Roll With It

So, more on New York. I am ashamed to say that yet again this meal was precipitated by a plethora of both television and written references I have come across relating to lobster rolls. The idea of this very American snack has always intrigued me. Until recently I was not really a big fan of mayonnaise – I had tried both exquisite fresh, hand-made versions and rather less impressive dollops out of jars but neither had excited my taste-buds nor added any particular value to the dishes they were part off. However of late I have come to enjoy the unique silky texture and rather indulgent oily-ness of it and so suddenly the combination of firm, fresh lobster meat and some good mayonnaise seemed rather appealing.

Now I have to say the mayonnaise was rather different than I am used to. As I mainly make my own and so have come to enjoy it to my exact specification I found that used in this lobster roll a little on the thin side. Although to be fair the thinner texture, speckled with chives, probably suited the chunky lobster and springy, soft brioche roll more than my rather dense home-made version which is really meant for fat, fresh chips. And of course the mayonnaise is not meant to be the star of this dish – it’s all about the lobster. On that point the roll excelled itself. Generously packed with big chunks of perfectly cooked lobster flesh the roll teased your taste-buds with the sweetness of lobster, complemented by the sweetness of the brioche roll, in every-bite. I am usually one who opts for scallops as their favourite seafood but I think that might be because before this meal I had never had really good lobster. It was a revelation – wonderfully compact without being heavy and deliciously sweet in that peculiar “taste of the sea” way. It’s testament to the lobster that I am only devoting a few lines to the impressive shoe-string fries. Thin, crunchy and fresh they came just as I like them

If I had had more time I would have gone back to Mary’s Fish Camp, where I had the lobster roll, to have their other lobster dish. But as it was I had to stick with this one meal at this rather wonderful little restaurant. Decorated in what I assume was meant to be a casual seafood shack style it was incredibly busy and yet invitingly relaxed. The staff were surprisingly friendly (I am from London where good service is hard to come by) and not at all impatient despite the numerous customers making demands of them. It’s hard to say which of my meals in NYC was the best as they were all so different but this one definitely rates in the top five. I don’t know if it’s still the season for lobster rolls but if you are in New York I would get down to Mary’s Fish Camp as soon as possible.

Mary’s Fish Camp
64 Charles Street
at the Corner of 4th Street
1-646.486.2185
Open Monday - Saturday
Lunch 12:00pm - 3:00pm Dinner 6:00pm - 11:00pm
http://www.marysfishcamp.com/

Do You Remember that Meal?

I know what you’re thinking “That really doesn’t look like the most exciting of meals” but the reason I decided to put up this picture is not because this was the greatest hotdog I have ever eaten but because of the reason why I ate this hotdog. As is not obvious from the picture I was at the time in New York, a city which has many varied delights to offer anyone interested in food. As later posts will hopefully reflect I did not spend my entire trip eating junk food but there was the odd meal or snack which I had to have for less gastronomic and more sentimental reasons. And this is where the hotdog comes in. As someone who watches more television than is really good for her and who has a penchant for American sitcoms set in New York a Gray’s Papaya/Papaya King hotdog has become something of an obsession of mine. I could list at least three television instances in which they feature but I appreciate that that would not make the most interesting of reads. However thinking about how personal and sentimental reasons cause most people to occasionally indulge in foods they would not normally consume made me consider how particular foods or meals take on a life of their own in our memories and imagination.

For me perhaps two foods stick out for their nostalgia value. The first is not a particular food but a meal. A very English pub snack called a Ploughman’s Lunch made up of bread, butter, cheddar cheese, pickle and salad. I know it sounds as if it is an unmade sandwich and that is basically what it is but every summer for about three years of my life I ate this every Saturday at the pub my father went (and still goes) to in rural Hampshire. I can not remember if the bread was of particular note or if the cheese had any great pungency (I doubt it as I was around six at the time) but I do remember looking forward to both the meal and the accompanying fun that was to be had on the pub’s play-frame for at least two or three hours (as I said I was only six) before we left to go to the pub. And really the meal and the play-frame are inextricably linked as I made up a complicated and extensive circuit based around the play-frame and the surrounding trees which I had to complete in ever faster times in order to get back to the relative safety of my father and my Ploughman’s. I have a feeling my father was oblivious to the convoluted reasoning behind the timing of my playing and eating but, as is often the case, to me at the time it made perfect sense and I doubt my attachment to either cheese Ploughman’s or the play-frame would be as strong without the other.

