Still Cooking for Margy

I've obviously been a horribly delinquent blogger. It's been eating away at me. Plus I'm not inventorying our meals properly, which was always a fringe benefit of running CFM -- if I wanted to remember how I'd handled a dish or an ingredient, I could just look it up. That's helpful when you don't really use recipes and tend not to write things down. So the details behind that amazing roux-thickened, herb-flavored sauce I made for a red snapper back in October will keep fading away until I just have to start again from scratch and hope I haven't lost my juju.

Now, let's get caught up a little. We have a trip to rehash before I get back to discussing my own kitchen experiments.

Last September, Margy and I went to Amsterdam and Germany. It was our first visit to Amsterdam and my first visit to Germany (Margy's been there countless times; her mom is German born). Everything we ate in Amsterdam was delicious -- every meal, for each of our five days. We went fancy; we went humble. I had rare lamb chops with fried gnocchi one night (before we went to see the Police at the 50,000-seat Amsterdam ArenA), and the next day, after hanging around the Rembrandt House, I ate the best hot dog I've had in my life. I dressed it with mustard and a zig-zag of curry ketchup and nibbled on it as a brass band floated by on the canal beneath us, a bunch of guys in yellow shirts and red ties, packed so tightly into a little boat that there wasn't room for them to move beyond working their trombone slides.


And of course we ate Dutch pancakes. This is our sweet/savory combo: one with lemon and sugar, which we dressed with a thick molasses-rich syrup, and one with bacon and onion. Just thinking about the aroma of the batter on the griddles in that restaurant is enough to make me book another ticket.

The German food we ate didn't dazzle me the way the Dutch offerings did. We had a few fancy meals that were excellent, but I had my eye more on the everyday foods. Would you believe that I couldn't get myself a bratwurst? I don't know, maybe in its native land bratwurst has become a joke, or a myth. Is it the Salisbury steak of Germany? Not once, but twice, I found a wonderful-sounding item on a menu -- "seven little grilled bratwurst served with potatoes and onions," let's say. I stomped my feet a bit and rubbed my hands together and got ready for snappy sausages. Then I'd hear, "I'm sorry, it isn't available."

The first time this happened I ordered roasted chicken and vegetables instead. I got roasted chicken and vegetables. Not bad. The second time, on our last night in Germany, at an adorable restaurant, sitting on a vine-covered porch overlooking the moonlit Rhine along with Margy's parents, aunt, uncle, and cousins (and their dog), it was harder to take no for an answer. I was confused: "I'm in Germany. Why can't I have a bratwurst?" I listened to Margy's cousin explain that there should be no good reason why a restaurant would run out of bratwurst -- after all, he said, it's vacuum packed and refrigerated and not in danger of spoiling quite like fresh beef would be. I sulked, I pouted. At everyone's suggestion, I ordered a rindswurst. It was okay. It was like a thick-skinned hot dog, only not like an Amsterdam hot dog if you catch my drift.

Looking back, it was in Cologne, on our first night in Germany, where we had what I'd call our most authentic and fun restaurant meal. (It was also in Cologne where I could have had my way with a bratwurst or a currywurst, but at the time I deemed a stand outside the train station to be an inappropriate setting. Wish I could take that one back.) The place was a "small" beer hall, which meant it could hold only about a hundred people or so. We started with pickled herring, which frankly was more of a red herring if you ask me -- it had the perfect balance of flavors and was so wonderfully delicious that it set up, in my mind, expectations that would not be met over the next few days.


Here's Margy's main course from that meal -- curled sausage with potatoes. The creamy white mound at left is the vegetable. It's cream. Sorry -- it's creamed spinach. Doesn't the sausage look lovely? It tasted like breakfast sausage. My entree of pork knuckle (it's meat from the leg, not an actual knuckle), which had the same accompaniments, was tasty but dry.

The atmosphere, however, was great. A big, boisterous table of German men dining after work (presumably) was given its own portable six-liter fountain of Kolsch beer, and I could watch the liquid level fall steadily before my eyes as the guys drew more drinks. Meanwhile, Margy and I were drinking Kolsch as well -- in six-ounce glasses. The poor hardworking waitress, clutching a palette hollowed out with round holes to hold a bunch of tiny glasses, had to run downstairs every time we wanted two more beers. When the check came, Margy and I found we'd drunk nine beers between us.

I don't mean to slag German food. We had a bunch of great lunches -- smoked trout, liverwurst, ham, cheese, brown bread -- and we did enjoy our two fancier dinners, which included a Riesling cream soup with dill and chive dumplings, and perhaps the best mushroom dish I've ever eaten: duck ravioli with chanterelles and peaches. The mushroom flavor (there was a truffle in there somewhere) was utterly clear and pure, and eating the ravioli was one of those times when you're simultaneously rushing and stalling. Margy's parents have seen me ooh and aah over food, but my ravioli rapture might have scared them a little.

Also, I found that, especially in Cologne but in other town centers that we walked through as well, there is a bewitching meaty aroma wafting through the German air. It's the scent of great pieces of pork set a-roasting. It had me transfixed, and it tempted me to track it down. I chased it, I floated after it, but I couldn't see it -- I couldn't be sure exactly where it led. It angers me still that I can't eat that aroma, even though I cannot quite remember the aroma itself. Madness, take me now! I vow to return, and to find the place where I can satisfy my hunger. Maybe the joint will serve bratwurst.

Margy's Beijing Journal: A Spicy Farewell

For the last meal of her trip, Margy, along with her hosts/culinary tour guides, ate at a place called the Middle-8th, which serves "refined Hunan food."

"Refined" is not how I'd describe that indecent-looking mound of hot peppers; "thrilling" is more like it. Of course, the peppers aren't meant to be eaten. Rather, they're there to produce heat by association, lending just a steady glow rather than outright flames to the fried heads-on shrimp they surround. Margy was generally dazzled by the chile effect in Beijing, saying that the spicy dishes carried the perfect level of heat, a mellow yet persistent tingle that was dialed only one step down from euphoric.

Adding to the pleasant feelings was a refreshing house-made rice wine that Margy described as looking like lemonade. It was served in tall, handleless bamboo pitchers and drunk from glass Mason jars, and Margy just said "I wish I had some now." Me, I'll settle for about 25 of those shrimp.

So there you have it, Margy's Beijing Journal. I hope I get to join her one day should she ever return, but for now I'll just be glad to have her back and to have someone besides myself to cook for.

Margy's Beijing Journal: Korean Detour

After you hit a donkey restaurant, how do you follow that?

In Margy's case, the answer was going to a Korean hole in the wall for some delicious bi bim bob, shredded beef and vegetables mixed into rice. Margy's gang sat at a table that was fitted with an exhaust hose for Korean barbecue, and they had kimchi and a giant scallion pancake before the main course arrived.

That's the server who's mixing the bi bim bob for Margy. How fresh and tasty it looks. One bite... just give me one bite!

Margy's Beijing Journal: What Have We Here?

Tonight, as Margy was finishing up her workday, her friends/hosts asked a familiar question in a most unfamiliar way. Instead of the usual "What would you like to eat tonight?" or "What are you in the mood for now?" they asked, "Would you like to eat some donkey?"

