Bourdain

Well it took me six entries before I mentioned him but here we are. When I was fresh out of culinary school I read Kitchen Confidential. The book Anthony Bourdain wrote that he thought, “No one will read.” I have to be honest it changed my life forever. This book slanted my view on my chosen profession and made me adopt several life-long philosophies about food, cooking, and the people in the restaurant business.

Things from Kitchen Confidential that I hold/held as gospel: Chain restaurants SUCK, servers aren’t very bright, women don’t belong in a professional kitchen (unless they do pastry work), and drinking and drugs are part and parcel of the industry. Some of these things have stayed with me for my whole career up to and including my work as an instructor at a culinary school, some of them have changed and some of them have had to be abandoned entirely.

I must say that Bourdain’s show on the Travel Channel is absolutely the best show on T.V. Where else can you watch a fifty year old classically trained French bistro cook of middling ability traipse around the Amazon in search of ayahuasca a hallucinogenic tea drank by the Aztecs? Or see him eat at El Bulli the greatest restaurant in the world and actually be intimidated by the meal.

What I love most about Anthony Bourdain is his desire to show the world what restaurant work is really like. He takes you to places that restaurant people would really eat at. His view on what is good, what is great, and what is shit are like mine because he is a cook. I truly believe that once restaurants break you, become a little off, a little touched, a little crazy. To make it brief; he talks my language and although I don’t work the line sixty hours a week anymore and I am more concerned with quality of life than the quality of the fish being delivered I still think he is the most insightful food journalist/writer/T.V. personality ever.

I ate vegetarian?!

http://www.amarindiadayton.com/index.htm
Last night I had occasion to dine with my friends Emily and Ian at Amar India. This is a Dayton Indian food institution that never fails to deliver. I ordered the vegetable pakora, a deep fried spinach and potato fritter for a starter. These were light and crisp not dense and doughy like most Indian places. For an entrée I ordered Saag Panner, a combination of cheese curds in a creamy a spicy sauce with spinach. Also I ordered my favorite, garlic naan bread. Both of these items were well done also but I would have preferred a few more of the cheese curds in my entrée. Ian ordered Chicken Tika Saag. Chicken cooked in a tandoori oven, diced, and then added to the same Saag sauce that was my entrée. He ordered his at a spice level of 3 and that is the threshold of spicy for me. I like spicy food but if it gets to the point where one can’t enjoy the taste of the food it becomes a liability as far as I am concerned. Emily ordered Malai Kofta a mix of vegetables ground and shaped like meatballs and served in a tomato sauce spiked with raisins and nuts. I had never had this dish but I was very impressed. Our service was adequate, our server was timid and shy due to a language barrier but he got the job done. At one point in the meal he was reprimanded by the owner a few feet from our table so we felt sorry for him for the rest of the meal and I for one “pity-tipped.” My only complaint was that Amar tends to be on the pricey side for this type of cuisine. Our bill was over $65! C’mon we’re talking rice, bread, and vegetables! I will say that we had a good time and the food was great! 8 out of 10.

Mac n Cheese Night!

Last night I made dinner for my friends Ian and Stacie pictured above. Ian has a strong love of my homemade mac n cheese so for X-mas I gave him a coupon for a pan of it. We ran into Stacie the evening prior as we were out on a man date and we invited her as well.

Good company and good food were the highlights of the evening. I had to make two pans of pasta, as Stacie is a vegetarian. In the Ian batch I started with pancetta and both had Herkimer county cheddar, Manchego, and Boursin in the Béchamel (read “cheese sauce”). We also had fresh brussel sprouts in brown butter (a new experience for Stacie) as well as red grapes and we finished the meal with cream puffs from Dorothy Lane (cream puffs FOR cream puffs!) As you can see from the photographic evidence, a good time was had by all!

Rue Dumaine Insane!

