worth a drive

The New York Times has a new article up entitled “Four Paris Restaurants Worth a Metro Ride”, and when it was published ten days ago about as many people emailed it to me. I hope to pay a visit some of those tables next month, though truthfully I’m still a little peeved at author Mark Bittman for blowing one of my favorite local-ish restaurants, Astier, with a mention in the paper of record. I guess I can kiss my insider badge goodbye. . .

I know some people (ahem, most of you) consider Iowa City a trek in and of itself. With so many fantastic dining options downtown — many of which I’d continue to frequent if they were transplanted to New York City, high praise indeed — it can be tempting, even here, to fall into geographic snobbishness. Kalona, twenty miles southwest of our cosmopolitan little city, is a town of less then 2500. Getting there is a drive through pure country, and yet I’d been wanting to go for a good year. Why? Food, of course.

It’s called Tuscan Moon, and it’s a quiet, unassuming, delicious restaurant housed in the historic Old Kalona Hotel. There’s a gorgeous patio for outdoor dining, but the inside is just as fun: with old hardwood floors, exposed brick walls, chandeliers and high ceilings, it’s a real trip. When we went last weekend, there was a classical guitarist performing and the owner was circulating, asking how everyone’s meal was. It’s that kind of place.

My dinner was a perfectly respectable showcase of the restaurant’s home-cooked Italian roots: a very fine Caesar salad and an enormous plate of farfalle with bolognese sauce (which came, in true home style, with a slice of soft white loaf bread). I think Billy’s selections really hit it out of the park, though, demonstrating what happy heights Tuscan Moon can sail to outside the Italian box. There was the simply presented yellow fin sashimi and then — oh my — jerk-rubbed, grilled pork tenderloin with mango salsa. It was a special that night, but I heard they’re turning it into a regular menu item. I hope so, because it’s what I’d get next time. The smoky, charred flavor of the grill and spices were a brilliant foil to the sweet, juicy mango. It was a totally different level. It was grown up and sophisticated and wow, Kalona! Small but mighty. You done good.

sam’s pizza

The story of our journey to Sam’s Pizza on Thursday night is an existential one, which ran the gamut of dinner indecision from Mexican to pasta to sushi to burgers to finally settling somewhere around “I just want something new”. Oh, and included “My stomach hurts.” We finally settled on Sam’s Pizza: new to us, low-key, downtown. Even before walking in, I knew it couldn’t touch the likes of 2Amys or Motorino, but I hoped it might eclipse Pagliai’s , a local institution whose appeal regrettably escapes me.

We started with an order of cheesy bread, which was fabulous. Most pizza places just make the bread part out of leftover pizza dough, which is tasty but means the appetizer’s essentially cheese pizza, hold the sauce. Not so at Sam’s. It’s a doughy loaf of French bread, split open and buttered within an inch of its life, then topped with cheese. You get warm marinara sauce, too. Not bad for a sport’s bar. In terms of pizza, they offer both deep dish and thin crust. I’m lukewarm on deep dish in the best of circumstances, so the choice was a no-brainer.

And the verdict? It’s a different take on “thin crust” altogether, because unlike those primo New York pizzerias where “thin crust” means soft, chewy and charred, Sam’s is positively crispy. Like, cracker-crispy and about as thin — but also pretty good, especially the tomato sauce. It’s obviously a great place to catch a game (a game, the game, whatever game’s on), and the food’s yummy, to boot. Also worth mentioning: impressive drink specials. And the pinball machine, pool, and darts. I’m not sure about its future as a dinner-only destination, but it’s the ideal spot to meet friends for a late nice brew and bite. Approved!

eatalian gelato

This afternoon, B and I visited Eataly, Mario Batali’s sprawling indoor Italian food market with stalls for cured meats, fresh pasta, all kinds of cheese and coffee, breads, intricate patisserie confections, pop-up restaurants, positively pornographic tableaux of basil leaves and cherry tomatoes — and, of course, gelato. What we came for. And I had to admit we arrived a little spoiled: on Wednesday, we’d popped into Grom while meandering around the West Village. Grom is a total Italian import: they have dozens of shops up and down the boot, plus a couple international locations (New York being one). So it is good. It’s all natural, no preservatives or weird coloring, organic when possible, and as a result, I would imagine, of this exacting quality control/ingredient sourcing and know-how, each flavor tastes like the truest iteration of itself. The chocolate is deep, with coffee undertones and only a little bitter, while the vanilla is incredibly mellow and luscious. The coffee gelato is like a strong pull of espresso. The best.