"Sure..." Margy said, not a little timidly. "Is it good?"

Next thing she knew she was whisked off to what seemed like the outskirts of town, where she and her posse drove down a dirt road and arrived at a building that was hopping with activity and aglow from the neon sign out front (Margy says she saw lots of neon on her trip). The sign was translated for her: "Beijing's #1 Donkey Restaurant."

Now that I think of it, I neglected to ask how many other donkey restaurants there are in Beijing.

The place offered its signature ingredient in an array of preparations, and Margy's party chose donkey patties (top right). She said they were quite good, covered with sesame seeds and filled with juicy red meat. (The big pot holds a mountain of tofu, which was eaten with the sauces, presumably nondonkey all, in front of the pot.) I think she understood that her hang-ups -- if, in fact, she had any; I'm not quite sure -- were purely cultural and that hey, this is where you eat donkey, so gimme some. When I got her text message about this swashbuckling dinner, I said to myself, I married the right girl. Of course, then I said to myself, Wait, I've never eaten donkey.

So send me to China and bring me to Beijing's #1 Donkey Restaurant, and I'll do my part. But you know what they say about donkey: It goes straight to your ass!

Margy's Beijing Journal: Chou Dofu

...or, as it is more commonly known, "stinky tofu" -- tofu that's been marinated in a brine of fermented vegetables.

It's the yummy-looking fried stuff on the plate at left. How innocent it seems -- golden cubes of crispy deep-fried food. Fried anything is good -- how strange could this be?

According to Margy, pretty strange.

A few days ago, after correctly pegging Margy as an adventurous eater, one of her hosts started chatting her up about stinky tofu, asking whether she'd ever had it and beginning to prime her for the experience. Was this a test? After all, Margy had two hosts, and the other one didn't want to have anything to do with the stuff. But Margy was game.

She said she took two bites and knew that fermented tofu wasn't the dish of her dreams (okay, she knew this after the first bite, but she wanted to be sure). The smell and flavor were superstrong and a bit too jarring to be enjoyable. The other American at the table plugged ahead a little longer than Margy before he too gave up.

Luckily there were other, more familiar foods going around, like a whole fish with chili sauce. Margy had lots of whole fish in Beijing, and what could be better? Anyway, the only real reason to object to eating whole fish is that dealing with bones can be a drag, and in general Chinese don't mind dealing with bones. Margy's companions used their chopsticks to make quick work of the task.

While the Beijing gang sipped plum wine and noshed on stinky tofu, I was at Rudy's on 9th Avenue having "rehearsal" with my band, which consisted of drinking beer and eating a lousy but free hot dog, which, now that I think of it, might have also been fermented...

Margy's Beijing Journal: Hot Pot

Tonight was Margy's introduction to Mongolian hot pot. (I don't think it counts that we've visited the dreadful J.P. Lee's in Millburn, NJ, a Mongolian barbecue place that's like a less fun version of a hibachi restaurant.) The joint was hip and classy, and parties could seal themselves off from the throng by closing what Margy described as a shower curtain around their table.

Legend has it, Margy says, that Kubla Khan brought hot pot to Beijing from Mongolia, though tonight I believe someone else delivered it to Margy's table. A big pot of broth was set over a burner in front of the diners, and Margy and her companions used chopsticks to grab a slice of meat from a tray and then swirl it around the broth for a scant minute until it was cooked. After the meat came a plate of dumplings, which were bathed in the broth in the same way. To the left of the broth is a bowl of tripe.

Me, I had Vietnamese food on Baxter Street in NYC -- not bad, but hardly a trip to the Forbidden City followed by a hot-pot feast.

Margy Goes to China!

Please forgive my absence. I've been eating bad takeout in New Jersey while Margy's been off frolicking in Beijing.

Okay, I exaggerate. She wasn't only frolicking; she was working very hard too. Alas, it just wouldn't have been practical for me to join her on this tightly packed business trip, so I held things down at home and wished for her quick return.

Margy's first taste of Beijing's many culinary delights was in the courtyard of the Huajia Yiyuan Restaurant, after she'd endured a full day of traveling and didn't know which end was up. (Though conveniently, with Beijing being twelve hours ahead, she didn't have to change her watch.)

But if Margy's body and mind had no idea what was going on, her appetite knew exactly what to do, and she had a great first meal, which was ordered by her two gracious and knowledgeable hosts and washed down with Chinese beer. Just look at those greens! As I imagine what they tasted like, I kind of feel like a fool for not finding a way to share this exotic trip with my beloved world traveler. Sigh. In the foreground is a plate of tofu on top of mushrooms, and at right is another assortment of mushrooms (or so Margy guesses). She loved it all, and then came the Peking duck. Sigh.

Peking Duck (in da) House

Such a lovely day, such a lovely duck.

My sister was in town from Vermont for Easter, and at the last minute we decided to give her a Manhattan dream day, or at least a fun trip to the city with the promise of Peking duck as the climax. We kicked things off in the East Village with a quick visit to an organic vegan restaurant, Angelica Kitchen. Not to eat, silly, but to say hello to one of my sister's VT-transplant friends. And then I took Sis on a subjective culinary tour of the neighborhood.

We strolled by Una Pizza Napoletana and considered ordering an "appetizer." (We wimped out.) We walked past Hearth, Rai Rai Ken, and the old site of Iso, where Margy and I had our true sushi awakening years ago. This sister doesn't do sushi, but her pastry-chef ears perked up when I told her we were right near the famous bakery Veniero's. (I also told her how disappointing I've found its pastries, though it's been awhile.)

To this point our "food walk" had found us taking nary a bite of anything, so we dropped in for a few cookies or a sfogliatella. Wouldn't you know there was a line that snaked clear through the bakery and all the way down the hall of the dining room. Obviously Easter is a good time for Veniero's. We moved on, our minds filled with sustaining thoughts of duck.

Next we tooled around the West Village for an hour or two, and then it was time to meet Margy in Chinatown. We found our third parking spot of the day -- at this point I really felt like I was pushing my luck -- not too far from Mott Street and the Peking Duck House.

I should mention that this whole thing was a bit of a quest for my sister. When we were planning the trip and I asked her where she'd like to eat, she didn't hesitate. She'd heard about the incredible pie at Una Pizza. I'd told her all about the steamed pork buns at Momofuku Ssäm Bar. She wanted the duck.

I'm happy to say she got her fill. I figured one bird would go pretty far among three people, but I wasn't certain. Anyway, we went all out with our appetizer round and ordered both pork dumplings and pork buns, so we weren't about to go hungry. We also balanced things out -- yeah, right -- with some sautéed Chinese cabbage, which was delicious and still held a bit of crunch.

But again, this was all about the duck. Even the absurdly loud and out-of-place techno music pulsating from the speakers couldn't dampen our enthusiasm for the magical meat on the platter in front of us. (I could swear they were playing lite-FM on our last visit, and I'll take robotic techno every time over the dreaded "American Pie.")

