Wednesday, October 6. Rare Cuts. Patois. Impossible! Another morning with temperatures in the forties. We might even get fall colors on the maples and sweetgums this year.
The radio show originated in the back room of the new Uptown store of Rare Cuts, the specialty meat purveyor that started a year ago. Their idea is so good that a) it's a wonder nobody did it before and 2) it's no wonder the place is doing a brisk business. They buy product from the same distributors used by the best restaurants. You know, the ones that are supposed to be so good that restaurants actually mention their names on the menu. (Seems like a recent development, but isn't. Remember when lunch counters used to make a point of serving Campbell's Soups to their customers?)
I spent a good while talking with Henry Albert, the owner, about his business. It operates way out of the box. Not only does he sell all this fresh meat at prices that would have people yelling in anger were they in a regular supermarket, but he offers to cook it for you. It's not a restaurant, but you can book a party for yourself and friends (up to twenty of them), and they'll present a complete dinner of four courses, with their Prime, dry- or wet-aged beef, Prime Colorado lamb (there's something you don't see much), venison, foie gras, or something else unusual as the entree.
Henry cooked some of it up for us. It drove me nuts to sit there talking with callers while a chunk of seared, dry-aged sirloin strip--whose baroque marbling I'd seen in the raw a few minutes earlier--was on the end of my fork, waving around, waiting for the break that was still fifteen minutes away. When I finally ate it--stone cold by then--it was still remarkable.
True Kobe beef, no matter what you've heard, is not currently available in this country. The Japanese have cut us off. What I didn't know is that Wagyu beef (the strain from Kobe) is raised in Australia. They had some of it. This, too, was extravagantly marbled. I heard it said that the roast I was looking at costs over $200. But for a special occasion, it might be worth it.
This morning, Mary Ann said she was amenable to dinner, especially if we could invite some friends. I made the reservation at Patois, where I have not been in some time--largely because the place is always so busy. And it's not far from Rare Cuts.
Our friends couldn't make it. And the restaurant, for once, wasn't fully engaged. We took a table in the bar, whose ruling spirit suggested that I try a gin-based cocktail with a layer of black Sambuca lying in the bottom. Sort of a martini floating on an anise-flavored schnapps. I liked it, although I'm not sure it was the ideal match to a board of house-made charcuterie. I ordered that because Mary Ann wasn't there yet, and I knew she'd like it. Hog's head cheese, a sausage that looked like boudin but wasn't, and a pork rillettes. She said she was underwhelmed; I thought it was pretty good. (I'd still say that chefs are using up too much of their time following this charcuterie trend.)
The second course was the kind of thing I came here for. The gnocchi have been on the menu since the beginning and, according to the server, the knockout dish of the house. It was. The gnocchi were perfect: soft, light, yielding with no pressure at all to the teeth. Crabmeat. Wild mushrooms. Cream. Green onions. Totally delicious.
I like the rolls here. They call them brioche, and I guess they are, but they remind me more of split-top rolls straight out of Thanksgiving dinner. They melt the butter perfectly. They arrive at the table in the crocks in which they're baked. Revision of first sentence: I love the rolls here.
The two of us split a very generous salad of heirloom tomatoes with goat cheese, baby some kind of leaves, and balsamic vinegar. Perked my palate back up. (Recall I had some steak before I came here.)
In mid-meal, my dermatologist friend Dr. Bob Debellevue stepped up to the table. Last time we dined here, we joined him and his lady. He's a regular, but that figures: he only lives a few blocks away. And he likes good food. He had a bottle of Penfolds Grange with him. Dr. Bob has a large collection of that wine, enough that he's well known to the Penfolds winery people back in Australia.
Dr. Bob's dinner guest was another long-time friend of his: Allen Toussaint. Toussaint is one of the real people. The composer of a large percentage of the New Orleans R&B songbook over the decades, he is a pianist so fine that you don't want him ever to stop playing. He's also a man of superb style. When everybody else on the stage is in torn jeans and T-shirts, Toussaint is wearing the finest suit you ever saw and a beautiful tie. My kind of guy.
Back to dinner in my ill-fitting jacket. Entree: pheasant. Not many restaurants serve it. It's tricky, and has a way of being dry. This half-bird was not dry because chef Aaron Burgau cooked the leg one way, the breast a different way. (That is the trick.) The menu said the sauce was a foie gras emulsion, but I didn't taste anything other than the total harmony of flavors. Great dish.
Mary Ann stuck with her usual guns in getting trout amandine. Really, trout. I think the officials may have opened the season early this year. She was completely pleased with the flavor, but began to grouse about how hanging with me causes her to eat too much. Every time she says it, I wonder how it is that after twenty-one years she marvels at the thought. She bade me good night and left me to my dessert.
Which was a spicy bread pudding topped with caramel ice cream and actual caramel sauce. Very nice; couldn't finish it.
I said good bye to Dr. Bob and Allen Toussaint, and said something funny enough to get a laugh from all at that table. But I forget what it was.
Patois. Uptown: 6078 Laurel. 504-895-9441.
