A Return to Detroit, with a new find....

DETROIT – A year ago, I made a pledge: No more complaining about Detroit. The dark days of Dearborn are long gone. The town itself and its people _ tough and unpretentious _ deserve respect, not ridicule. The old ballpark, Tiger Stadium, was iconic and the new, Comerica Field, is modern and excellent. The old, dreary combination of The Athaneum and Fishbones, dreary because of its lack of variety, has been replaced by more hotel choices and better restaurants.


The potential problem with this year’s postseason is not Detroit, but the lethal combination of Detroit and St. Louis, the equivalent of mixing bleach and ammonia. So many better combinations were once in play, such as a Giants-A’s World Series, a holy grail of gastronomy. Or New York-San Francisco. Or Oakland-Washington. A Detroit-San Francisco World Series would be welcome (and as fate would have it…)

By dint of taking out the Oakland A’s and nailing the Yankees to the floorboards to the tune of a four-game sweep in the League Championship Series, Detroit and its rolled-up sleeves earned the spot, which meant not only a second chance to win the World Series after losing to the Cardinals in 2006, but the recognition on my part to embrace Detroit.
And what wasn't to like? Every restaurant and bar in Detroit pumps Motown through the speakers and Jeff Daniels, from Dumb and Dumber (NOT the Newsroom) showed up for Game 3.

"Actually, it's a cardigan, but thanks for asking."

During last year’s Tigers-Rangers ALCS, my main objective was Roast (www.roastdetroit.com), an opportunity lost to a long rain delay that turned an afternoon game into an all-night affair. This year, it was an opportunity that would not pass by.

Roast, located at 1128 Washington Blvd, on the first floor of the Westin Book Cadillac hotel, is the brainchild of the well-known chef Michael Symon, who made various appearances on the Food Network. The theme of the restaurant, like its name suggests, is a celebration of meat. Lamb, pork, beef are all on an eclectic menu.

Nobody likes to be ridiculed, and when I saw the steak tartare on the menu I immediately thought back to Paris, to the French Open when I dined at the disappointing Le Castiglione, located in the First District, where in broken English a French customer commented that steak tartare was a French culinary joke to the world, that the French only make tartare to watch foreigners eat raw meat they wouldn’t feed a pet. It would have been the equivalent of Americans foisting off a hot dog as one of the country’s great culinary achievements, y’know, just for fun.

For clarification, I went to Chez Albert, the outstanding French restaurant in Amherst, Massachusetts, and partner Emmanuel Proust disavowed me of any notion that steak tartar is a French inside joke.

“No, no,” he said. “Steak tartare is a phenomenal dish. You start with the best cut of meat. In France, it is something we take very seriously. The problem, though, is in America. About three or four times a year, we put it on the menu and each time it is one of our worst sellers. Americans just won’t eat raw beef.”

And yet, at Roast, steak tartare was on the menu, with something of a twist – a fried egg on top.

The Roast ribeye...

Roast was a winner. A 16-ounce ribeye was a fine call, even though 16 ounces of beef is a bit, ahem, much. The creme brulee was a coconut-pumpkin, which was bold enough to be considered foolish. Still, it was good. As were the Brussels sprouts, believe it or not.

Box lunches and the Tigers routing the Yankees in a sweep, kept me from Opus One and Forty-Two Degrees North, two other highly rated Detroit spots. Since the Tigers are now in the World Series, there will be other chances next week.

The European Tour: Le Castiglione, Paris

Le Castiglione, Paris...A swing and a miss...

RESEARCH IS THE LIFEBLOOD of any journalist and on Day 2 the recommendations started coming in. Steve Tignor, who writes the Concrete Elbow column for Tennis.com and does terrific features for Tennis Magazine, suggested Au Moulin a Vent for a “good, bloody Chateaubriand.” At the TV compound at Roland Garros, there was talk of this joint that only served French fries and steak. No menus. You walk in, tell them how you want your steak cooked, and that, along with a homemade green spicy pesto sauce, is that.

The New York Times, obviously aware I was in town, offered a piece on the latest, greatest gastronomic craze in Paris: food trucks (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/world/europe/food-trucks-add-american-flavor-to-paris.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all). Yes, food trucks, like the ones from Temple University - but Temple didn't sell 10-euro cheeseburgers.

I settled for my own internet research and a highly rated choice was Le Castiglione, in the first district next to the hotel, in fact right across the street on Rue Castiglione. Castiglione, yes, yes, that name rings a bell.

Castiglione. Even in Paris, the Red Sox haunt me.

