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 The old, dreary combination of The Athaneum and Fishbones, dreary because of its lack of variety, has been replaced by more hotel choices and better restaurants.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.