taking the edge off tax day

[by john]

i just submitted my federal and massachusetts taxes. fairly painless, actually, except for the fact that i couldn't file online. (why schedule d screws everything up is beyond me. but it was worth it; i sold some old stocks and put the proceeds straight into my roth ira.)

to celebrate, i made an income tax cocktail. this is a true cocktail in the classic style: a variation on gin plus vermouth plus bitters. all very cheap ingredients (sub-$20 bottles), and versatile ones to boot. the cocktail itself is decent; a little flat of a taste profile, but balanced enough. (clearly, the only reason i'm writing about it is because of its name.) the linked recipe calls for a bit more orange juice, but since i'm not a huge fan of that citrus, i only use 1/4 oz of it. to compensate, i garnish with orange oil to bring out the hint in the drink.

income tax cocktail

1 1/2 oz gin {i use plymouth}
3/4 oz dry/french vermouth {i heart noilly prat}
3/4 oz sweet vermouth {martini and rossi for now}
1/4 oz freshly squeezed orange juice
1 dash angostura bitters

stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. squeeze an orange peel over top and discard. optional garnish: flamed dollar bill.

(i should give a shout out to these adorable oxo measuring cups, which get down to the 1/4 oz. now indispensable in my bar.)

cheers to that.

Travel

[by Mike]

One of the inevitable aspects of studying high energy physics is travel. The size of modern particle accelerators relegates them mostly to national labs, which have an awkward tendency of being located in dreary, depressing locations. My own research is focused on the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the Brookhaven National Lab, which is located right in the middle of Long Island. That giant circle on the map? That's the atom smasher.

Creature comforts are few and far between at Brookhaven but, given that the majority of one's time is spent working or sleeping, it's rarely a significant issue. The one exception, sadly, is food. Perhaps to be expected, the cafeteria at Brookhaven is terrible. With experience one can find a few options that are somewhat less terrible than the majority, but not enough to last more than a few days. The search for food then takes you off site, to brave the wilds of Long Island.

A fifteen minute drive will take you from the front gate to the first strip malls, but the initial options are mostly limited to pizza and disappointing Chinese food. Driving further reveals row after row of strips malls, but rarely a break from the monotony of choices. The one notable exception is a hole in the wall serving authentic Oaxacan cuisine that I try to visit every time I'm down.

This last week I was down for a collaboration meeting, and after a long day of meetings some fellow grad students and I drove up to Port Jefferson in search of a good meal. Now Port Jefferson is dense enough to a refreshing break from suburbia, and as you reach the city limits the strip malls start to recede and the restaurants start to show increasing promise. Our final destination, however, was out on the water. Chosen with the miracle of technology that is the iPhone, the restaurant featured a seasonal prix fixe menu and everything. I was hoping for the best.

It's funny how the signs are so obvious in hindsight. Our tables were upstairs, past a small dining room that had been rented out for a pharmaceutical presentation. The waiter didn't mention the (many) changes in the menu until after our first attempts ordering the relevant dishes.

In the end, the three dishes of the prix fixe took over two hours to be served. Bland potstickers, horrendously dry and underseasoned pork tenderloin, and a mediocre chocolate lava cake were not worth the price of the meal, let alone the outrageous wait. The sickeningly sweet Sidecar that bided my time didn't help.

Trips like this make if vividly clear how spoiled we are in Boston. The luxurious selection of quality food and drink are have the power to make a grad student think about working less to delay the inevitability of graduating and having to move to another city. If only subconsciously.

