk. In fact, some gelaterias don't have seating room except for tables outside. There are gelateria chains; in Rome, Blue is ubiquitous and shudderingly garish. Online reviews range from "avoid at all costs" to "the best gelato in the world" - and that's just Google's first page. Not realizing it was a chain, I walked in to one, inspected the case (a common practice) and left post-haste.

But the good stuff? Ah, yes. On a side street between the Via del Corso and the Pantheon, I came across Giolitti at via degli Uffici del Vicario 40. I hear stories about lines at this place, but it's far enough from the Pantheon that it doesn't get the mobs constantly. The cone, or cono, in the picture holds blood orange, chocolate nougat and coconut. My first meal in Rome. No sidewalk tables, the street is too narrow, but indoor ones in an adjoining room.

San Crispino, near the Trevi Fountain, is Serious Gelato. But it''s far enough away that the mobs that clog the street around the surprisingly small fountain seldom make it there. Still, it's usually busy enough on its own. Two brothers make it using only seasonal ingredients and they're so serious that they don't sell cones, saying it interferes with the flavor. There's a chalkboard with a list of flavor combinations they suggest, which I ignored; if I'd had a second visit, I would have tried that. I had red currant, wonderfully tart, and caramel with bits of crunchy meringue throughout, absolutely dazzling. The muted colors of the long, narrow interior mirror the gelato colors. No seating. It's a couple of blocks east of the fountain, at via della Panetteria 42. Gelaterias don't give you spoons, but rather small plastic spades with which to eat, sort of a contemporary version of the cocktail sticks of yore. This is, I found after I got home, the gelato discussed in "Eat, Pray, Love".

Another Giolitti, not affiliated but run by a separate branch of the family, which is now in its fifth generation of making gelato, is in Testaccio at via Amerigo Vespucci 35. They offer whipped cream, panna, to top the gelato, and it comes out of a mixer that must date back to the 1930's. This is in-season gelato - they're open all year, but melon, for instance, is only made in summer, and apple in the autumn. Happily, chocolate is constantly available and so are many of the nut flavors. That's the mixer Just by the gentleman's elbow:

 

And not quite gelato but close is granita di cafe, coffee frozen and stirred intermittently as it's frozen to form large crystals and topped with softly whipped cream. Just off the piazza facing the Pantheon at via degli Orfani 84 (the sign says La Casa Del Caffe) is Tazza D'Oro Coffee, a coffee roaster and cafe. The espresso is excellent, but it's the granita di caffe that makes folks swoon. Pay at the register at the left and take your ticket to the hard-working guys at the bar. Tazza D'Oro smells wonderful, of course, and you can also buy beans and such. This is, by the way, the only place I found seriously pushy tourists, including three Asian women who stared at their granita di caffes for a while, reached over behind the bar when the baristas were busy elsewhere, grabbed a large container with tableware in it, and pushed off as much of the cream as they could into the container.

There are tables and chairs on the side street; otherwise, be like a real Italian and take it standing up. A don't-miss spot, and close enough to take your granita and sit on the steps of the fountain in front of the Pantheon.

Eating Italy Food Tours

I've come back from Rome with a new appreciation for the food there. Certainly food is one of the great pleasures of Italy, but the focus is usually on smaller cities like Bologna or regions like Sicily. Besides the restaurants - in Rome or wherever one visits - it's fun exploring the street markets and investigating the equivalent of supermarkets. And then there are food tours. (While this mostly seems a recent development, St. Louisan Robert Noah was giving food tours of Rungis, the wholesale food market of Paris as early as 1980.)

And so one morning I found myself getting off the subway at a stop named Pyramide (there really is a pyramid there) to meet the folks from Eating Italy Food Tours. This is an old neighborhood called Testaccio, former site of the city's slaughterhouses, thus deeply blue-collar and now slowly becoming gentrified.

The tours take about four hours. There's a lot of tasting, some easy walking with no hills, plenty of explanation, some lunch, and then dessert. The ebullient Sarah, an American from Ann Arbor who is studying to become a sommelier, was our guide, full of pleasure at what she was sharing with us.

Our group, which was eleven people, were American and British. We tasted things like cornetti, the Italian breakfast pastry, prosciutto, pecorino cheese with truffles in it, tiramisu (below),

15- and 30-year old balsamic vinegar, pizza, fresh buffalo mozzarella from real buffalos, salami made with Barolo wine and bruschetta created by Sarah on the spot in the new building for the Testaccio market with a couple of the vendors' wares. And then there was lunch, three kinds of pasta. We ended up at Giolitti, a gelato shop that is in its fifth generation of ownership. No funky, neon-colored piles of gelato here, just the pale pastels of real fruits and nuts, only those in season, and a circa-1930 mixer for the panna, or whipped cream.