Which is all to say, we’re pretty tough customers, so watch out. (We’re kind of a big deal.) The length of Eataly’s gelato line certainly pointed to a large fan base. There were about a dozen flavors to choose from — traditional fruit flavors plus your typical chocolate, vanilla, hazelnut, coffee and so on. B got the stracciatella, and I had vanilla with cookies crushed in it (name forgotten; sorry). And I loved how, unlike many gelaterias, they offered crunchy cones and not just plastic cups.

In point of fact, I think Grom’s pure, intense flavors make it the better gelato. But both places are so wonderful, so at-the-top-of-their-game, that you really can’t go wrong with either. And lest we forget, Eataly’s shop lives inside a wonderful Italian market/eatery, and it’s hard to discount the delight of munching on a cone of bacio gelato while picking up fresh tortellini, mozzerella (made on site!) and a fistful of chocolates. Not that I’ve done this. A girl can dream. Barring that, have your sweet across the street in Madison Square Park. When we had ours, it was seventy degrees out — there are truly no better days.

our favorite late-night bites

Whenever B and I come back to New York, our mealtimes eke out a tender balance between returning to our favorite college haunts and keeping up with new restaurants. It makes the list quite long — indeed, often too long. A trip to Motorino is made at Grimaldi’s expense; breakfast at Clinton Street Baking Company likely means postponing the Donut Shop again. But there are some non-negotiables.

For Billy, it’s Pommes Frites, a tiny shop on Second Avenue that attracts out-the-door lines of nightly visitors. They fry the thick-cut potatoes in two vats of boiling oil directly behind the counter, toss them with seasoning salt, and pack them into paper cones for on-site or take-away consumption. And the sauces, of course. They are the point. Dozens ranging from basic mustard to Vietnamese Pineapple Mayo and Parmesan Peppercorn. The Sundried Tomato Mayo is our favorite, a sort of gussied-up, glossy ketchup.

For me, it’s dessert from the Dessert Truck — which began as an actual, roving truck about four years ago, but soon after switched operations to an actual brick and mortar store. I’m sure business has only gone up since, but I selfishly hated their move. The truck always parked on Third Avenue (extremely central), and the store is in deep into the Lower East Side (less so). But last night, as B and I crossed Astor Place, there was that little truck, making an exceptional appearance in its former stomping ground for this week only. Their chocolate bread pudding makes me cry. It’s warm and dense, surrounded by a moat of creme anglaise and a hat of whipped cream. No ordinary creme anglaise custard, mind you: get the bacon flavor, which won the Throwdown against Bobby Flay and imparts a smoky flavor to the whole thing, balancing the sweetness of the chocolate and pushing the entire dessert beyond.

the quintessential pillow crust

It’s possible I could have planned this better. Maybe called Delta to rework some flights and emerged with a minimal price difference. But perhaps that would have been more trouble than it’s worth. In any case, less than 36 hours after returning to Iowa from London, I boarded a plane back east. B and I were off on spring break and bound for Washington, DC. (Tomorrow, we leave for New York. I’ve been a little behind.)

I was shocked to realize that I’d never taken B to the best pizza in the city, 2 Amys, so we set about remedying that terrible oversight on Saturday. It felt a little eager (or obsessive) to be walking into a pizzeria at 11:30am — and seeing their homemade doughnuts so prominently displayed only intensified this feeling — but by noon there was already a line. Early bird, meet worm.