The second is a Trinidadian snack food called “doubles”. It's made up of two palm-sized pieces of fried dough, called bara, sandwiched with a spicy chickpea filling, called chana. When I was around nine years old I was taken on a family holiday to Trinidad, where my mother is from, and it is from this holiday that my memories of doubles emanate. Doubles are eaten for breakfast in Trinidad and I have a clear memory of one morning walking into the kitchen in my grandparents’ house to find that the rest of my family were already up and dressed. My aunt had been out to the doubles seller and there were empty, oil speckled, wax paper wrappers and brown paper bags littered all over the table. With the lack of self-consciousness that comes from being nine years old I proceeded straight to the table, found a couple of doubles and then started the morning ritual which I performed daily on that holiday. This consisted of gently separating the two bara, scraping out the chana and then putting the bara back together and finally eating this now chana-less double to the amusement of both my immediate and extended family. The memory of the greasy, salty, fluffy dough spiked with the odd taste of chana where I hadn’t fully removed the unctuous sauce reminds me of Trinidad as much as a steel band or picturing the inside of my grandmother’s shop ever could. Even now I am often tempted to remove the chana when I eat doubles but there are really some things you can only get away with when you’re a child and, in all honesty, it is better with the chana.

So this picture really hasn’t been the focus of much attention in this post. Perhaps its relevance comes in in that it now represents a new set of memories inextricably linked to my food experiences. As hotdogs go it was good and the chips (or fries) were suitably crunchy and very fresh. It certainly makes an acceptable snack if you’re on the run in New York but for me this picture and my sensory recollection of it will rekindle memories, both of food and of other things, that defined my trip to New York. It is arguably this ability to make aspects of life unique and peculiarly personal that makes food such a potent carrier of memories.

And the winner is…

Over the last few weeks I have had access to more high quality chocolate than most people would really want and although this has occasionally left me never wanting to see another chocolate again my access to all this cocoa-y goodness has come to an end. And so it seems appropriate to deliver the conclusions of the arduous, chocolate-eating research I have been undertaking by describing my top three choices.

Number 3: Neuhaus Cornet Doré

On the recommendation of a fellow chocolate enthusiast I tried this inconspicuous (despite the gold foil wrapping) little cone. I was dubious about trying it largely because I an not a big fan of milk chocolate and by the time I got to the Cornet Doré I had eaten so much chocolate that my tolerance rate for chocolate as a whole, and milk (and white) chocolate in particular, had reduced to almost nil. However the Cornet Doré revived my faith in chocolate as my anti-depressant of choice and even made me reconsider my attitude to milk chocolate although as my first choice will highlight I still have a preference for dark chocolate. But I digress. The Cornet Doré is a combination of milk chocolate, almonds and hazelnuts. It is basically a praline chocolate without the bother of separating the different elements. As a big fan of praline this suits me as I am always frustrated by how you either have to down a whole praline filled chocolate in one go or take careful considered bites in order to get an equal distribution of chocolate and praline and so really enjoy the combination of flavours. At this point I can see most people thinking “Oh for goodness sake, it’s only a chocolate” but once you have eaten a Neuhaus Cornet Doré you will see why the chocolate-praline ration is so important and hence why the Cornet Doré is so good.