Le Castiglione (235 rue St. Honore, Paris, France) was a nice place with, like most European spots, a stylish outdoor terrace. Being directly across the street from the French-free Westin, it held promise as a late-night choice. http://www.tripadvisor.com/ rated it four of five stars (47 reviews).. Le Castiglione also had carpaccio on the menu, which is of course, a must. Was it to be, that the research would pay off, and that on consecutive nights, positive experiences would be had? Was it to be, simply, that the food in Paris was so good that you could, literally, fall out of bed and eat well?

NO...!
NO...!
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!


Let's first say this about Le Castiglione: the bartender made one terrific mojito. He muddled the mint with so much force it shook the restaurant, and I was the better for it. The carpaccio was solid, though not as thinly sliced as it should have been - but solid.

In Paris, the restaurants have monogrammed plates. Classy or tacky? You be the judge...

The main event, however, was for the second night in a row, beef tartare. And yes, this one realized my fears. It was terrible. It was mushy and wet. The consistency was similar to that of oatmeal. Even the French fries were soft. Days later, when my oldtime pal Michelle came to visit and I told her of my experience she said, "The chefs were laughing in French that another American dummy ordered the dog's dinner."

One awful meal...

For comparison's sake, let's use the eye test....

Tartare from Bar Tuileries....Note the care and craftsmanship. There is no argument.

BUT... The mojito was really good...

Story of my life

The Paris adventure is over, but the gastronomic tale is about to begin...stay tuned....HB

CARPACCIO: THE EUROPEAN TOURS, VOL. I



Note the portion size, but the tartare was quite dense.

 THE MOOD was set early, a Sunday morning walk on a 77-degree day through the Jardin Tuileries, then along the right bank of the Seine. The iPod provided the mood music: John Coltrane, Live in Antibes, 1965 – a phenomenal performance, nearly 50 minutes of “A Love Supreme” capped by a sly finale on soprano sax by Coltrane and special Pharoah Sanders.

The housekeeping came first: the Boy wanted a photo of L’Tour Eiffel, and mission accomplished. The harder part, the underestimated part, was navigating the gastronomic brick and cobblestone streets of Paris.

If “No” is an international word, when it comes to food, the most fitting international phrase is “Can You Vouch?” I hadn’t been to Paris since November 1999, and had not cultivated a list of restaurant stalwarts. I scoured the Internet for recommendations, but was reduced to recommendation, the always dangerous, always tricky, always uncomfortable space where Friends Go on Trial.

The first day was easy. Tennis at Roland Garros rolled into the night, making it difficult for true adventure. I chose conservatively, Bar Tuileries, otherwise known as the hotel bar at the Westin Paris. The Westin represented something of a haven for English speakers. It was a French-free zone best illustrated by a late-night scene in the elevator during the trip, where reserved Parisians (and reserved foreigners) heading up were awoken by a big, booming American voice and his giggling female companion. “EVERYBODY HAVIN’ A GOOD TIME? WHO’S GOT SNACKS?”

(A point of information here: I was suffering from the severe, self-inflicted handicap of not speaking French. A general exchange for me went something like this:

“Bonjour, monsieur.”

“Bonjour. (whispering lower) Um, do you speak English?” (weak, helpless smile).

“Oui, monsieur. How may I help you?”

Only begging for a piece of bread would have been more embarrassing than my attempts at French).



I settled in on the beef tartare, salad and French fries. To add to the odd mix was a mojito, or perhaps it should be called an “18-euro mojito.” It wasn’t overly adventurous, but in the States, I never order beef tartare because few places do French food well. Paris was the place to make the leap.

It was a welcome score. The mixture of capers and mustard was interesting and the beef was robust instead of looking like it was headed for the dumpster until it was rescued by some idiot ordering the tartar. Things were off to a good start.

And dessert...

One scoop of bourbon vanilla ice cream with a soft lemon cookie on top, garnished with pink sugars.

The first drink...

A mojito in Paris....Bar Tuileries...

Bar Tuileries

I wound up here at the hotel bar, out of necessity. It went down like this: Air France flight 0337 left Boston Friday evening at 5:30 pm. We landed in Paris at 6 am. Arriving at the hotel at 7:13, I find, naturally, that my room wasn't ready, which forced some morning sightseeing (the Boy demanded a photo of the Eiffel Tower and by golly he go it) and walk/Metro to Roland Garros.
I arrived on the grounds at roughly 10 am and proceeded to get acclimated, an endeavor which included having Martina Navratilova, the finest, fiercest competitor of them all, sprint by, and watching Francesca Schiavone lose to newly minted American citizen Varvara Lepchenko in three sets. When Schiavone won the French Open in 2010, she was frequently compared to Navratilova (perhaps as much for her wearing her competitive emotions without the pretense of being ladylike as for her aggressive serve and volley).

Schiavone has never been as good as she was when she won, but she is still a compelling figure to watch.