2 Amys is a local institution, and for about a year I was extremely spoiled in having a friend who lived across the street from it. We call in our order, pick it up, and walk out feeling quite superior to all the poor suckers waiting for a table. But then our school schedules and summer plans stopped coordinating and well, the world turns ever on. The fact remains, 2 Amys’s crust is perhaps the best I’ve ever tasted. The center of the crust — the bit that supports sauce, cheese, and other toppings — is extremely thin, sometimes learning toward the under-baked. And then the edges are massive, pillowy puffs of dough, some regions charred to perfection and always a light, chewy consistency. It is a singular, always delicious combination of the razor-thin with the doughy. For what it’s worth, 2 Amys is also a member of the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association, an Italian organization which strictly regulates what can be called Neapolitan pizza (and theirs can be).

On Saturday, we started with their bruschetta, slices of grilled bread topped with their tomato-basil ragout, which tastes just like summer. B had their hearty Abruzzese pizza: polpettine (little meatballs), garlic, parsley, and pecorino. I went with their Santa Brigida, a more traditional bent with tomato, fresh mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, and arugula. I think the best I’ve had, though, remains a specialty from this December: thin, long strips of grilled zucchini, cherry tomatoes and olive oil, with a mound of burrata mozzarella in the middle. Simply heavenly. But then, that’s the rule here.

two more newbies

Grahamwich wasn’t the only new restaurant Boyfriend and I tried on last weekend’s trip to Chicago. We returned to Mercadito and The Gage for two winning dinners, but every lunch and brunch was an entirely new venture, and a successful one to boot.

We had planned on a sushi place slightly outside our geographic comfort zone for Saturday lunch. Then it was Saturday, it was eleven o’clock in the morning, and we were just beginning to stir. Hungrily. A quick poke around Yelp pointed us to Friends Sushi, right off Michigan Avenue and only five blocks from the Museum of Contemporary Art. Ding, ding, ding! Outside was bitingly cold, with a fierce wind roaring up the avenues, and when we tumbled into Friends — frozen fingers, runny noses and all! — it felt like the warmest place in the world. It felt like a warm bath. I am not joking. I can tell that, if I lived in Chicago, I would while away whole afternoons here: the heat, the ying-yang shaped tables and plates, the vaguely purple walls, it’s all very soothing.

We started with some nectar-of-the-gods miso soup and sinus-clearing pork shumai infused with wasabi. Then we split three fabulous rolls. The Crispy-Creamy, which is (and I copy directly from the website) shrimp tempura, avocado, asparagus, scallions, cream cheese, wasabi tobiko, spicy sauce topped with parmesan cheese, tempura crumb, creamy wasabi sauce, and unagi sauce. I know it sounds like TOO MUCH, like PICK A THEME AND STICK WITH IT, but it wasn’t. It all married perfectly in crispy-creamy mouthful. Then the Big Friends roll, because I am incapable of omitting eel from a sushi experience, which includes soft shell crab tempura, spicy scallop, asian pear, avocado, masago, topped with unagi, shrimp, unagi glaze, and spicy mayo. Asian pear! I know! It gave the whole roll a wonderful fresh crispness. Finally we had the deceptively named Fire Wing, about half as spicy as the name implies, with fresh salmon, avocado, asparagus, masago, scallions, and spicy sauce, with a layer of tuna and white tuna on top. I have no idea how their outlandish-sounding concoctions manage to amount to much more than their elaborate and many parts; it’s just the magic of a clever sushi chef. (And Chicagoans, take note: they deliver!)

The other new place was Yolk, a locally famous brunch spot that was nearly overrun with Bears fans last Sunday. We waited a perfectly reasonable 20 minutes to be seated, and then began the terrible task of sifting through the dozens of menu items, including fritatas, skillets, omelets, scramblers, benedicts and their ilk, pancakes, crepes, french toasts, and every imaginable combination of egg/meat/potato. Here is the old adage about the 21st century made abundantly clear: we are afraid to chose, because each choice necessarily shuts another door. I was tempted by their veggie skillet, I truly was, even though I was going to negate its, um, “health benefits” and order a side of bacon AND PANCAKES, but then I saw their Tour de France French Toast.