Number 2: Galler Bruges (Milk chocolate with a salted butter caramel filling)

From a previous post you have probably already realised that I have a somewhat unnatural obsession with caramel salé which did cause a little embarrassment the first time I saw this chocolate on sale as I actually gasped out-loud in the middle of the shop. Up to this point I had been casually searching for caramel salé in a variety of food shops and although the internet had provided some solutions I am not a big fan of internet shopping as I like to see what I’m going to buy even if its already in a jar or packet. So there I was, more excited than I should be about a chocolate, which of course meant I purchased one immediately. And believe you me it did not disappoint. Again a reappraisal of my attitude towards milk chocolate was required although with a caramel I am increasingly coming to the belief that the type of chocolate is of less consequence as it is really the caramel which will determine whether or not you enjoy it and, to be honest, if you do not like particularly sweet things then choosing a caramel, even if it has been deliciously tempered with sea salt, is probably not the best idea.

Number 1: Charbonnel et Walker Mint Truffle (pictured above)

So for those of you for whom either nuts or milk chocolate or caramel are out of the question I present my first choice which, although not a pure dark chocolate, should satisfy even the most savoury of palates. I say that because the mint in these truffles is not the lacklustre, jar of mint-sauce kind but of the “here’s a mint-leaf I just picked, have a chew on it” kind. Although I would not go as far as to say it is ‘spicy’ this truffle is getting there and the dark chocolate provides, as ever, the perfect partner to the bittersweet and pungent qualities of the mint. I must myself admit being surprised that my favourite chocolate is made by an English company. There are many outside the UK who are dismissive of British chocolate regarding it as consisting entirely of overly sugared, low cocoa-butter content, cheap-as-chips, chocolate bars. I, although having been aware of English chocolate companies such as Charbonnel et Walker, Roccoco and Prestat, had always tended to prefer Belgian and French chocolatiers but that was before I tasted Charbonnel et Walker truffles. I think I can go as far as to say they are the best truffles available in the UK if not in Europe. It was the Charbonnel et Walker Bucks Fizz truffle which made me realise that I really should give champagne truffles more of a chance as I had up till then not been a fan of the chocolate and champagne combination even in the finest of truffles. And the Charbonnel et Walker Lemon Truffle made me accept that all white chocolate is not as unpleasant as I remember. So Charbonnel et Walker has come up trumps and as a little acknowledgement of the beautiful pyramids their truffles are so beautifully arranged into I must say that the Mint Truffle is certainly the pinnacle of their achievement!

La Bastide Saint-Antoine

It is at this point that I must confess that I have had the good fortune to visit more than my fair share of France’s great restaurants and particularly those of the Côte d’Azur. I recently added to my collection of memorable meals with a visit to La Bastide Saint-Antoine outside Grasse just inland from Cannes.

The restaurant occupies not a room but the gardens of this impressive hotel-restaurant set-up and it is certainly a luxurious setting for a lunchtime meal partly due to the views over the nearby valley. But enough about the location and on to the food.

As an amuse-bouche I was presented with a small cup of fennel soup and three small dishes containing melon with balsamic vinegar, an aubergine puree in filo-pastry and a celery mousse with a sesame crisp (as pictured above). Although all three were appetizing they were not as flavourful as I had expected. The celery mouse was certainly my favourite as it had the greatest intensity of flavour and the texture was suitably light without being insubstantial. After this little introduction I had fried goose liver with quail thighs, then pork with gnocchi, mushrooms and courgettes and finally a layered chocolate dessert with raspberry and beetroot chosen largely because I had to try a combination of chocolate and beetroot.

Now I know I run the risk of sounding incredibly pretentious and ungrateful (and I am not for one minute saying I didn’t thoroughly enjoy the meal) but it didn’t quite live up to expectations. In both my starter and main course I found the food a touch too salty, the gnocchi had an overly farinaceous taste and the beetroot accompaniment in the chocolate dessert, by which I had been so intrigued, turned out to be an uncomfortable partner to an otherwise well-balanced chocolate creation.

