Sometimes I fall behind in my work--often on days after a late-running Eat Club dinner, such as we had last night at Cafe Giovanni. I present a Dining Diary entry from sixteen years ago, showing how little things change, and how much. I have annotated it with updates, in [brackets].
Wednesday, March 19, 1997.
Mystic Lunch. Eat Club At Dominique's.
Mystic Cafe provided my lunch. It's in the building that was once the annex of Flagons. [Salu is now in that space.] Mystic's menu was assembled by Fikret Kazan, a Turkish guy who owns Cucina Med in Mandeville. [He now owns the several, not-very-good Isabella's Pizza shops on the North Shore.]
The food at Mystic is in that same spirit, but even more elaborate in its presentation. I started with a combination plate of hummus and tabbouleh, both well-made and impossible to leave behind, even though there was enough on the plate to make a complete lunch. Starting with hummus, which is one of my favorite dishes, always kills my appetite before the entree.
But I carried on intrepidly into a new dish for me, called "Istanbul kebab" by the restaurant. This was ground lamb grilled with the usual vegetables, but then wrapped in phyllo pastry and baked. It came out with tzatziki sauce (yogurt, cucumber, and herbs), and the total taste was terrific. Its shape and size suggested a Middle Eastern poor boy. Once again, there was no room for dessert, or even for a sip of water.
At four, the radio show kicked off from Dominique's. We were a little overloaded with wine guests, but that resulted in a tremendous supply of wine for the Eat Club dinner that followed afterwards. Cindy Lanaux, who owned the restaurant of her name on St. Charles, is now a wine distributor. She brought a surfeit of wines to taste, most of which we never got to. The Davis Bynum Fume Blanc 1995, which we'd had at Mat & Naddie's, was once again just right: no fluke there. Same winery, same year: Pinot Noir. Fine with food, but a pretty light statement.
Also on the table was an assortment of wines from Beckmen, a new winery in Santa Ynez area. The name is so oddly configured on the label that it's a puzzle to read it. The overoaking of the Chardonnay and the Sauvignon Blanc were so extreme that the Cabernet Sauvignon was a tremendous surprise. It was a deep, black wine of great power, very well balanced, and a thrill to drink.
That wine arrived with the fifth of six courses during our dinner for sixteen Eat Clubbers. Chef Dominique acquitted himself well, serving the same salmon gravlax I'd had a few days earlier for a starter. That was followed by a fine little pastry of goat cheese, topped with caramelized onions in a sauce that tasted like reduced, sweetened vinegar.
Then came a salad—sort of. There were greens in there, but the main item was a Vietnamese-style spring roll filled with crabmeat and daikon radish, with a soy-based dipping sauce scented with rosemary and ginger. Very good.
Two entrees. The seafood essay was a slab of rare tuna, lightly encrusted with chimayo chilis. On the side was a dish I'd enjoyed as a lunch entree: an enchilada of crab and corn with a beurre blanc with touches of tequila and (of all things!) mole poblano. The latter is the chocolate-and-sesame sauce that is to Mexican cooking what bearnaise is to French, and just as good. First time I ever saw it served this way, though.
The second entree was a fairly straightforward filet mignon, brought forth atop a potato pancake scented with thyme, all slathered with a jus built up with Pinot Noir and shallots. For all its simplicity, this was the dish of the night. Adding to the pleasure was the appearance at this point in the meal of the superb Beckmen Cabernet, a perfect foil for the beef.
Finally, we had a very unusual version of tirami su, slathered with cappuccino instead of espresso. I can't imagine that made all that much difference, but this was a richer, yet lighter version, rivaling the one at Andrea's.
With sixteen people at two tables, I took each course in a different spot, so to be a good host. It was a different crowd than usual, with most attendees having been to only one or two previous Eat Clubs. Judge Dennis Barry was our most distinguished member; Clark, the Gourmet Truck Driver (who tried to have his eighteen-wheeler valet-parked) was the most entertaining.
[Dominique left this restaurant--now called Meritage--a few years ago. He has since opened and closed Dominique's On Magazine (now Apolline) and Tamarind. And, for real confusion, he has opened a new Dominique's on Magazine--at a different address (4213 Magazine St, across from Le Petit Grocery). It's surprising how much the food above is like what he serves now, yet he's thought of as an innovator.]
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