Three specialty breads, dipped in an egg-and-cream batter, grilled, and topped with fresh fruit. And syrup. There wasa sweet orange bread with strawberries, a banana nut with bananas, and the best, a lemon-poppyseed with blueberries. My mouth waters just thinking about it. These weren’t true french toasts, with that classic exterior crunch and gooey center, but they were wonderful all the same. A true case of dessert for breakfast, but I happen to think vacation warrants such excesses. And I want to go back immediately.

a fancy sandwich

We actually got a good dumping of snow last night — and it’s still flurrying — and I say “actually” because I didn’t know it was supposed to snow at all. Way to check the weather report! Way to salt the driveway! The view out the window this morning was quite a surprise. When we left Chicago yesterday afternoon the snow was just beginning to dust the city, and it must have crept westward under the cover of night.

Another thing sticking with me from the weekend: our Friday sandwiches at Grahamwich, of Graham Elliot restaurant fame. We made a beeline for the joint immediately after checking into the hotel, and after a few minutes of purposeful hovering managed to snag a corner seat at their long communal table in back. Otherwise, there’s some counters for elbow-parking and sandwich-chomping, but most people, on Friday at least, we taking away. I’d hate to think of the crush on Saturdays.

We started, as is our wont, with the truffle oil popcorn, the same kind diners get for free at Graham Elliot, and which they have thankfully exported here. It’s five dollars, but comes in a huge bag that we could only barrel halfway through. And I kept thinking, kernel after kernel, We could make this at home. Hold the truffle oil, sure, but grated parmesan, chopped chives, black pepper and sea salt? Pantry items! This may be worth investigating.

Billy, in his Billy way, got the reuben: pastrami, rutabaga sauerkraut, toasted caraway seeds, gruyere fondu and 1000 island dressing on marbled rye. I’m not a reuben girl, but this was fantastically delicious. And messy. Plus, just look at it! Beautiful!

I am a grilled cheese girl, though, especially if it’s Wisconsin cheddar (for taste), cheese curds (for ooze), prosciutto, and tomato marmalade on a Pullman loaf, all toasted together. It was one of the best grilled cheese sandwiches I’ve had: savory, powerfully gooey, with some salty meat and the tomato soup already built-in. Not that I’m biased or anything, but we definitely got the best options on the menu. (Except maybe the short rib sandwich. And the pork shoulder press.)

It’s true, hipsters don’t have any problems finding the place, but don’t let that stop you. It’s just one good bite after another. And if at all possible, leave some real estate in your stomach for their desserts, including Greek yogurt soft serve sprinkled with dark chocolate, pomegranate seeds, and glazed chestnuts, which I did not try but have dreamed about. Yum!

truffle oil popcorn

I promised to tell you about Graham Elliot, the restaurant Billy and I ate at last Saturday night. I forshadowed with three of the most beautiful words in the English language: Truffle. Oil. Popcorn. This is what they give you to nosh on, instead of bread and butter. They give you popcorn in small, industrial boxes, drizzled with truffle oil and tossed with black pepper and shaved parmesan. It is, as our waiter warned us, “addictive,” but luckily that is one part of the meal that arrives, and refills, free of charge.

I say the “the one part” because the rest is expensive. Not prohibitively, not necessarily, but you should know that the menu online doesn’t come with a price list in a gesture of, If-you-have-to-ask, __________. (Fill in the blank.) At one point during dinner, B leaned over and said, “I’m glad that we are both happy spending all our money on food.” You have to be.

Graham Elliot is what would happen if the French Laundry and its three Michelin stars met a grunge rock band. There will be foams and deconstruction. There will be loud music and a tongue in cheek menu notes like “if you feel like taking yourself too seriously during dinner, ask your server for our house copy of ‘war and peace'”. The header for the hundred dollar wines will be called, “big whites and reds (the baller section)”. There will be truffle oil popcorn in an industrial tin.

