Feast of St. Amand (d. 679). Monk. Hermit. Abbot. His association with vintners originates from his preaching and teaching in the beer and wine regions of France, Flanders and Germany.
Birth of James Busby. Born in Scotland, Busby was a viticulturist, writer and public servant, known as the “Father of the Australian Wine Industry.” Took first collection of vine stock from Spain and France in the 1830s to Australia. Australian Chardonnay and Shiraz trace their origins to his vine imports.
There’s no real reason to anchor this post with a photo (courtesy of Showtime) of Michael C. Hall in Dexter, except that the show is set in Miami, where we visited recently—and surely the Chamber of Commerce won’t complain about having an exceptionally attractive serial killer serve as a poster boy for their city. We could have used Jackie Gleason, I suppose, but where are the sex and sizzle in that?
What a gorgeous relief from the Manhattan skyline in winter. In Miami, you have the jeweled aquamarine tones of the water and, along all the shores, shiny new buildings touched with bursts of colored light at night: It’s like a city that somehow got into its head that it was really a cocktail bar.
New York had Robert Moses. Miami seems more like a resort dreamed up by the owner of Moss (a Manhattan hallmark of the Vivosian lifestyle). Playfulness, frivolity and prettiness were key accents of two hotel-lobby “scenes” Aldo and I investigated on a balmy, moonlight-saturated Friday. First was the new Mondrian on West: The concept is a consciously mod white-on-white fantasy of smooth gleaming molded plastic/fiberglass. Near the front entrance, where Aldo was stunned by the Gatsybesque sheen of someone’s parked Rolls convertible, one found an inspiredly silly automat, bathed in fuchsia light, selling jewelry, T-shirts and a paperback of The Valley of the Dolls (which, in case you didn’t know, is the source of our Patty Duke photo up top). In the main area, chandeliers were hung within giant golden bells. Moving outside, we were delighted with the poolside “umbrellas,” a sort of Jeff Koons sight gag: they were shaped into enormous table lamps.
The revelers were young and gorgeous and loud, except for one or two very old exceptions who were vigilantly lacquered and cossetted and watchful. If this scene ever gets old, it will be like them. It will be Liberace. How sad.
Next we hopped over to the renovated and recently reopened Fountainebleau, where we had a nightcap in the exquisitely tiled front room of Scarpetta (it has a sister restaurant here in Manhattan). The atmosphere there was somewhere between waterfront dock and Milanese fashion house. The Fontainebleau, designed by Morris Lapidus and opened in 1954, boasts an eye-seducingly luxe interior so full of polished stone, gleaming detail and undulating curves it suggests a Taj Mahal created to house the remains of Marilyn Monroe. The crowd wasn’t as hip as at the Mondrian, but the sense of space and flow and stone-cooled air were irresistible. (The Mondrian’s lobby-level staircase, by the way, seems to be an homage to the Fontainebleau’s famous “Staircase to Nowhere.”)
The newly popular Design District, oddly enough, didn’t offer nearly as much high-design amusement: it felt distinctly emptied out and Edward Hopperishy. But we enjoyed a very good meal outdoors there at Michael’s Genuine: The skirt steak came with a memorably rich green-olive aioili that I wanted to smear over everything, my forearms included. A few nights later, straight up Key Biscayne Boulevard by another forty blocks, we found our favorite meal at Michy’s. Aldo had a salad with beans and walnuts that he said was one of the best he ever had in his long and terrifyingly eventful life.
We always have lunch at that Little Havana mainstay, Versailles, which in its own décor of chandeliers and paneled mirrors is just as impeccably overdesigned as the Mondrian or Fontainebleau: What makes it real, and appealing, are the waitresses. They seemed a bit tired and frayed, in the old Thelma Ritter manner, but brought the huge portions without fuss and without attitude.
Now we are back in New York, and missing it all. But we DVRed season three of Dexter, and we’ll settle for that.
I’ve previously mentioned that Aldo and I visited Portland in midsummer, but it’s only now as the East Coast leaves begin to yellow that I have the chance to write about our remarkable dinner at Beast.
Let me start by saying that earlier in the afternoon of that day—a beautiful day—we were driving our rental car along the Columbia River Gorge when a feral cat darted across in front of us, practically sacrificing its life beneath our wheels, and for what? To pounce on and sink its teeth into the thin meat of of a hapless squirrel that sat in the sunshine in a clearing on the far side of the road.
Anyone who has dined at Beast will pounce instinctively, like that feral cat, at a chance to eat there again. Even if it means dodging traffic. And the meat is plentiful.
It says as much in the name, Beast, which suggests strictly carnivorous fare from the stockyards of Chicago. Or perhaps a refectory for Notre Dame linemen the night before the big game. Or, more in keeping with our own lifestyle, a sex club modeled on the labyrinth of the minotaur. Doesn’t that sound like a delight? It is no place for the vegan. It is, however, a destination for anyone who wants to savor a carefully constructed piece of culinary performance art, exquisite and yet also robust.