Peking Duck House is hardly the snazziest or the most interesting restaurant in New York City, but it bears remembering that the place does indeed get into some pretty important details, even beyond the duck itself. Take the pancakes. They're thin but soft, a little stretchy -- a far cry from the dry, dusty, easily torn wraps that accompany moo shu dishes at inferior joints. And the hoisin sauce is more delicate in flavor and less sweet than most, which makes a huge difference.

It's what the duck demands, par for the course for a bird this good. We sat right near the carving station and watched the "duck guy" deftly run his knife into each dark-roasted specimen until its flesh was set onto a plate in a swirl of perfect slices. Finally, it was our turn, and we asked for the bones, which as presented are really just the leg bones. But that would suffice.

We rolled our own pancakes, with hoisin, scallions, and cucumbers, and at last my sister's quest was coming to fruition. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she made numerous yummy sounds. Margy ate quietly, smiling and sipping her Tsingtao. Me, I just repeated "Wow" a few dozen times. We hadn't made a trip to the racetrack, yet we'd hit the richest trifecta of all: delicious meat, crispy skin, and luscious fat. My sister had picked a winner.

Una Pizza Perfetta

My pizza adventures have been on something of an upswing lately.

First I (mostly) swore off crappy pizza and discovered the excellent pizzeria No. 28 in one fell swoop. And then there's Margy's amazing homemade pizza, which I can pretty much demand at any time of year save the sultry summer months.

But I must say that 2007 really started out with a bang when Enzo, who seems to be my pizza-hunting guardian angel -- or at least my official taster -- finally brought me to Una Pizza Napoletana in the East Village.

I had read about the place for months, years, eons, whatever -- long enough to know that I needed to try it. (It opened in 2004.) The band had an evening gig in Brooklyn, and, earlier in the week, when I mentioned getting together with some or all of the fellas for dinner, Enzo looked at me and said, "UPN, dude." Done.

I did a little more reading in the days leading up to tonight. The user reviews on Citysearch cracked me up. They basically alternate "Best pizza ever" and "What's the big deal?" But, knowing all about Una Pizza's borderline psychotic insistence on using only the best, most classic ingredients and techniques, I had a strong feeling about which side of the fence I'd land on. Still, I couldn't help but notice that every reviewer, regardless of whether his or her comments were positive or negative, moaned and groaned about the price of the pizza. Among other complaints were descriptions of the proprietor, Anthony Mangieri, as the "pizza Nazi," and stuff like, "They make you cut your own pie!" and, "They don't give you free water!"

I'm reading this and thinking, Just show me the pizza.

So Enzo and his wife and I -- my biggest regret would soon be letting Margy skip out on this one -- showed up around 7:30 on this Friday night, and there were a few people on line ahead of us. One thing I was not going to do was get bummed out about waiting, not even while standing outside in winter drizzle. This was a quest, after all -- my ongoing quest to eat decent pizza -- and quests take time. Within a few minutes we were waiting inside, and I could finally see some pies.

Wow, were they small. Yet another feature of the UPN product that Citysearchers couldn't seem to pipe down about. But gosh, were they gorgeous. I caught myself ogling and averted my eyes to that inward place that's always dreaming about pizza. Now and then I'd look over at Mangieri tending the wood-fired brick oven and see him pour olive oil from a copper kettle onto a pie in an artful, well-practiced swirl. The guy had me at hello.

Now, the menu at Una Pizza Napoletana lists four items, all pizzas, all featuring a combination of very basic ingredients (drawn from this list: San Marzano tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, fresh basil, oregano, fresh garlic, fresh cherry tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, Sicilian sea salt). Want an anchovy? Go someplace else. Feel like some pepperoni? Seek it elsewhere. Heaven forbid you're in the mood for a salad. Waiting on line, I whispered to Enzo, "I wonder if you can get a little hot pepper if you feel like it."

"Probably not," we said in unison.

After a wait of maybe fifteen minutes in the very small, sparsely adorned dining room, a table was ready, and the Italian waitress led us over. Enzo and I immediately began speaking to her in Italian, just to test the waters. She seemed to appreciate that. We ordered three Peroni and three Margheritas (San Marzanos, mozzarella, olive oil, basil, salt). And then, I have to say, I felt a little depressed.

The money thing was getting to me.

Of all the things in this world that we can spend our hard-earned cash on, food is right at the top of the list for me. It just makes sense to seek out certain edible items that might occupy a higher price bracket. This isn't always necessary -- it can even be foolish sometimes -- but very often the best foods, or the best available varieties of certain foods, cost the most. I had already had this conversation with myself before entering the cash-only, four-items-on-the-menu Una Pizza Napoletana, and I had concluded that if the pie is indeed that memorable then it would be worth it to pay whatever it cost.

What a 12-inch pizza costs at UPN is $21. And I really felt the impact once I'd requested one.

But then the pie arrived, and thoughts of dollars and cents receded far enough away that I'd have given Mangieri whatever he wanted from me. After just a quick bite or two, 21 bucks seemed utterly reasonable -- a steal, even. I began to stammer an endless stream of "Wow" and "Unbelievable." Other topics could not enter the conversation, if conversation is the right word for oohs and aahs and incomplete sentences. When we talked, we talked about the pizza.

Two features jumped out at me: harmoniousness and deliciousness.

First, the harmony. Every carefully chosen component of the pie came together in the ultimate "the whole is more than the sum of its parts" way. It helped, of course, that each part had an impressive pedigree, but it was the balance that was so stunning. At another place, I might've wanted a spoonful more sauce. Here, I did not. In a different pizzeria, I might have wanted just a bit more crunch from the crust. Here, that notion would have been a travesty. This crust perfectly toed the line between crisp and chewy, and it was branded beautifully with little char marks from the oven. My friends, UPN veterans, said they'd never had such a well-done pie there, that usually it was cooked a bit less. I found that hard to imagine -- again, what I was eating seemed perfect, and I didn't want to acknowledge that anything less so was possible -- but in my state of rapture I figured that even a less well-done pizza would still be great.

On to the deliciousness. This pie simply tasted better than all but maybe one or two that I've had in my life. I usually judge a pizza by breaking it down -- how's the crust? is the sauce too sweet? does the cheese have any flavor? -- but this one defied my conventions by forcing me to view it as a whole. Harmony again.

Of course, I can try to analyze it. The tomatoes were lovely, a little bit of tang that worked in conjunction with the yeastiness of the dough. The buffalo mozzarella was more assertive than most mozz. Placed on the pie almost in little balls, it melted slightly outward but retained a milky whiteness, and its lush creaminess balanced the acidic tomato. Adding the olive oil, which pooled up just a bit in the center of the pizza (like it does on good pies in Italy), was an important touch -- you could really taste it. And the basil offered color contrast and refreshing herbal flavor.

But the thing that really blew all of us away was the sea salt. If this were a movie review, here's where I might say "beware of spoiler," because I'd want everyone to discover for themselves the little surprises that pop up here and there as you gobble the pie. I didn't know where, I didn't know when -- the large, angular salt crystals were cloaked by the other ingredients -- but now and again I'd get this little crunch followed by saltiness, and it grabbed me every time. The whole experience was thrilling, and it was over too soon.