This is not to suggest that there were not elements of brilliance. The liver was cooked to perfection: there was no resistance when I cut it and yet it did not disintegrate. It takes a high level of skill to be able to judge when a slice a liver is at its optimum point of cooking and this had been judged to perfection. Similarly the pork was wonderfully cooked. It was tender and had a surprising depth of flavour which can often be lacking. And, of course, the combination of a light chocolate mousse with a dense chocolate cake base, between which nestled a layer of raspberry jam, was sublime. I always think that the acidity of raspberries is the perfect counterpart to the bittersweet quality of good chocolate and here the pairing worked beautifully even if it was a little undermined by the earthy taste of beetroot which, although normally the attractive feature of beetroot, here seemed unpleasant and unresponsive to the other elements of the dessert.

The best dish I sampled was ordered by one of my fellow diners. It was a langoustine tail which had been poached and then stuffed with an array of vegetables. The langoustine was perhaps the softest I have ever eaten; not a hint of the chewy texture one is sometimes faced with. Now it may be cynical of me but I attribute this difference on the quality of the dishes to the fact that I ordered from the set-lunch menu whilst my fellow diner ordered a la carte. Considering how reasonable the lunch menu is it is perhaps to be expected that the food would not be quite as impressive as the a la carte menu but I do not find this an acceptable situation. As I imagine the majority of its clientele order the set lunch menu and considering word-of-mouth is of great importance to most restaurants to not equal the quality of food in the set and a la carte menus is an ill considered policy. I am willing to admit that it is more than possible that I visited at an unusually busy time (or perhaps just a plain old bad day as all restaurants have) and that normally all the food would be of the quality of the a la carte dishes but as it stands I would have to say if your looking for fantastic food on the Côte d’Azur you are better of trying Le Château de Chèvre D’Or in Eze or Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo.
La Bastide Saint-Antoine
48 Av Henri-Dunant
Grasse
00 44 4 93 70 94 94

Le Château de Chèvre D’Or
Rue Barri
Eze
00 44 4 92 10 66 61

Le Louis XV
Pl du Casino
Monte Carlo
377 98 06 88 64

Delice de Violette

About four years ago I grew an obsession with violet flavoured ice-cream. Amongst the plethora of flavours available at one of the many ice-cream bars in the town I was staying in it seemed the most enticing on my first visit. So from then on I went, without fail, everyday for two weeks for a scoop of violet together with whatever else I fancied. Unsurprisingly I grew tired of this delicate and aromatic taste and since that holiday I can’t recall another piece of violet flavoured food I have eaten except perhaps some violet flavoured tea. In what may seem a foolhardy repetition of previous mistakes I have again eaten unusual amounts of violet flavoured foods in the last three weeks of which this Delice de Violet, purchased at Calderon in Saint Raphael in the south of France, is one. The enticingly smooth exterior was made of a violet flavoured crème (or custard) which had an appealing texture half-way between set custard and jelly. Inside a layer a dense, almond based cake was topped with more of the violet crème and finally a cassis compote.

I can see where this little confection was headed. Perhaps it is my own obsession with Pierre Hermé’s Ispahan macaron which immediately made me draw a comparison between its rose-raspberry-litchi combination and the violet-cassis paring of this gateaux although the unusual macaron decoration suggests that there is a definite, if subtle, reference to the famous Ispahan macaron.

Unsurprisingly the Delice did not have the impact of the Ispahan. The violet crème which formed the exterior and contributed to the filling was sufficiently violet-tasting to not be overwhelming when tentatively scooped up in an attempt to reach the centre but as soon as crème, cake base and cassis were consumed together the violet flavour was swamped by the sharpness of the cassis and the lemon-almond base. Although moreishly lemon flavoured in its own right this lemon-almond base was too heavily flavoured to be anything but an obstacle to the delicate violet crème although its compact texture was well suited to the jelly-like consistency of the crème and the viscous nature of the cassis compote. A compliment which cannot, I’m afraid, be extended to the macarons which, without any noticeable flavour, did nothing to improve the Delice especially as the crisp shell-dense interior combination which marks out the texture of a macaron just confused the combination of textures created by the other elements. Mouthfuls which included a piece of macaron tended to feel disconcertingly (and I apologise for the word but nothing else will do) squidgy, somewhat like the sherry soaked Madeira cake at the bottom of an English trifle which is something I have an almost innate aversion too.