This past Saturday I had the privilege of dining at Rue Dumaine in Centerville. Chef Anne Kearney does a wonderful job in the kitchen. Her pedigree includes a best new chef in the country from Food & Wine magazine circa 1998. I am partial to the restaurant because they always make a fuss over me when I go there as one of my students works there. There were five in our party and after waiting around fifteen minutes for our reserved table we were seated.
Skinny Rick, the student, sent our table an amuse bouche of chicken pate on toast with cornichons, country mustard, and a berry compote. I was weary of the berry compote with liver but it really worked and I have to say that the pate is hands down the best use of chicken liver I have ever ran across. The texture is not grainy or coarse like liver can be if over cooked. There is a light, airy, whipped texture to the pate and the taste has a smoked bacon quality to it but with the richness of butter. Amazing. The first course post amuse bouche was a scallop sausage, again courtesy of Skinny Rick. This dish is essentially scallop mousse packed into a hog casing and pan-fried. It was paired with a simple salad and was, as with all of Rue Dumaine’s charcuterie, very tasty. The nice thing about this sausage was that it was not too dense as shellfish sometimes has a tendency to do when over processed. Next up was rillette of duck crepes finished in a red wine and shallot gastrique. These were succulent. The duck that is scrap from the confit entrée on the menu is taken and whipped with citrus, mustard, and crème fraiche and wrapped up into tender little pancakes and finished with a tart and sweet red wine sauce as a means of balancing the richness of the duck. When entrees were served I ordered the braised lamb short ribs, which were served with a reduction of the braising liquid, battonet of carrots and sweet potato gnocchi. The lamb was great it was tender and full of flavor but the gnocchi were less than impressive. They were dense, under seasoned, and lacking sweet potato flavor. Dessert was ordered, we chose the sorbet trio apple/tarragon, raspberry, and mango. The stand out here is the apple tarragon. It subtly cleanses the palate while providing a touch of much needed sweetness after such a rich meal. We also received the chocolate hazelnut torte as well as a traditional crème brulee. The cake was passable but nothing to right home about. The crème brulee was under cooked and runny. The crust on top was nicely browned but a little thin for my taste. The real problem was the under cooked custard. Crème brulee needs be dense rich and fully set in order to be great this was more like a vanilla pudding. In addition to these two desserts we ordered the cheese course which I always excellent at Rue Dumaine. Chef Kearney selects handcrafted cheeses from around the country and always has a great variety. This time the cheese course featured Mt. Tam a creamy, buttery, brie like cheese with a hint of earthiness, Pepato an Italian style farmer’s cheese with peppercorns, Pond Hopper yeasty goat’s milk cheese, and Point Reyes Blue a Jersey cow’s milk blue cheese that is creamy and pungent.
Lastly, let’s talk service. Our server was a little “flexed” as I would say. He seemed to be put off by the lack of wine ordered at our table. Then it was all down hill from there. He seemed to be a little timid, confused, and lacked confidence in himself and the menu. But let’s remember that he is a server so he is a lower form of life, like one of those fish from the bottom of the ocean where the eyes move independent of the head. I would have preferred better service but both Skinny Rick and Chef Anne made an appearance at our table to make sure we enjoyed the food so that made up for the uneven service form our waiter. All in all I would recommend Rue Dumaine to anyone looking for an authentic French Bistro experience with Contemporary American flare. It’s pretty damned good for Dayton Ohio! 7.5 out of 10

Mex-a-Hole!