The restaurant is located in a nondescript neighborhood, off an intersection containing other plain-wrapped restaurants. A few houses away we passed a lawn where a broken stove had been plunked down without ceremony, like an old relative, with a sign saying it could be had for fifty bucks. Beast itself had a look just one step up from a garage, with a front door protected by metal bars. In New York, it would suggest a perfect Mafia front. Or an Italian restaurant for a Mafia front.
Inside, the restaurant was a dark open room with a slate-black-tiled open kitchen. The back wall also had the look of slate, and was scribbled all over with catchphrases in chalk. I should have written the catchphrases down, because now I can’t recall them except to say they were somewhere between MFK Fisher and Bob Dylan. There were but two tables, arranged perpendicularly, and the staff took a few minutes to manage the somewhat tricky business of optimizing the seating plan.
Aldo said it all reminded him of a) the workhouse dining-hall scene in “Oliver Twist” and b) the restaurant in that scary Peter Greenaway movie “The Cook, the Thief, the Wife & Her Lover.” Neither of those, frankly, are the happiest associations one might have before embarking on a five- or six-course prix-fix meal with wines, but he had a point: The air of being part of an “experience” created a sense of heightened anticipation and hunger—with, besides, the shadow fear of a coming letdown.
And then what should be the amuse bouche but a small bowl of steaming gruel topped with crème fraiche and diced chives?
Kidding! On the contrary, the meal built superbly, happily, from one course to the next. A lobster bisque with sweet yellow corn and—wonderful touch of texture and sweetness—cantaloupe; a charcuterie plate that contained a small, absolutely perfect “bonbon” of foie gras with sauternes gelee, no bigger than a thimble, sitting on a demure little cracker; a sizeable lamb-loin chop that, if served in a Manhattan tasting menu, would have been carved up to serve eight portions; a seared scallop with heirloom tomatoes—the one course, I have to say, that has left no lasting impression on me, except that it was served with a nasturtium remoulade, which is a pretty-sounding phrase; and an exceptionally fine, exceptionally balanced plate of artisan cheeses.
We didn’t have dessert. We’re gays.
A note on the wines. They were thoughtfully chosen to complement the courses, and perfectly suited to midsummer dining. This is not a restaurant showcasing the prevalent taste for the native Willamette grape. The wines were Old World and mostly French, especially from Marsannay. This appellation, known mostly for its roses, produces no sought-after grand crus; mostly light, medium-bodied and agreeable wines. All the bottles, save for the sweet Bordeaux for dessert, were from the 2005 vintage. The Dom. Roy Marsannay blanc “Les Champs Perdrix,” a wine from a significant parcel (or lieu-dit) west of the Route de Grand Cru that runs along the village of Marsannay, presented a racy, Chablis-like counterpoint to the creamy lobster bisque. The Dom. Fougeray du Beauclair rose matched perfectly with the charcuterie plate. Even the foie gras bonbon contrasted nicely with the rose’s fruitiness. This same domain’s St Jacques blanc did not overwhelm the scallop; if anything, they joined together to sing a mellow low-key note. Best of all, the polished Fred Loimer Langenlois Terrassen Pinot Noir made an elegant Austrian match with the lamb loin-chop. For dessert, the guest was offered a Loupiac or Maury, depending on his preference for cheese or chocolate.
Beast probably would be a bust in Manhattan, where people wouldn’t be expected to seek out unusual culinary experiences in odd residential neighborhoods in unprepossessing little shacks. Nor would they line up outside before being seated, as we did, unless it were for a highly praised, hard-to-get off-off-Broadway show. And the economics of big-city dining would pose problems for a multi-course menu (no subsitutions) served in generous portions in a small room, two seatings per night. But in Portland it works, beautifully. This was practically the best meal we’d had all year.
We spent a week in Portland, Oregon, a place of gorgeous pines and mountains—a landscape dramatic but also strangely soothing—with a strong and expertly brewed brand of coffee called Stumptown and with many bearded men dressed in slightly avant-garde clothing (the style falls somewhere between punk rock and logging camp). Residents we spoke with tended to sigh after Seattle as a more cosmopolitan town, and although our weather was superb they often alluded darkly to winter rains and oppressive cloud cover that made them suffer. But then who doesn’t think of happiness as something to be found elsewhere? We spend at least two minutes of any given day in Manhattan, the bustling center of the world, lamenting the fact that we’re there.
We had wine, too, abundantly and integrally linked to the economy and the life of the area. One lightly cool evening, we met a man who planted grapes out in the vineyards of Dundee Hills, and with him was a French girl who had been spending the summer as a vineyard intern. Somewhere in there is the story for a charming indie movie. Back in Manhattan, the only winemaker we know rents fermenting steel tanks out on Long Island: This seems to us to lack the same romance of the earth. On the other hand, this winemaker is destined to make money, and it’s amazing how much romance you can generate just by sprinkling in a dollar sign and some zeroes.
We were staying with a friend who, in a pleasantly dogged way, has managed to acquire several thousand bottles of Oregon wines, mostly reds, in the basement of his home. He was very generous with his wines—our first concern had been that he was hoarding for a postapocalyptic bomb cellar—and constantly reappeared with another bottle to open for us. We got a little woozy, to be honest. Or it may have been that we relaxed into the Pacific Northwest lifestyle. Our friend had planted bamboo along his patio, and we seemed to sway with the reeds.