Before it ended, though, Enzo motioned toward our waitress as she zipped by. "C'è un po' di peperoncino?" he asked. "Is there a bit of hot pepper?" Oh no, I thought, he's gonna ruin everything. But nothing could be ruined -- we had our pizzas, and no one could take them away from us. And it's not as if we were going to order dessert, although in retrospect a white pizza would've been a fine substitute for gelato or biscotti.

Anyway, I could swear that a bit of a smile took a downward turn as our server accelerated past us, answering, "Non c'è la. NON C'È LA!"

"It's not here. IT'S NOT HERE!" You know what? They don't need it.

Rock & Roll and Cubanos in Union City

Yesterday, Homey Mulebagger flew in from Des Moines to join Mr. Thowmbpsin, Schpilk, and me in rehearsals for the Thowmbpsin/Schpilk album we're recording this weekend in Brooklyn.

We rehearsed at my band's studio in Union City. Our little practice room is nestled in a dank and dingy and practically plumbing-free complex of small spaces with padded walls and double doors, each occupied by a scruffy pack of Jersey misfits -- metal bands, hip-hop acts, an amazing Latin group... Recently we actually heard someone playing a Beatles song, a rare wisp of melody snaking through the rhythm-packed hallway.

Anyhow, my "regular" band usually meets for evening practice, plays, and splits, and we rarely get a chance to sample the local color. These two days, however, were a different story. The recording ensemble of Homey (bass), Thowmbpsin (guitar/vox), Schpilk (vox), and me (drums) -- no name yet for this not-quite-a-band -- was to spend longer hours than ever before in the tiny windowless room. That meant we eventually had to go and prowl for food.

Years ago I had eaten at a great, cheap no-frills Cuban restaurant in Union City, but I never took note of the name. This week I did a little Web research, but in the end we just decided to pound the pavement and see what we could find. Last night, when we couldn't play another note without getting an infusion of pork, we walked up to a busy little neighborhood on and around Bergenline Avenue, and we spotted the Latin American Restaurant, a big, bright place that sent us the right vibe. Our quartet sat down at table 13.

Oh, the dinner we had for forty bucks. I enjoyed a huge, tasty piece of pounded chicken alla plancha with plantains, rice, and salad ($6.95). To satisfy my piggy desires, I made sure to get a few bites of Mr. Thowmbpsin's smoked pork chops, which were tender and delicious and had just the right amount of smoke. The Presidente was cold and refreshing, the café con leche was hot and creamy. We felt like kings.

This afternoon we returned to table 13. At the front of the restaurant there's a nice-looking sandwich counter, and we sent our orders its way. Minutes later the four of us were digging into crisp, warm, satisfying Cubanos, stuffed with perfect lechón asado, or marinated pork roast. We had an avocado salad, and I couldn't resist ordering a thick mango shake. (Mmm!) Again we finished up with excellent coffee. And this time the bill was even less.

Our mission in Union City now complete, we set out for the Brooklyn recording studio with more than just a batch of songs under our belt.

Photo credit: Homey Mulebagger

Sweet (and Slightly Salty) Relief

"I need sushi. It's been long enough."

Margy had been hearing some variation on those words for a couple weeks now, and it was time to do something about it. So we made a reservation at Shumi, our favorite Japanese restaurant in Jersey.

I was ready to go all out. We took a seat at the bar, and, with Margy's permission, I asked the chef/owner, Ike, to just start feeding us. "We like everything," I said, and I meant it. After a soft-shell crab salad took the edge off ever so slightly, Ike presented us with a magnificent plate of sashimi as a prelude to the sushi that would follow.

Each fish made us swoon. Clockwise from top left: white tuna; toro; Japanese horse mackerel, or aji, dressed with a wonderful mince of ginger and scallion; tai, a sea bream that's somewhat similar to red snapper; sweet shrimp from Maine, the first of the season and tonight's special; and squid that Ike scored with a knife and rolled around seaweed, spicy tuna, and cucumber.

What followed were greatly conflicting impulses to devour it all on the spot and slow down to a crawl in order to savor every morsel. I didn't want the moment to end. After the sashimi, as a parade of sushi began, with Ike handing Margy and me two pieces each at a time until we reluctantly asked him to stop, I was struck with one of the reasons why a meal of sushi and sashimi is among my very favorites: It's an ephemeral experience.

And in so many ways. Take, for instance, the pieces of seared salmon with spicy cilantro dressing that Ike gave us near the end of the feast. These hit just about every note that sushi can sing, and in perfect harmony -- the char on the border of the fish gave it wonderful smoky flavor, while the uncooked interior was briny tasting and refreshing, with the perfect meaty but tender texture. The dressing tingled on the tongue. And the rice was just right, meaning it wasn't tightly packed and had a presence of its own. One piece of sushi offered all this -- but there was only one piece for each of us. Sure, we could have said, "Ike, do that again!" But what would we have missed? Seared white tuna with sriracha sauce? That would have been a crime.

So the pleasure of each incredible bite was fleeting, and the wonder of the whole meal was fleeting too, since it's just not possible for us to eat like this every day, or even every week. And though a good sushi meal is supremely satisfying, it also comes with a certain lightness when it's all over, which only contributes to the bittersweet feeling. After I eat a good steak, I feel full and don't want anything more than maybe a nip of brown liquor and a couple bites of dessert. After I eat a good sushi meal, I'm thinking, I could do that again RIGHT NOW. I know it's time to stop -- my wallet knows, at least -- but I want to continue, and the feeling lingers. I would say my number one, taken-for-granted eating rule is to keep things varied, yet for years I've noticed that when I have a memorable sushi meal, I invariably wake up the next day wanting to eat the stuff again. I think it's addictive.

Paris Journal 2006: Home Cooking

For my last meal in Paris, while Margy worked a thirteen-hour shift, I was treated to a home-cooked dinner at our friends' lovely new apartment. And did I mention I spent the day zipping around town on the back of a scooter? This is one of the finest possible ways to tour the City of Light, assuming you don't get into an accident as you clear accelerating vehicles by less than an inch, over and over again, as is mandatory.

The apartment was way over on the edge of town, mere blocks away from Bistrot Paul Bert. I arrived to find my pals, a couple expecting their first baby, setting a charming table and laying out plates of spinach salad with mustard vinaigrette and warm goat cheese. Delicious. The main course was a sort of riff on cassoulet that merged duck confit (in Paris this is wonderful even out of a can) with a mild yet porky Toulouse sausage and beans cooked in goose fat. Oh, yes. The lady of the house -- she's Parisian, her fella's from California -- had taken pity on me, knowing it was a goal of mine to enjoy a real French cassoulet, and though she was great with child and had worked a long day, she made sure I didn't go home disappointed.

Not even close.

As I reached for the bowl of beans for the third time and scraped the spoon against the bottom to try and liberate even the ghost of any remaining goodies, the father-to-be reminded me that we weren't through with dinner. Indeed, out came a nice piece of unpasteurized cheese, followed by cookies with ice cream and chocolate sauce. All the while, we drank wine that my buddies had bought in bulk from an independent vintner and bottled themselves. These were maybe my favorite glasses of the whole trip. It just goes to show you what can be achieved in a country that holds wine in high regard -- in the States, homemade wine is almost always terrible, at least in my limited experience.