Dayton is host to an ever-growing community of Latin Americans. Which is great because it means we might actually begin to get some decent Latin cuisine in our little town. The way trends and tastes work in the U.S. is that they start on the coasts and slowly migrate to Dayton. Because of this we are usually about ten years behind the curve with food, sad I know. Just now we are seeing an influx of Asian food in the Miami Valley, again about ten years after Japanese was hip on the west coast. I digress…MEX-A-HOLE!
My friends and I have an affectionate little name for a new-ish Mexican restaurant deep in the heart of the red-neckery that is East Dayton. The restaurant’s name is Taqueria Mixteca or simply “Mex-a-Hole.” I had occasion to dine their today and can I say, “Wow!” I have been to this little hole-in-the-wall on several occasions and it is always so good. It is located in an old burger barn and half of that failed restaurant’s old signage is still in place and there is a defunked drive through as well as several weird put in a quarter and get a rubber sticky hand type machines. But the food, oh my God, the food! Their menu is of reasonable size and offers a good sampling of authentic Mexican food. The great thing about Mex-a-Hole is the size of the portions. I have never spent more than ten dollars at this place and I have always had more food than I could eat. My usual is to get their chorizo enchiladas as I have an affinity for all things pork. My cohort ordered the nachos Maya. When the plates were delivered by one of only two waitresses employed by Mex-a-Hole we were, as always, pleased. The chorizo here is fatty and flavorful without being too greasy or processed tasting. Also it is not overly spicy. If the guest desires heat several fantastic house-made salsas are placed at each table upon the guest’s arrival. The meat is folded into warm tortillas that are red in color and have a texture similar to flat bread. All this served with gooey white farmer’s cheese and rice and beans. As for the nachos they were full of flavor and the chicken was braised to perfection. The toppings on Nick’s mountain of food included guacamole, pickled jalapenos, onion, salsa (house-made), farmer’s cheese, and beans. Now I realize that we are talking authentic Mexican food and I defy you to find a restaurant in Mexico that serves nachos to anyone who isn’t some tourist gringo but these things are off the hook! Authenticity aside this is one hell of a plate of food for seven bucks, besides this is Ohio.
If you have not been to Mex-a-Hole and you live in Dayton you are doing yourself and your stomach a disservice. Get your ass down to East Third St. today!

What did you order?

Hello and welcome! I intend this blog to be about food. More specifically, places that I eat (great and small), the books I am currently reading on food, my impressions of "Celebrity Chefs", anything I may be cooking at the moment, stories from restaurants I have worked in, and general rants about the state of food and cooking in America. I invite comment and opinions but realize that my opinions are always right. My world is very black and white and there are many rules.

So, what qualifies me to write about food? I have been in the restaurant/food industry for my entire adult life. My first job was washing dishes at thirteen in my Dad's bar and I am currently an instructor at a Sinclair Community College in the Culinary Arts Department, specializing in Garde Manger and Charcuterie. I have never had a job that was not food related. I realize that this does not necessarily make me an expert on food and certainly not writing about food. I am doing this as an experiment and as a means of entertaining my friends and myself.

Enjoy the blog and please go out to dinner!

Current Reads

I am reading Ma Gastronomie By Ferdinand Point. Essentially he took cuisine from Escoffier and made it accessible to the people. Yes, Escoffier is the father of modern cooking and the vast majority of all cooking technique that I teach comes from this master. But what is amazing about Point is that he took what Escoffier was doing lightened the sauces, elevated the staff, and made cuisine accessible to all walks of life. He also trained or had a profound effect on modern day star chefs like Paul Bocuse, Daniel Boulud, Jean and Pierre Troisgros, Alain Chapel, and Thomas Keller.

Ferdinand Point also was the first to look at the restaurant as a whole. In his eyes the Chef was not relegated just to the kitchen. He had the mind set that if it were his restaurant and his name on the door that he should be involved in every aspect of the dining experience. He in fact was the first “Chef/Owner”, a person who was concerned with the guest's overall impression. Some of the stories from this fantastic volume include the Chef indulging in two magnums of champagne before 9:00am, as well as his long running practical joke of getting new delivery drivers from the market Les Halles in Paris too drunk to drive back from their country side delivery route.

The food that Ferdinand Point created at his restaurant La Pyramide has stood the test of time and as I read the book some fifty years after his death the cuisine is at once fresh and interesting as well as being a representation of classical French cooking. I highly recommend any one with a passion for food or restaurants to read this book!