The whole approach was a far cry from organized group tours run by jaded guides for people who are doing what they think tourists ought to do. Eating Italy Food Tours is run by people who like to eat for people who like to eat. Sarah said that it was common for her to run into people she had on tours a day or two before who've come back to the neighborhood to shop and stroll and eat, and after a couple of the (generous) samples, it's easy to understand why. It's 65 euros for adults, 45 for kids under 12, although we had none in our group. Between the food and the entertainment value, it's worth it.

 

Eating Italy Food Tours

 www.eatingitalyfoodtours.com

Pizza in Rome

I'm just back from Italy, with a couple of nights in London to kick things off. And, as usual, the food mainly fell into the category of More, Please. (Like New Orleans, it's not impossible to get a bad meal in Italy, but the odds are in your favor.) Plenty of tales to be told, but choosing at random, pizza in Rome is an easy place to start.

Yes, pizza began in Naples but Rome has taken to it with full abandon, and it's everywhere. Interestingly, there is, in effect, a daytime pizza and an evening pizza, each different. And please note that both of them are eaten by Romans, not just tourists. I dropped by Forno Campo di Fiori, facing the market on Campo del Fiori, (piazza Campo del Fiori, www.fornocampodifiori.com, closed Sunday) and twenty feet from the entrance, two elegantly dressed businessmen were standing, chowing down on some midmorning pizza. After all, when all you had for breakfast was a cup of espresso and perhaps a cornetto, similar to a croissant, you need something for elevenses. 

This daytime pizza, known as pizza al taglia, or pizza by the piece, are long rectangles, more than two feet, with a fairly thick crust. Pieces are cut off to order, easy enough to do with a gesture of the thumb and forefinger measuring to the person behind the counter, the price computed by weight. At Forno Campo di Fiori, they're known for their pizza bianca, which is just brushed with olive oil and a light sprinkling of salt, although the pizza rosso, with tomato sauce, is good, too. Visiting a street market invariably produces hunger pangs; the market on Campo di Fiori is, despite what I've read, mostly aimed at locals and has pretty much no food to eat as you walk except fruit and a guy who, in season, squeezes pomegranite juice to order, so the snack is particularly welcome. And eating on the street is very common here, so don't hesitate.

In another neighborhood, Testaccio, I had some pizza margherita, the classic with tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and fresh basil, in the daytime version, and it was remarkable. Volpetti Piu, via Alessandro Volta 8, just off via Marmorata, has more than just pizza, but it would be hard to get beyond the tangy sauce and perfect mozzarella for me to choose. That visit was part of a tour I took, and there'll be more on that in a further installment.

Why is night's pizza so different? Because it takes a wood-fired oven, and by law, they can't turn on those ovens until 7 p.m. Italians, of course, eat dinner late anyway, so don't bother showing up until around 8; even then, you'll be with other visitors. St. Louisans will be interested to know that these are thinner crusts than even we are accustomed to, and crisper.  

The pizza at Pizzeria da Baffetto 2, also near the Campo del Fiori at Piazza del Teatro Pompeo 18, arrives uncut (but served with a knife and fork - remember most Europeans don't eat it with their fingers) and delicious. I opted for some salami as a topping, sliced very thinly but with a little hit of heat to it. While the pizza was baking, I had fiori di zucca, fried zucchini blossoms, which are filled with a small stick of mozzarella and some anchovy, battered and deep-fried. Glorious, and that was before I realized there was anchovy in there as well, gilding the lily, or, in this case, the zucchini. (There's also the original da Baffetto near Piazza Navona at via del Governo Vecchio 114, www.pizzeriabaffetto.it .) 

 

As a side note, a pleasant conversation with a couple of honeymooners at the next table. She was vegetarian, and I asked about how that was going on the visit. "Fine," she said, "but sometimes I just want a salad, and they're difficult to find." I had just spent a week on a barge trip in northern Italy with a first-rate woman chef working the galley, and the guests and Silvia, the chef, had had a talk about salads, which generally come, if at all, as a side dish to the main course. So I talked about my newfound knowledge, and then she said, "I've gotten a few, at lunch. But they're never dressed. I like Italian dressing. Why can't I get Italian dressing in Italy?"

We talked about the cruets of olive oil and vinegar on the table. These days, it seems to be mostly balsamic, and on the barge, the balsamico was in a spray-top bottle that matched the oil cruet. But "Italian" (picture the fingers doing quotation marks here) dressing? Probably not.

Kinder's

Road trip! I suppose there are folks those two words don't cause a slight rise in the pulse rate, but it's no one that I know.  While the apple season is peaking early, there's still a good excuse to drive up to Calhoun County, IL, to buy apples, and perhaps some fresh-pressed cider if you're lucky. Lunch? I've got the place for you. 

And maybe it's just me, but this time of year, weekdays are even more fun, retaining that faint air of playing hookey.

New York Dim Sum

We wrote about it some years ago, but I re-visited Jing Fong in New York's Chinatown and wrote about it in Relish. Very comfortable for the solo diner, by the way, especially since the traditional dim sum portions are small. You can read about it here.