But really the best part of the whole evening was being removed from the restaurant scene, as exciting as it is, and hanging out with some friends on their turf, chatting, laughing, listening to their music, eating their food. It was lots of fun, and it made the trip feel more personal. If only Margy had been able to join me.

Paris Journal 2006: Aux Lyonnais

I've always been interested in eating at an Alain Ducasse restaurant, and tonight I got my chance.

Ducasse, so decorated by the Michelin guides for his worldwide network of restaurants, isn't exactly thought of as a hero in New York. When his NYC joint opened at the Essex House in 2000, the reviews were not great ("a wow that wavers," the New York Times has said). If you weighed the so-so feedback against the astronomical prices, let's just say no one I know was beating a path to the door.

But when I began hunting for Paris picks before last year's trip, Aux Lyonnais started popping up everywhere. Ducasse has a bunch of restaurants in Paris, including an eponymous one that's supposedly incredibly opulent and hugely expensive, and Aux Lyonnais is regarded as more down-to-earth than many of the others but just as memorable. This was the place we booked way back on Friday afternoon.

Now, I've never eaten dinner in Lyon in the 1850s, but if I had, I'd imagine it would have been something like the meal Margy and I ate tonight. We weren't getting a "Ducasse" dinner (he was probably not even in the country), but that's to his credit -- he and his kitchen are clearly more interested in preserving the weighty charms of true Lyonnaise cooking than in advancing any modern, world-domination-through-excessive-amounts-of-truffles-and-foie-gras-type agenda.

After we had a lovely amuse of fresh cheese with herbs and shallots, Margy started with pumpkin soup with andouille sausage. A tangle of porky bits sat in the middle of the bowl, and a waiter poured the creamy orange potion over it. It was delicious, and I don't even like pumpkin soup (too sweet). As we started to dig in, another waiter swung over and placed a small plate next to Margy's spoon: "This is a cake that goes with the soup," he said. "Try it, and then after I'll tell you what it is."

What it was was awesome.

It was dense and contained little bits of meat. It reminded me of my mom's pizza rustica, or pizzagaina (ahem, "pizza keen"), but there was no cheese in it. Long after it was gone I had to beckon the waiter over to make good on his promise.

"It is a cake made with a pig's ear," he said. "If I tell you before, you would not eat it."

"Oh yes we would!" I said. I'm not quite interested in, say, gnawing on the whole ear of a pig, but I'm happy to enjoy the meat that comes from it. Especially now.

I began with a marinated-eel salad. It had been a goal of mine to try eel outside of a Japanese restaurant, and this was my first opportunity (sadly, my mom has never prepared it on Christmas Eve). I even recognized the word on the menu -- anguille -- from a mile away. The eel was snow white and chewy, but pleasantly so. It wasn't far from the strong flavor of sardines or mackerel, and I look forward to eating it again in a non-Japanese context. Of course, I look forward to eating it again in a Japanese context too!

Margy had chicken with vegetables and crawfish tails (pictured) for her main dish. It came in a red enamel vessel, straight out of the oven, and the bird was bursting with pure chicken flavor, which just underscores how flavorless chickens tend to be back home. The skin wasn't crisped, or even browned, and the crawfish didn't add much, but it was a homey, satisfying entree.

Meanwhile, I had crawfish quenelles (clearly crawfish are big in Lyon). These were essentially two giant white dumplings, just right in texture, neither too firm nor too soft, and they also arrived in a red enamel dish, still bubbling away. The quenelles sat in a deep-brown shellfish stock that was richly flavored, with crawfish tails scattered around the plate. I'd never had anything like this, and I liked it more as I went along. But Paris eating was taking its toll -- had I eaten this on our first night in town, I'd have cleaned my plate, but as it was I couldn't quite finish it.

Dessert was a large sablé cookie, spread with a layer of sweet cream and topped with stewed pears and plums. A great cap to a fun meal.

Ultimately, Aux Lyonnais did not provide our favorite Paris dinner, but its sheer timelessness, or should I say old-timeyness, made it an integral piece of the French-food puzzle that we're slowly assembling. I love the idea of traditional yet somewhat offbeat dishes surviving intact through the ages, shepherded by caring history-minded cooks from one century to another, and another.

Paris Journal 2006: Vin & Marée

On any trip to Paris, eating shellfish should be part of the agenda. Parisians know how to get it right.

For our seafood meal, we took our concierges' suggestion of the nearby Vin & Marée (which they explained means wine and tide). When we walked through the door for our 8:30 reservation to find a quiet, harshly lit, and drab dining room, I remembered my new rule for Paris restaurant seating: Always choose the smoking section. In other words, we were standing in the smoke-free zone, while the smokers were led upstairs to a more comfortable and ever so slightly more charming dining room. Something analogous seems to happen in most other restaurants as well -- the good tables, whatever that may mean at a given place, are where the smoke is. This may not be a factor much longer, with talk of a smoking ban that has the French huffing while they're puffing, but for now it's good to keep in mind.

Even upstairs, among industrial carpeting and white walls that sported a strip of blue waves, I could tell Margy wasn't nuts about the decor. What can you do -- it was Monday night, not the best evening for Paris dining. At least the menu looked good, and there wasn't a nonseafood choice on it.

As we were finalizing our selections, a waiter brought us a bowl of mussels in a bit of chive-butter sauce. They were the best mussels I've had in years, briny and tender. We ordered snails and oysters, plus a bottle of white Sancerre.

A young woman came over with an ice bucket and a bottle of wine, and she proceeded to open the bottle without showing it to us. She poured me a taste as I strained to see the label behind the towel she'd wrapped around the bottle. Not bad. She filled our glasses and then left, and I picked the bottle out of the bucket. Nope, not Sancerre. I mentioned this to our waiter, who smiled, removed the mystery bottle, and declared our glasses an aperitif. (The Sancerre was noticeably more complex, and I was glad to have had a mini comparative wine tasting in addition to a free drink.)

The oysters were good but not spectacular. Their liquor was a bit too salty, so unfortunately it was wise not to slurp it all up. But the escargots were wonderful. Last year, they were my revelation -- I hadn't realized how much I loved them before that trip. Once I caught on, I ate big ones, small ones, and microscopic ones that came with a tiny needle, which was the only device that would make it possible to remove the minuscule amount of meat. (I don't mind working for my dinner.) Tonight there was no need for a magnifying glass, but the snails were just as good. They were meaty and firm yet not tough or chewy.

For my entree I had roasted prawns with "caviar d'aubergine." Now, "caviar" I understood, or at least I thought I did; "aubergine," not so much. The word looked familiar, so I just figured, Hey, I'm cool with caviar of whatever. Well, I was surprised to find out that this accompaniment to the prawns was pureed eggplant. Eggplant isn't my favorite, but I was nevertheless thrilled to find some form of vegetable on my plate. The prawns were very good -- they had a bit of char on them, and they offered much more flavor than the shrimp I get at ShopRite back in Jersey.