By 3:30 pm (my apologies, 15:30 hrs. I am in Europe), I still hadn't checked into my room and hadn't slept since waking up Friday morning. Upon walking back to the hotel, a quick walk from the Corcorde Metro stop along Rue de Rivoli to Rue de Castiglione, it was obvious I needed a plan: I'm in the greatest food city in the world and don't have the slightest idea of where to go.

The smart move was to regroup at Bar Tuileries, enjoy a €17 mojito (damn!) To go with a delicious beef tartare. Eating the first meal in Paris at the hotel bar may not have been the most inspired choice, but it had to be done for strategic purposes - and it wasn't like I ordered a cheeseburger.

An Unacceptable Lull...

Carpaccio from Abe and Louie's, Boston (and yes, that's a fried egg on top)

MORE THAN THREE MONTHS HAVE PASSED since the last entry, a dereliction of duty that without care could have become fatal, leaving The Carpaccio Files chipped, run down, ignored. It would have been not unlike driving by a dilapidated tennis court or ballfield, overgrown and neglected, its vibrancy but a memory. There is a lesson in this: Blogs in motion stay in motion…

Forgotten tennis courts with inch-wide cracks and grass growing diagonally across the service box is due to neglect – no one is actually playing tennis on those courts anymore. The same is true for those sad and sagging baseball diamonds where the fences are broken, the grass tall and wild and nobody cares – people have moved on to other things.

Here, the offense is actually worse, because discovery and discussion is alive, the adventure in gastronomy is ongoing, wonderfully and dynamically - I have simply been too lazy to water the plant. As I load up the Ipad and Ipod for the Next Big Trip _ the French Open _ my dereliction has been boundless.



There have been trips to Scottsdale, Arizona (Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue, http://www.sbrbbq.com/),  Boston (Sonsie http://sonsieboston.com/flash/, Abe and Louie's Steakhouse http://www.abeandlouies.com/), and, yes, Laramie, Wyoming (Altitude chophouse, http://www.altitudechophouse.com/), which will all be discussed.

 I even failed to mention the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, California back in March, which featured not only another lack of conviction from one of my favorites, Jo-Wilfried Tosnga, Roger Federer dusting a distracted Rafael Nadal in a weather-marred semifinal and John Isner stunning the great Djokovic in the other, but the abundance of carving stations during the hospitality reception that made me think of only one thing: death by box lunch during the World Series.  



Tsonga couldn't put it together against Nalbandian...





....but no dead rat sandwich, with an apple and chips for me at Indian Wells. We got first-class sushi... 


WHEN RULES COLLIDE

HB Rule no. 1: Never experiment when you're hungry.
HB Rule no. 2: Avoid chain restaurants whenever possible.*

* (I didn't know Sweet Baby Ray's was a chain until I got there, so back off...)

Indian Wells forced a collision of two important pillars of The Carpaccio Files. Palm Desert was lovely, and there was just something fun and breezy about navigating Doris Day Drive from Frank Sinatra Drive and I think Bob Hope Drive runs into Kirk Douglass Way in Palm Springs. Nevertheless, I wasn't overjoyed by The Nest and wound up at Roy's, the high-end Hawaiian fusion chain that receives a waiver from the rule. I have dined at Roy's in Kauai, Philadelphia, San Francisco, New York, Baltimore, Newport Beach and Tampa, and it was sad to walk along 15th Street and find the Philadelphia edition to be wiped out, closed. Over.

Roy's Palm Desert didn't disappoint, and while rule no. 1 was reinforced at the expense of rule no. 2, I nevertheless believe I came out ahead and morally intact. Roy's is consistent. It can be counted on (unless you're in Philly looking for it).

The pineapple upside-down cake at Roy's is as reliable as Ripken...

Meanwhile, local discussions are taking place at high and serious levels. New Year’s resolution no. 2 _ only eat sushi in Approved Sushi Zones _ is facing a serious challenge, a recall perhaps, if you will.

Challenge and competition is good for democracy, and Northampton, MA is petitioning ASZ status. Before the resolution, I had dined at Zen Sushi on Main Street. Zen was erratic, sometimes more valuable for its Chinese food than its sushi, which brings us to a Red Flag:

1. You can either be a Chinese Restaurant or a Japanese Restaurant, but you cannot be both. This is a stone-tablet fact.

The sushi at Zen was reliable for reduced expectations, solid and passable if you happen to be 90 minutes from Boston and yet are craving a dragon roll. Still, like Arigato, my old local sushi in Fairfax, Virginia (DEFINITELY NOT AN APPROVED SUSHI ZONE), the eel would be overcooked or mushy, and the mackerel might be wet, slimy and/or fishy or surprisingly good. Arigato simply couldn’t be counted on. The same became true for Zen over the past couple of years, prompting a New Year’s sushi resolution.