romaine. anchovy. parmesan. brioche. anchoide. peppercorn. How better to start than with a deconsructed Caesar salad: a brioche twinkie crouton (with dressing subbed in for the twinkie marshmallow fluff) topped with a shoot of lettuce and topped again with a whole anchovy and “parmesan fluff.” It’s a great conceit — GE would call it “awesome”, as in “keep an open mind and awesomeness will result,” which is in print and I am NOT making up — but I wanted a truer, crunchier crouton. And more leaves. And basically, I wanted it to taste miles better than the Caesar-dressed romaines I haphazardly throw together on a regular, lunch basis, and it didn’t taste miles better. Not because I AM AWESOME or MY RECIPE IS, but because there wasn’t so much taste following the presentation.

butternut. curry. coconut. lemongrass. ginger. lime. The second course was a soup. It was outrageous. I could eat the vat. But first, let me tell you that they bring out soup bowls, with pepitas and other crunchies arranged artfully on the bottom. The liquid comes in a beaker. (A lab beaker! Seriously!) At the table, the server pours the soup over the nom nom crunchies, and you are instructed to please taste the soup immediately, then swirl it with the crunchies and “observe how the chemistry changes.” Did I roll my eyes? I confess nothing. But the change was extraordinary. At first, a sweet, mellow, and well, squashy taste and then — swirl — it turned sharper, with those faintly bitter and sour hints of lemongrass and lime. This was one of my favorites.

scallop. persimmon. endive. walnut. vanilla. gooseberry. Then the sea course. Two scallops on the plate, each occupied with their own favor, one sweet with vanilla and persimmon and the other a more savory take. There were also some incredibly pillow-light and fluffy gnocchi, and I found myself wishing for an entire plate of just that. I didn’t love the flavoring on this dish. The scallops themselves were lovely, so was the gnocchi. I’m a simple girl. Just give me that. Or soup.

waygu. potatoes. more truffle. (Can you tell this one isn’t on their website?) The land course! Two rounds of perfectly rare waygu beef, tucked over miniature purple potatoes and baby carrots, all topped off (at the table, from a beaker) with more truffle broth. I find this complaint almost unbearably “let them eat cake,” so please don’t mock or hate when I’d had, by that point, too much truffle. There. Now I will always be the girl who ate too many truffles. But I just wanted my perfect meat and potatoes on their own.

chocolate. marshmallow. graham. peanut. honey. brulee. I am just going to go die now. Do you know what this was? It was a homemade, haute s’more with peanut butter and vanilla ice cream foams. It weakened me. A cut of graham cracker. A slab of good, but really good milk chocolate. A bouncy, from-scratch and perfectly square mashmallow, browned right to the point of gooeyness. Did I mention there were two s’mores? I ate it as nature and campfires intended, hands and all, and the waiter laughingly told me, “That’s the first time I’ve seen someone eat it like a real s’more.” People! When it’s called high-low, you gotta act like it!

Graham Elliot actually hit the nail on the head with this declaration on the website:

It does redefine fine dining. Sometimes, the resulting cleverness leaves a little taste to be desired (deconstructed caesar, I’m looking at you), but it’s ultimately a successful experiment. Right down to the beakers. And next time, I’m going five rounds on the haute s’mores.

why buy it when you can make it yourself: part chicken stock

When I had a really bad cold this time last year, my mom asked, “Don’t you have any chicken stock?” Knowing the kind she meant, I said no. To which she promptly rejoindered, “Well tell Billy to go out and buy you a chicken to make stock with!”

What an inane and poorly prioritized conversation, you are likely thinking, but that’s because you don’t know my dad’s chicken stock. It’s magical. It heals. It soothes. It does your laundry.

Okay, it doesn’t do that, but I grew up on chicken noodle soup from this base and can’t tell you how many times it stalled an impending cold-and-flu cloud in its tracks, and indeed sent it packing to the next desk down. I also couldn’t figure out why my barley and rice didn’t taste as good in Iowa as at home, until I realized my dad doesn’t cook them in water, but chicken stock. The flavor’s insane. Insane rice? Yes. You must be catching on. Same goes with, you know, any number of recipes here or elsewhere that call for chicken broth. Make this; use it instead.