But Margy's bouillabaisse took home first prize. In fact, I probably stuck my spoon in the bowl almost as often as Margy did. The powerfully flavorful broth was deep and rich and offered a big blast of fennel that joined nicely with the fish stock. The pieces of fish -- mostly rockfish, I believe -- were abundant and weren't overcooked. Rather than being served with a rouille, the bouillabaisse came with croutons and a saffron-garlic aioli. Truly delicious.

You know how I said the dining rooms lacked a certain charm? Well, any missing pizzazz, and then some, could be found in the restrooms. Each of the four men's-room walls contained a row of tiles adorned with cartoons of people using the facilities (as this is a food blog, I'm trying to choose my words carefully). These included a zaftig couple locked in passionate embrace while set upon the porcelain god and a pair of suited businessmen shaking hands while crossing streams. Wouldn't you know I had my camera in my pocket, and I captured it all.

When I returned to the table and showed Margy one of the photos I'd just taken, she shot out of her seat without a word, grabbed the camera, and made a beeline to the ladies' room. Did she find four walls of toilet cartoons? Hardly. The little chamber was decked out in mirrors from head to toe. She'd never seen so many Margys at one time, not even in a Lord & Taylor dressing room...

Paris Journal 2006: Sapporo

On last year's trip, the hole-in-the-wall ramen house Sapporo was my safe haven, the place I could go when I needed a butter-free meal that featured the presence of vegetables. I ate lunch there three times, but always alone, and I regretted that Margy, who was working long hours with only a sandwich break during the day, was unable to join me. This time, though, she got to enjoy Sapporo's humble yet considerable charms.

We spent the day at Versailles, mostly waiting on line, and then we had plans to meet friends for a Jarvis Cocker concert in the evening. As we got back to town after strolling the gorgeous Versailles gardens and walking in the footsteps of at least several people who were eventually beheaded, we were starving, and we had just enough time to grab a little something to eat.

All day I had been worried that we were in for an entire day in Paris without a proper sit-down meal, and it wasn't sitting well with me. So when I saw the chance to return to Sapporo for a quick bite, I was more than eager to take it. Margy, of course, liked the sound of my plan.

The dynamic little woman who runs the dining room wasn't around, but the cooks were, and we had a delicious meal. After ordering a couple of beers -- Asahi, not Sapporo... oops -- we both got the essential ramen with roast pork, and Margy had fried rice and gyoza on the side while I had a plate of curry rice plus a salad and oshitashi (tightly rolled spinach in a soy and vinegar dressing).

It was one of those meals where we only realized the extent of our appetite once we'd lifted our chopsticks a few times, and it was one of those very few times when I eat quickly. We sat there at the Sapporo counter devouring our dinner, looking up now and then to watch the cooks perform some deft maneuver in a small vertical-handled pan or a giant flaming wok.

Though I watched them serve it last year, I had never eaten Japanese fried rice before. Well, it rocks. As you can see, it's not tossed with soy sauce or any other dressing -- oil is swirled around a wok, the ingredients (egg, peas, baby shrimp, bits of the finest roast pork available anywhere) are added, in goes the rice, and that's it. Simple, perfect.

Similarly, this was my first time eating Japanese curry, and it was also fantastic. (With a very short menu, Sapporo is pretty sure to nail every dish.) The sauce was a deep brown and bore the yellow tint of turmeric at the edges. The curry contained pork, carrot and onion, and it had a nice burgeoning hint of chili heat.

And the ramen is always excellent. It's fun to eat noodles that have a little bit of confidence, a spot of identity. Sapporo's are cooked just right and hold their own in their sea of broth, pork, scallions, mushrooms, and spinach.

I felt a moment of reflection coming on: I was able to read the entire menu, I had rice and vegetables and pork... I was in my element. We'll get back to proper Parisian eating tomorrow, but this meal was just what we needed tonight.

Paris Journal 2006: Bistrot Paul Bert

What a difference a day makes. By early afternoon today, after our concierge had a called a bunch of restaurants on our list to find them fully booked for tonight -- one of them gave her a "Wow, mademoiselle!" as if she'd been joking -- 10pm didn't sound so bad. That slot was offered by a place that had been plugged by a friend of a friend, and we jumped at the chance.

Bistrot Paul Bert, way over on the east side of the right bank (almost off our map), was hopping when we arrived. The menu was written on a blackboard that was passed around from table to table, the wine list was novella length, and the restaurant had that classic look that said I've been here a while, and I'm not going anywhere. The slightly crooked picture frames, the buckling and spotted mirrors, and, yes, even the floating clouds of cigarette smoke all contributed to the very Parisian aura of the place. I saw hunks of meat on plates all around the room, and I got excited.

The meat looked good, but I had fowl on the brain. And what do you know but I think I spotted some sort of bird on the list of main courses. When our waitress came by I asked for a few translations, and though she tried to be helpful she was nothing like the sommelier/waiter from last night. Her translations boiled a long phrase down to a word: côté de cochon fermier aux haricots mais became "pig." But that's okay -- you have to be ready for a wide range of experiences when you go to a foreign country and don't speak the language.

For our starters, Margy ordered veal carpaccio and I went with roasted scallops. I don't usually love scallops (except raw as sushi or sashimi), but they were in season and we'd already seen them around a bunch. Plus in French they're called coquilles St. Jacques, and to me such a refined and stately handle really makes a difference -- why order "scallops" when you can have "coquilles St. Jacques"?

For the main course Margy asked for steak frites, and I most enthusiastically requested roast pheasant (which I had noted actually came with vegetables -- chou vert, or green cabbage). As we began to wait, I rubbed my hands together in anticipation, and then... no, it couldn't be -- our waitress came back our way with the blackboard in her hands. Oh, no.

"I am very sorry. It is my fault. We have no more pheasant."

I've come a long way toward becoming a somewhat mature semi grown-up-type person, but it took all the self-control I had not to start banging on the table and maybe even shouting "Waaaaa!" The pheasant was all I wanted; I'd barely glanced at anything else. I felt helpless. A long, quiet moment passed as I stared a hole in the blackboard.

"If you wanted the pheasant, you should try the rabbit," the waitress said. "It is very like pheasant." She pointed to a dish I hadn't really noticed. I guess that was because I didn't know the word lièvre but assumed it might be some variant of "liver" (even though I indeed know the word for liver). Well, it means wild hare. I'd had bites of rabbit, but I'd never eaten my own. I knew it wouldn't be that much like pheasant, but I figured she meant that it was also gamy and maybe even that it also had lots of tiny bones. All day, I'd been ready to deal with some tiny bones.

I asked how it was served, and I didn't get much. "Is there a sauce?" I said.

"Yes, it's in a sauce, with mushrooms."

The night wasn't getting any younger. I went with the wild hare. A nice bottle of Bordeaux arrived, along with our appetizers, and I started to loosen back up.

The coquilles St. Jacques were terrific, roasted in their shells and sitting in a rich pool of melted butter. The presentation was beautiful and the flavor was excellent.