It does sound as if I didn’t enjoy this little cake which was not actually the case. The problem was that I have tried the tarte au citron, the Opera gateaux and the caramel salé macarons from this shop and in each case enjoyed them so much that I had, perhaps unfairly, high expectations of what I would experience from this violet treat. I must admit that I am so enamoured of Calderon’s caramel salé macarons that whenever I buy anything from this boutique I always buy one caramel salé macaron which is exactly what I did when I bought this Delice and it was, as ever, the best caramel salé macaron I have ever tasted.

Calderon
St Rapahel, France

What a Hot Potato...

My family has a slightly obsessive affection for baked potatoes. For all of us I think they hold so many pleasant and varied memories that whenever the opportunity to have them arises we are eager to take it up. However we are very picky about our baked potatoes. Any one who has eaten a baked potato from a kebab van or chain restaurant is probably wondering why we are so enamoured with them. At this point I must explain that my family’s baked potato recipe is like no other and requires a fair amount of thought, time and affection. The first rule is that the potato must be cooked in the oven. A baked potato made in the microwave is NOT a baked potato, it is a poor shadow of it much more appealing relative. This is most evident in the skin. A baked potato must have a crisp skin which contrasts with the fluffy interior. The flaccid brown skin which arrives after the potato’s ride in the microwave is better off in the bin than anywhere near your mouth.
But I digress…Having baked the potato the next step is to empty the crisp shell of all its fluffy, white contents. You then smear the inside of the shells with mustard and return them to the oven. To the proto-mash you add a mass of grated, strong Cheddar cheese, a handful of finely chopped spring onion tops, as many pre-cooked fine bacon strips as you desire and a little pepper and then you re-fill your very crispy shells. Lastly you sprinkle then with more cheddar and put them back in the oven or under the grill to melt all the cheese both on top and inside. Now I know this may sound like the most complicated baked potato ever and there will be a great many people who argue that a baked potato is not a baked potato without baked beans but I promise you once you have tried these delicacies you will never want to eat a spongy, microwaved potato with soft skin again!

La Meilleur de la Montagne

As you may have garnered from my previous posts most of my trips abroad focus around food. My most recent excursion took me, as is often the case, to France where I experienced both mountain and metropolitan delights. As I have already regaled you with tales of metropolitan sophistication I will move onto a story of mountain nostalgia.

Anyone who has been to the Haute-Savoie region of the French Alps will be familiar with the rich, cheese dominated, cuisine of the area. Although I am a fan of both fondue and melted Vacherin especially when accompanied with viande des grisons (the Savoie equivalent of the Italian bresola) the culinary highlights of skiing are, for me, not specifically from Savoie. This is largely because every year my father and I visit our favourite Alpine restaurant which does a variety of traditional pan-French dishes. Which brings me on to the subject of my photo.

My father’s response to chanterelle mushrooms is that “they taste like dishwater.” However my opinion is considerably more favourable particularly when cooked with parsley, garlic and butter, as shown here, in what the menu calls ‘a la provencal’. The reason why I so particularly associate this delicacy with the mountains is because of the place where they are served. It was at this restaurant that I first tasted these wonderful morsels. Their salty and earthy taste is given an extra pungency by the parsley and garlic. And by simply frying the mushrooms their pleasingly chewy and slightly silky texture is maintained. By introducing me to an indulgent vegetable beautifully cooked the restaurant earned itself a particular importance in my culinary education which was further entrenched by their chicken liver salad and omelettes aux fines herbes (admittedly neither eggs nor herbs are particularly unusual but the omelettes you receive are sublime and make both the eggs and herbs taste unusual in the purity of their flavour).

Sometimes it is difficult to explain why you find food so interesting and exciting. I often think if everyone who is intrigued by my obsession with food could eat one meal at this Savoie restaurant they would appreciate how something which is so everyday can be so fascinating.