Not just for the joy of “Little House on the Prairie”-ing. My store bought, low-sodium chicken broth in the fridge counts among its ingredients yeast extract and cane juice. The mind boggles. This doesn’t belong in stock. And I buy the hippie kind. Make this; use it instead and be amazed.

Chicken Stock
This is a recipe in the barest sense of the word: add several handfuls of chopped this and that to a pot, cover with water, and cook for several hours. You can, of course, alter the herbs to taste, and no you don’t need an entire, perfect rotisserie-cooked chicken carcas. But for you measurement geeks:

• Leftover bones from one whole chicken
• One cup roughly chopped celery
• One cup roughly chopped carrots
• One onion, halved and stuck with 6 cloves
• A bunch of parsley
• A bunch of fresh thyme
• A couple bay leaves
• Salt and pepper to taste

Plop all the ingredients in a large pot and add enough water to cover. Bring to boil and reduce to simmer. Cook, covered, on low heat for around three hours. During the first half hour, hour, skim off any particles or fat that float to the surface. Cover and continue to cook two to three hours. Strain and refrigerate overnight. The next morning, skim off any more fat from the surface, and freeze until needed.

where the beef is

If you want a burger in Iowa City, you’ve got two contenders. One is the Hamburg Inn, site of the famous coffee bean ballot (at press time, Loebsack and Culver were trouncing their opponents in the races for Senate and Governor, and speaking of, have you voted yet?), one of the town’s best breakfasts, and favored watering hole of all visiting politicians. And the Inn has the walls to prove it.

The other is Shorts Burger and Shine. That’s the one we go for. The Hamburg Inn is your classic, greasy spoon burger joint. Shorts makes it exciting. They have 20 different burgers, and most of the toppings can be put to a chicken or black bean burger instead – a very sweet gesture for vegetarians, wherever you are. I also dig their commitment to local farmers and brewers: they have all Iowa beers on tap, including Amana’s delicious Millstream Brewing Company, which we visited a couple weeks ago.

Their beef story is even better: the Black Angus cows live  27 miles up the road at Ed Smith Farms; the meat is processed at Bud’s Meats in Riverside and always arrives fresh; and even the buns are made daily. Oh, and the vegetables come from the farmer’s market, when growing seasons permit. I love this, [rant alert] and not just because I am an elite locavore out of touch with the common man. It’s because with daily doomsday announcements of beef contamination, unhygienic (to say nothing of unethical) slaughterhouse conditions, and diseased animals, how nice is it to know where your food’s coming from, yes, down to the name of the beef processing plant. [end rant]

Of course, none of this would matter if the burger didn’t taste good. Listen: it DOES! Juicy and flavorful meat topped with the widest variety (and most imaginative) toppings in town. I am a devotee of the Maynard Burger, pictured above, which has bacon, avocado, and garlic aioli. (I also requested some caramelized onions, because I am incorrigible.) Billy leans toward the spicy southwest options, and last time ordered the Baxter: provolone, bacon, chipotle mayonnaise, and a blackened burger. But there’s truly an option for everyone, right down to the most basic American cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato. The buns are puffy but strong, odd qualifiers that basically mean: does not fall apart mid-chomp! And each burger comes with an order of fries: pieces of skin still on, cut into diagonal strips, fried golden brown, melt-in-your-mouth delectable. (I am a fries fiend.)

click to enlarge

 

If it’s your first time passing through Iowa City, you should probably get your burger at the landmark Inn — just to say you’ve been. But for the second and third times, head down to Shorts Burgers for a real taste of the heartland.

Update 11/3: Apparently we’re not the only ones! The Press-Citizen’s annual reader-voted “Best of the Area” list has named Shorts the best burger in town! They write:

Short’s Burger and Shine is a reincarnation of sorts. It was 1920 when Short’s Shoe Shine, one of the first African-American-owned businesses in Iowa City, opened up and started shining shoes. Years later, new owners — including former Iowa Hawkeye and NFL star Nate Kaeding — started up a new store in the same space, but this time serving up burgers rather than shoe polish. Open just a couple of years, the new burgers have already found a devoted following.