What do we recall? A 1997 Argyle sparkling blanc de blanc from the Knudsen vineyards; a 1999 Argyle brut made from 30 percent pinor noir and 70 percent chardonnay—both crisp and pleasurable. Also two Panther Creeks, a 1999 pinot noir from the Bednarik vineyards and a 2000 pinot noit from the Red Hills Estate. Generally these were lovely wines, perhaps lacking in nuance. And the sparkling wines may have had the edge with us. But at the same time the pinots were lower-keyed than what we expect in wines from, oh, Californee. These weren’t overextracted blockbuster fruit bombs. They were of a piece with the hills saturated with blue and greens: Plush but without ostentation.
We spent an afternoon wandering around Charleston in a sort of dazed
contentment: A strong spring gale raced through the tree-lined streets
like a child running ahead of its parent, and the lengthened hours of
light (now daylight savings time) gave us an opportunity to pause and
look at many of the town’s fine, quietly proud houses. Like all good New
Yorker, we speculated about how much property went for, and much Charleston
house could be bought with Manhattan co-op.
We left Charleston about 4 in the afternoon. We had plans for the evening — Dinner
and a sleepover at a top-rated hotel not too far off: Woodlands Resort and Inn,
in the town of Summerville.
Woodlands, built some two decades or so after the Gilded Age, is the former
winter home of a rich Pennsylvania railroad man, and it felt suitably deluxe and
relaxedly clubby. Our room was decorated with an eye to a certain type of detail:
comfortable, slightly more masculine than feminine, as if designed for a respected
middle-aged literary novelist with better than middling sales under his belt. And
the bed was enormous, rising up and up like the steps of an Aztec temple. Outside,
the property was leafy and for the most part deserted, which poetically speaking is
how a property should seem at sunset as the spring air chills. We walked to the
outdoor pool, and it all felt a bit like a small Southern Garden of the Finzi Continis.
But the chief draw to this place had been the hotel’s dining establishment, and we
arrived famished. There was a small bowl of M&Ms in the room, and Aldo wolfed them
down like Patty Duke swallowing pills in Valley of the Dolls. Meanwhile,
I reviewed the large wine list on-line to move the dinner along. The list was varied
with wines reasonably priced and not so. Within a half-hour, I settled on a couple of
interesting whites and reds.
The restaurant is presided over by a young chef named Tarver King, a name that
sounds like a character out of a Robert Penn Warren novel. He has a very impressive
resume that included a stint at the Inn at Little Washington. (We ate there many
years ago, by the way. It was scrumptious and only slightly more expensive than the
budget to build the Chicago World Exposition of 1893.) Chef Tarver’s food was of the
“dazzling” sort that’s probably necessary to get your name on the map outside a
big city. It was probably also unavoidable that the woman who waited on us, while
friendly and pleasurable, would smilingly, insistently ask us how we liked the food.
(The implied answer: Bowled over, toots!) We were given an amuse bouche on a
spoon that produced a flavor and texture approximating blueberry soda, which is not
really all that much of an amusement, but the food that came after was very, very
good—if a bit too thought out. An endive salad, for instance, was a painstaking
construction, its leaves carefully planked end to end almost like a galley ship. We
looked closely to see if tiny slaves were rowing it.
That, actually, was the only objection either of us had to the food: The composition
and colors weren’t very attractive, and the light of the day in pretty Charleston
had made us receptive to pretty food on a pretty plate. I don’t say it wasn’t
delicious – loved the foie gras — only that it didn’t seduce the eye.
With this we were drank a bottle of the 2004 Ostertag Pinot Blanc. Not among
my immediate choices, despite the prep work down in our room: the on-line wine
list was out of date. Why does destiny toy with us this way?
Ah, but now came Aldo’s entrée, scallops. One side of the plate was coated with
something that looked unappetizingly like the loden-green algae that typically
grows in the spring on a garden’s steps. Aldo almost ignored it, the stuff, until
he scraped a little onto a scallop and ate them together. The puree was deeply
satisfying: a robust flavor of herbs and garlic that was, in fact, a superb
complement to the scallops. It was like a pesto from the stratosphere.
And you know what it was made from? Aldo asked our server, and she of course
obligingly informed us: stinging nettles.
Isn’t there a Tanizaki story with that title? If there is, and anyone has read it, can
he please let us know if it’s wonderfully perverse and kinky?
The stinging nettle is a common plant with spiky little needles on the leaf,
used for centuries for medicinal purposes and soups and, I suspect, practical jokes
by peasants. This puree was one of its more sublimely civilized uses. The chef, when
he visited the dining room at the end of the evening, was disgustingly young – no,
that isn’t what I was going to say, not “disgustingly.” Audaciously young. Yes, let’s say
that. He also presented us with small glasses of a nonalcoholic stinging-nettle
beer he had been developing: It was a sweet, gingery tonic.
At any rate, it was nice to know that something as simple as a stinging
nettle could, with a little culinary ingenuity, be elevated into something that, for
the space of a meal and then in memory, created one additional moment of
happiness on a very good day.