When it came to Margy's veal carpaccio, the one word in the description that we didn't understand -- and we only figured this out for sure later -- was the word for kidneys (rognons). Looking at her plate, Margy said something like, "I think this is liver." I knew it wasn't, because it didn't look like liver. The slices, sort of freeform roundish, were too small, and the shading of each slice, from dark to lighter to almost white in spots, was too varied for this to be liver. Anyway, it was absolutely fantastic, and it only got more tasty with each bite. The veal was dressed with olive oil, parsley, thin-sliced mushrooms, and chopped nuts, and all of those ingredients staked their claim in the overall success of the dish. I noticed that a woman at the table next to us received a parsley-free version, and I felt sorry for her. Not only was the green a lovely color contrast, but the bright, herbal flavor of the parsley was a happy surprise when you got some.

And then the main dishes arrived. Margy's steak and fries looked good, but I was sure I had been given the wrong plate. Take a look at the photo above, which you may have assumed captured some decadent chocolate dessert. Nope. It's the wild hare. I poked at the big molded cake with my fork, and meat flaked off. I took a bite. I knew I wasn't tasting rabbit, but I wasn't sure what I was tasting. The flavor was familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. At this moment, I was extraordinarily confused. I didn't hate what I was beginning to eat, but I didn't love it, and it wasn't at all what I'd been craving. And on top of everything else, there were no mushrooms as advertised. The hare came with a side dish of large pasta shells dressed in a mushroom sauce. These were just lousy -- badly overcooked and tasting only of butter.

The waitress swung over at this most vulnerable time to check on things. I didn't really know what I was eating, but I was trying very hard to be happy. Margy had taken one bite of her steak, which she liked, but she hadn't learned the truth about her dinner either. When asked how everything was, we said it was okay. The fries were certainly good.

A minute later Margy realized her steak was essentially raw. The one bite she'd taken was one of the few perimeter pieces that were medium to medium rare (she'd asked for medium). And then I grabbed the non-English-speaking sommelier, whom I already trusted more than our waitress. I pointed at my plate and asked, "Lapin?" (That's the French word for rabbit.)

"Oui," he said, and then he proceeded to describe the dish, in French. I understood every word, though one grand gesture certainly helped. He kind of pretended to rip out his own loin, and then he said the loin was rolled and stuffed and served with a sauce of wine and chocolate. And what was it stuffed with? Well, that's the flavor I was struggling to determine -- the dish tasted of nothing else. It was foie gras!

Suddenly the six-euro supplement made sense. But now I really wanted to murder our waitress. She had misrepresented this dish straight down the line. It was not like pheasant in any way. And there weren't even any mushrooms.

Margy and I weren't sure what to do. We hate complaining in restaurants, plus we felt like we'd missed our chance to do so. (We've since sworn to each other that we'll be more assertive should anything like this ever happen again.) Her steak had been picked over, and I was really trying to eat my strange and heavy but not altogether horrible dinner. It wouldn't have been my cup of tea under any circumstance, but I wanted absolutely nothing to do with foie gras after having the best slice of my life last night. That was going to hold me for a while.

For a minute I was ready to pout. I'd come to Paris for six dinners, and now one of them was getting away from me, and that's a significant percentage. But hey, we were in Paris. We'd had great appetizers in a charming old bistro, and we still had a bunch of wine, plus cheese and desserts and a bracing snifter of Calvados, to look forward to. We surveyed the wreckage in front of us -- raw meat, the worst pasta ever, a plate swirled with chocolate sauce that looked like some abandoned meaty dessert -- and we started to laugh. It was all we could do. The waitress came and took our relatively full plates like she'd seen it all before. And I know she had. I believe it's not uncommon in Paris to eat a few bites and leave the rest -- but I'm assuming that's usually in the name of portion control, not frustration.

Next, Margy ordered cheese and I ordered ile flottante, a meringue set in a pool of crème anglaise, with praline and roasted almonds. This stuff set us back on track, big time.

The cheese was magnificent. The varieties were described by the sommelier, so I didn't really get all of it. But the Camembert was particularly memorable. It had an intense savoriness that I'd never experienced before in a cheese. All the varieties were tasty, and I'm guessing all of them were made with unpasteurized milk and would therefore not be available in such fine form in the States. We circled around and sliced bits off larger pieces until we'd had our fill, and then the waitress came and grabbed the board when we were done. That's some fun eating... and we certainly had the room.

The ile flottante was similarly amazing. We loved the texture of the meringue -- soft and supple yet firm enough not to lose its shape in the crème anglaise, which was rich and cool. And the almonds had been roasted to perfection and gave a nutty and almost smoky counterpoint to the sweeter elements.

In the end, Bistrot Paul Bert, though certainly not perfect -- damn that waitress and her pheasantlike rabbit! -- was absolutely unforgettable. (I mean, hey -- I learned I like kidneys.) I would go back. Just not at 10pm.

Paris Journal 2006: Point Bar

Margy and I alighted in Paris, back once again in the City of Light on (her) business. This year, though, we allowed a few extra days to play around before she had to get to work.

We got to our hotel around 10am, where they graciously allowed us to check in early, and then we immediately took a restorative nap. Once we came to, my first -- okay, my only -- order of business was to figure out where to eat dinner. I had a list of places, but we wanted to stick close to our hotel on our first night and avoid any situations where we'd have to try to speak French.

I did, of course, offer a shaky "Bonjour, madame" to our concierge before I began pestering her with a dozen questions and asking her to call a dozen restaurants to start getting things on the books. So here we were on Friday afternoon, needing a plan for Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday, at least. (The other nights were still up in the air.) And we began very badly.

Not only was Saturday a bank holiday, it was also a Saturday, and good Paris restaurants tend to get booked up on Saturday night. We tried a few places on our list, and they basically laughed at our very sweet concierge. One offered a 10pm rez. We didn't bite. Ten o'clock worries us a little -- among other reasons because I tend to take hours to eat anything. We kept trying, but now I was starting to feel like an imposition. Finally, though, we booked Tuesday, at a place I keep hearing about and I'm sure I want to try. Phew. Finally, an encouraging sign.

As a last-ditch effort to nail down Saturday, we tried the site of our favorite meal from last year's trip, which I was sure wouldn't be fully booked. I was correct. It would be closed, for Armistice Day.

So we sort of staggered out of the hotel to start exploring, with nothing set for Saturday and a plan to stake out a few nearby restaurants the concierge had recommended for tonight. She seemed particularly fond of a joint that I thought sounded like "Plum Bar," but she said there are lots of reliable places on the Place du Marché Saint Honoré.

We had a lovely afternoon, taking a long walk, checking out a great photography museum, and eating the finest ham sandwich we've had in twelve months. And then we strolled back to our hood to see what was up by the marché. It's a charming area, and it's packed with restaurants. We took note of a few, and then at the hotel we asked the new concierge, just starting her shift, what she recommended nearby. (I'm a big believer in cross-referencing, especially when you don't know the people who are making the recommendations.) She also said the "Plum Bar" place is excellent.

"What kind of food is it?" I asked, not being nearly as specific as I should have been, as indicated by her answer.

"French."

But then she caught on and added, "Inventive. It's a small restaurant, very nice."

So we booked it. But there was one lingering problem. We really didn't have a handle on the name. Upon hearing it a few more times, I was sure there was no plum involved. Basically, it sounded like "pwah bar," and given my not-too-close relationship to that elegant yet sadistic language that is French, that wasn't nearly enough. I was a little embarrassed, but I needed to have it in writing.