Figure 2: Formaggio's Kitchen

[by naveen]

bourbon and branch

[by john]

a glorious day of rooftop dim sum, dan tat from golden gate bakery, theater, a trip to bourbon and branch, and formidable amounts of thai food capped my sf adventure.

bourbon and branch is a speakeasy bar in sf's sketchy tenderloin district which prides itself on, well, being a speakeasy. yes, it's pretentious. but yes, it's cool. you get a password with your online reservation to use at its unmarked door. a rare experience, at least. and a stark contrast to alembic's wide open front door. there are so many competing pros and cons, in fact, that bullet points are required:

pros

• fruit drawer - a roll-out drawer full of fresh seasonal fruit, awesome.
• cloth drink napkins - embroidered and all.
• seasonal menu - our night was the first for the spring menu.
• gorgeous - tin ceiling, cloth walls, elegant modern chandelier, tractor seats at the bar.

cons

• ditzy waitresses - good thing we sat at the bar.
• expensive - $2 more per drink than alembic, pushing justification.
• bad speakeasy - their front door opens up directly to the street, so there's no anteroom to hide the bar from passers-by. when it's still light out, it ruins the mood. take a page from milk and honey and use two heavy curtains.
• branding - they measured from shot glasses emblazoned with their logo. settle down, guys. not to mention the glitzy flash website.

alright, enough of that, on to the drinks. b&b is very menu-heavy. seasonal cocktails, champagne cocktails, classics, favorites from other bartenders, whiskey list... we must have sat there for 10 minutes poring over it. that's a con on my scorecard, because i'd rather be interacting with the bartender, but some could find it helpful.

we decided on two creations from the new spring menu. me: a mariachi, my first drink with mezcal, an extremely close relative of tequila which has gotten a bad reputation lately with the worm-in-the-bottle gimmick. yellow chartreuse, cointreau, fresh lemon juice, and orange bitters rounded out the cocktail. delightful! i enjoyed the whiskey-esque, smokey profile of the mezcal, which gave way easily enough to the citruses. my only complaint is that the last half of the drink was rather sweet; somehow the mezcal lost its magic by then.

my guy got the delicious 'devil's advocate', with gin, lime, ginger syrup, 3 fresh muddled raspberries, and a couple dashes of absinthe on top. i mean, just plain awesome and drinkable. i wish the absinthe had stayed longer than the first couple sips, though.

our bartender had the same hipster getup (by that i mean newspaper boy hat) as our one at alembic, so i had to put him to the same off-piste test, something bitter and spirit-based. he really pulled through, outdoing his rival: rye, licor 43, and fernet branca. for once, the fernet's long finish was subdued, and the bazillion combined herbs and flavors in the three ingredients worked perfectly together. wildly surprising and tasty, and with a working name of 'friends of ours'.

'i want something with st. germain and fire.' my boyfriend's request set the bartender back on his heels a little bit. after tasting his initial attempt with gin, green chartreuse, and the requested ingredient, he poured it out because the elderflower didn't shine through. restarting with the blank palette of vodka, he added peach bitters and a flamed grapefruit peel to complement the st. germain. an airy finished product, well done under the constraints.

now i just wish i could work there so i could fix all those nagging cons (plus get those expensive drinks for cheap).

Figure 1

[by naveen]

Olives

[by naveen]

I would be a terrible restaurant critic: I'm terribly swayed in my perceptions by my dining companions, the atmosphere of the venue, the anticipation leading up to the actual meal, and so on. For instance, my dining companions on this expedition were two post-docs in my lab. I had heard for weeks about their kitchen adventures ("I made the most amazing curry last night.."), so I knew they had good taste in food. The restaurant was located in Charlestown, a nice neighborhood that I had yet to visit, and, as I describe below, I really liked the vibe of the place. To prep for the evening, I read the introduction to Todd English's cookbook, which contained an interview about his cooking philosophy.

Service/atmosphere: I loved the subdued lighting, the techno music with the heavy bass (even in the restroom), and our friendly server who I could easily imagine as being Bill Nye's brother (maybe it was the bow-tie). We had a table next to the open kitchen, which was fascinating to me. I could have spent hours just watching the ongoing culinary ballet. I suspect that it would be hard for the antics described in Kitchen Confidential to occur in such a setting.

Bread: The bread here was outstanding and served with a duo of tapenades (made me think of this post by Mark Bittman) and a small sampling of olives (of course).

Sweet pea angnolotti: Fontina fondue, favas, peas, pea tendrils: What is the proper way to eat pea tendrils in a fancy restaurant? This was just as perplexing to me as the lack of bread plates at Rialto (classic Italian style). I need ettiquette training.