Danielle Mann, a friend who once called Northampton home, suggested Moshi Moshi, located diagonally from Zen as a local joint worthy of ASZ inclusion while another told me the only acceptable sushi in Northampton was Osaka Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi. Danielle (who, as an aside, should be a hand model in her spare time. Like Charlie Brown and the Little Red Haired Girl, I do notice hands, but that is another story for a different blog) not only vouched for Moshi Moshi, but also worked there. Vouching, as we know, is serious business, for not only is it a referendum on credibility, but also on taste. By vouching we find out a lot of things, sometimes _ when a highly recommended restaurant turns out to be dreadful _ information we wish we hadn't. There is an inherent danger in this...

Nevertheless, I determined a runoff between Osaka and Moshi Moshi: Five separate visits to each ordering the same meal. The reason for the five visits ordering the same thing was to determine consistency, always important. Last week it was a dragon roll, crunchy dynamite roll and an order of saba (mackerel) nigiri.

Round 1 went to Osaka. Danielle vouched well, and I happily don't have to question her taste and she can avoid for the moment calling me a sushi snob. Moshi Moshi was more energetic and friendly. Immediately upon entering, Sam, the gregarious sushi chef, bellowed comically and melodically, “Welcome to Moshi Moshi! Thank you coming!” Style points are not insignificant, especially when choosing a local joint, and as a rule, anyone who is a regular should be treated with respect. It was clear that frequenting Moshi Moshi would only enhance the neighborhood experience. Places like Moshi Moshi make a town feel like home.



 On this day, however, even though the nice people at Osaka barely said hello, the food was better on each item.  The price was negligible, and I will be watching Osaka to determine if it is the kind of restaurant that treats regulars like strangers, but eel, mackerel and dynamite rolls won the day. The local sushi runoff is  officially underway....

Osaka 1, Moshi Moshi 0

Going big at Katana...

Bacon wrapped shrimp and filet mignon with asparagus, Katana...

One of the great treasures of Katana is its versatility. There are sushi restaurants and then there is Katana, which reminds us is also a robata grill. The appetizers were strong. Note the bacon-wrapped shrimp at the top of the photo followed by the filet mignon wrapping around asparagus.

Little was going to affect me this night, anyway, since I was eating outside in January. My needs are small...

The Katana Experience

Two pieces of Spanish Mackerel nigiri...
Class is a concept difficult to avoid. It permeates the entire culture. In gastronomic terms, it is easy, then to dismiss a restaurant strictly by its decor. A poorly or shabbily designed restaurant might house some of the best food in town. Back in San Francisco, circa 1992 or '93, my uncle Steve resisted our insistence on the House of Nanking. It was crowded. It didn't look particularly clean. Nothing, from the creaky wooden tables to the spartan counter tops to the dingy, laminated menus invited customers to enter.
Yet, each night, a line formed around the block while neighboring Chinese restaurants were empty.
Uncle Steve relented, and twenty years later, still talks about the Great House of Nanking...
Katana has no such problem. It is majestic. It is grand. It is in West Hollywood. The outdoor seating with its couches and heat lamps are movie-star stylish. Inside is dark and sultry. Katana belongs to The Beautiful People.

Katana, West Hollywood

LOS ANGELES -- To protect the innocent, I will not name names. I will not offer clues. On the souls of my unborn grandchildren, I will not be the one who breaks the peace we have formed today.

I needed to be redeemed. It has been nearly 11 years since I left California for good, eleven years of weeping and nostalgia, for the Flatiron in San Rafael with the Marin County boys, eleven years of plotting, planning and ultimately failing to get back to the Bay (see: prices, housing for details), eleven years of no Mexican and inferior sushi.

Rules were introduced to temper the disappointment. Take, for example the New Year's Resolution list of 2011:

1) To say "no" early, often and with conviction.

2) To only eat sushi in Approved Sushi Zones

3) I forgot the third.

The "Approved Sushi Zone" consists of the entire West Coast (Vancouver to San Diego), plus proven East Coast favorites:
Boston (Oishii Boston http://www.oishiiboston.com), Fugakyu (www.fugakyu.net) and, in a pinch, Samurai (www.samurai-boston.com)

New York Nobu and Nobu 57, plus, in a pinch, Koi (www.koirestaurant.com)

I held to that resolution, both in fact ("No!" See? And that was with feeling!) which made it important to replace a disappointing sushi experience with an excellent one.

The excellent one was Katana (katanarobata.com, 8439 W. Sunset Blvd @ La Cienega). Katana is part of the IDG group, owners of such solid favorites as Sushi Roku and the steakhouse BOA (where on my last visit, Smokey Robinson dined behind me). Katana was recommended and it delivered. Big time.

The first cheesecake of 2012

Thai Basil - Manchester Center, VT