Point Bar! Of course!

And it was just fantastic. It's indeed very small, and it feels bright and modern. It's not one of those old-school Paris bistros with yellowed posters peeling off the walls -- that would have to wait for another night. There weren't even that many people smoking, if you can believe that.

The menu was short, and I felt like I had a handle on all but a few things, so when our waiter came by I told him I had a few questions. He proceeded to translate the entire menu for us, in excellent English, which I must say was incredibly kind and helpful -- sometimes that one word you don't know is the one that means "bathed in liver" or what have you.

Actually, we started with liver! We shared a foie gras appetizer that was hands-down the most I've ever enjoyed eating the stuff. I savored every morsel, especially the yellow layers of fat at the top and bottom of the slice. (Margy very halfheartedly suggested we leave that part, but she knows how it works. It's Paris -- you eat.) The foie gras was served with a fig, hazelnut, and walnut chutney and a caramel-port reduction, plus sea salt and course-ground black pepper. Oh my. The sweetness of the condiments and the richness of the foie gras, along with the flavor-sharpening effects of the salt and pepper, made for one heck of a good time. Did I even mention the crispy toasts it came with? As was the case with the ham sandwich a few hours earlier, this little dish was saying "Welcome to Paris." (Except it was saying it in French.)

One entree sounded so appealing that both Margy and I ordered it. Anyway, the waiter (who said his real gig is sommelier and recommended a wonderful and affordable pinot noir) had told us it was one of Point Bar's signature dishes: Parmesan-crusted veal loin with truffle-cream sauce. Hiyo! Not since being in Paris a year ago have I so enjoyed a meal so utterly devoid of vegetables. The veal was cooked beautifully and was a little pink in the middle. The crust was incredible -- crunchy here and there, perfectly salty, and offering just the right amount of Parmesan flavor. And the sauce was delicious. The truffles made their contribution to the dish without being overwhelming. Potatoes included, this dinner had Margy and me oohing and aahing.

Dessert? Vanilla panna cotta with mango and mango ice cream. The waiter brought us glasses of strawberry wine that I believe he said had been made by a patron. It was good -- not too sweet and tasting very clearly of strawberries. Plus it was just nice to know that we, the Americans, had won his favor rather than invoke his tourist-loathing exasperation. Meanwhile, the panna cotta was creamy, sweet, fruity... just as delicious and memorable as the rest of the meal.

Score one for the concierges!

Not Perfect, but Not Bad

We'd had a long week, so we decided to treat ourselves to a nice Sunday dinner. My mother had really talked up the site of her latest birthday dinner, Pierre's, to Margy (who was in Maine at the time and missed it), so Margy lobbied for that. I capitulated immediately.

Well, my second meal at Pierre's was almost as good as the first, but with a few bumps in the road, starting with our server being wholly incapable of answering even basic questions about the menu and the wine list.

Dinner began with an hors d'oeuvre tasting plate that was rather wonderful in all its Frenchness and included an endless array of goodies: celery root salad, lentil salad, ratatouille, cured salmon, red cabbage, country pâté, cornichons, beets, and a nice dried sausage. It was a great way to start things off and would have made a perfect lunch with just a good chunk of bread.

For her entree, Margy had duck breast with yams, Brussels sprouts, and sour cherry sauce. The flavor was excellent, but I must say the duck was overcooked by a pretty wide margin. This brought forth a bit of a dilemma, as we're not send-it-back'ers, and so Margy chose not to ask for a portion that was cooked more correctly, even though she would have been well within her right to do so. In fact, I'm guessing that whoever plated the duck knew there was around a 50-50 shot that it would be sent back and just decided to roll the dice and hope that the recipient either liked well-done duck, didn't know any better, or just didn't want to be bothered with sending it back.

That latter category is us. Who can be bothered? If the thing had been inedible, I'd like to think we'd have returned it. But I had a nice hot skate wing in front of me, and if Margy had asked for a new piece of duck, the timing of our meal would have been off the rails completely, and who wants that? Again, the duck was delicious, so she just forged ahead. My skate wing was also terrific, crispy around the edges and tender in the middle -- pretty much like the duck should have been. It was served with capers, napa cabbage, and an "olive oil emulsion" that seemed a hell of a lot like mayonnaise. But hey, at least it was good mayonnaise (I'm not normally a fan).

Desserts are definitely Pierre's blind spot. When I went with my parents, we had run-of-the-mill profiteroles that left much to be desired. Tonight Margy and I had a slice of plum tart, which was better than the profiteroles but still seemed a little tired and had zero visual pizzazz. The dessert-cart presentation surely doesn't help. Who wants to see their food paraded around the room for hours -- up and back, there it goes again -- only to be unceremoniously sliced into a portion and shoved their way? It's not like the cart is being replenished all that often. In our case, all the desserts were there and there to stay.

A Fun Way to Get Hungry for Sushi

Happy birthday to me. Margy and I came up with a grand, blissfully elemental plan to celebrate my special day: We would look at sea creatures, and then we would eat sea creatures.

So we drove down to Camden on this gorgeous afternoon and spent a few hours at the aquarium, gazing at the seahorses, the seals, the sharks, the hippos. Yes, the hippos, Camden's aces in the hole. I'm not sure I'd ever hung out with hippos before, but I think I would remember if I had. Two enormous specimens live at the aquarium, and they're something to behold. You can watch them underwater through what must be very thick glass. The water is beyond murky and you think you'll never be able to see a thing, but then this massive gray blob begins to float by and come into focus, and what do you know -- it's a hippopotamus! Their skin looks like elephant hide, all wrinkled folds, and they seem positively prehistoric. And of course they're very charismatic. One of them played with a huge blue ball -- slowly -- for a few minutes right in front of us. I recommend paying them a visit if you're even in the Camden/Philly area. Tell them Margy and I say hi.

After hanging out with all these fish and the like, we figured it was time to eat some. I had found two good sushi joints in that area months ago, so tonight we made a reservation at Sagami, a great little place that's set, like most Jersey sushi restaurants, on a fast-moving stretch of commercial highway. Once you're inside, though, the setting is very serene and charming, and the kimono-dressed servers make you feel comfortable.

The sushi is simple and fresh, and Sagami makes the greatest fried oysters I've ever had. You can practically see how crunchy they are. They're dressed with tangy tonkatsu sauce, and after the initial crunch they explode with the juicy, creamy, briny essence of oyster. I could have eaten four orders myself, and I wouldn't have even needed a birthday cake. Just stick a candle in an oyster, and let's party.

Midwestern Salmon

What do you know -- Margy was in Milwaukee.

It was a quick work jaunt, and I stayed home, but she got a couple nice meals out of the deal. This is the pan-seared salmon at Coquette Cafe, where she went with a party of 40. Everyone was served each course (chosen from a short menu) at the same time, which Margy found most impressive. She says the food was excellent, though the "exploding brownie," otherwise known as warm chocolate cake, was a bit rich for her more delicate dessert tastes. We're a lot alike in that respect -- we prefer the light and fruity over the serious chocolate stuff. I know, we're on our own there...