Zatar flatbread hummus: Mediterranean salads, hummus, feta cheese: This was served diagonally on a spectacularly large square plate with a cross-wise zig-zag of saffron-infused sauce. It reminded me of the mezze sampler at Sofra Bakery and the bread was reminiscent of really good naan. There were portobella mushrooms, roasted red peppers, a cucumber-yogurt salad, and watercress arranged on an elegant line. I was happy.

Lemon chiffon and passionfruit mousse: coconut nougat, passion & papaya sauces, whipped kiwi cream: That's what the menu said, but the dessert itself had a few variations. First were the lemon-infused dollops of curd with chunks of freshly-made marshmellows. How do they do that? I foresee future culinary experimentation. One of my dining companions said that the whipped kiwi cream was like the marshmellow, but without the cross-linking. The main part of the dessert was served in a pyramid that was like a light cheesecake with more intesnse citrus flavors in place of dairy. I feel inspired to learn more about the art of pastry, possibly from this book by Johnny Iuzzini.

After all that I've raved about the plating of the food, why didn't I take any photos? I recently watched this video by Bourdain and David Chang about picture taking in restaurants.

When people ask me "what did you think of [a restaurant]?" I never know what to say, which is yet another reason why I would be a terrible restaurant critic. Is the food good? I don't know if the flatbread that I got is "better" or "worse" than in a much less expensive Middle Eatern eatery. For me, going out to eat is just as much about the anticipation and preparation, the immersion in the atmosphere of the venue, and the ensuing culinary inspiration. I can barely wait to get back to the kitchen, read more cookbooks, and continue to expand my culinary horizons.

nopa

[by john]

i've been reading line cook religiously since i found it. i love the candid style, the cursing, and the peeks into one of california's up and coming kitchens, nopa. so naturally, i had to take my guy when i came to town.

the word from my sf friends is that it's a damn hard reservation to get. and i'd believe it. i made one a couple of weeks ahead for 10 pm (they serve dinner 6 to 1...) and there wasn't a lull for the entire two hours we were there. it's been accruing mad press, so no wonder.

we sat at the 'chef's counter' overlooking the open kitchen, right in front of the wood fired oven. the decor was fresh and hip. enormously high ceiling with windows and mirrors to match. good noise level from the spirited conversations all around.

i had read good things about their bar, so went straight to their cocktail menu. for me: a sloe samba (cachaça, sloe gin, ardbeg [an islay whiskey], lemon juice, egg white), and for him, a last word*. i was actually disappointed by both. the samba had a bad tequila smell going on - maybe the islay ardbeg vapors mixing with citrus. and the last word - while a pleasure to see on a menu - was...off. bad lime wedge garnish, and a gin that competed too much with the green chartreuse.

but those false starts were soon forgiven. we got the calamari salad, which was made right in front of us in the wood oven. perfectly roasted calamari, greens, jerusalem couscous, spicy dried chickpeas, and a sort of middle eastern spice 'vinaigrette'. we could not stop gushing long enough to get two consecutive tasty bites in.

next, the sausage and kale floret (what!) flatbread (or 'pizza' as we so uncouthly termed it). perfection. crispy crust, sweet fennel flavor, and wonderful texture on the florets. also made right in front of us.

and then the pork chop. oh my, the pork chop. obscenely delicious. sweet seared crust, juicy meat, and just the right amount of bitter zing from the whole mustard sauce. simply plated, with a handful of roasted vegetables. a life-changing dish, as far as the pork part of my life is concerned.

i pounced on the skillet bread/whiskey-praline ice cream dessert because it had (wait for it) bacon brittle. like peanut brittle, but with bacon. the savory flavors worked well together, though in the end everything was distractingly sweet.

a fantastic experience, reminding me, as naveen has noted, why restaurants are still pertinent to at-home-foodies. i just can't make these dishes. i should mention, finally, that the service was impeccable, always charming and never obtrusive enough to keep my smile of content from fading.

(the view from the counter.)