Lehja: Richmond Bucket List #5*

I am going to get right to the point here: I should not have liked Lehja, but I did. I thought it was the best Indian food I had ever had in an Indian restaurant in the U.S.

Without spending too much time on it, here are a few reasons why I was predisposed to dislike Lehja:

• I am an Indian food snob. It began in graduate school, when an Indian house-mate's mother moved in with us for three months and took over the kitchen. Once I started travelling to India and discovering the food there, the bar was raised forever.
• Lehja is in a mall. Enough said.
• Descriptions of  Lehja's "updated and reinvented Indian food" -- reminded me of Rasika in DC. While Rasika can be good, in general I find their food overwrought and overpriced.

On top of everything, the day we went to Lehja, the brutal August heatwave suddenly chose to subside. As a result, the airconditioning inside felt too cold, while a raspy wind made sitting outside uncomfortable. We opted for the outdoor seating, placed our orders and sat there, enduring.

Now, if there is one thing that Chris and I are good at, it's turning a bad situation into a good one. When plans go awry, we usually find some fun way to save the situation. This time, we decided to get our food to go, and have a picnic in the car. The restaurant staff were quite obliging given this change of plan. Soon, we were on our way, big brown bags in hand.

Then, something happened.  Before we could make it to the car, a table magically sprang up in front of us, set into a sheltered patio. It was unoccupied, and had two chairs, waiting just for us. It seemed obvious that we should sit there to eat our dinner.**

And so, covered now in pixie dust, we did: I had the Market Vegetable Kozhambu: Zesty Vegetable Curry in a Tamil Nadu State Inspired Sauce. I was surprised at how good it was. Then I tried Chris' Chicken Tikka Masala. And this is what really amazed me. Don't be fooled by the ordinary sounding name: the flavors were just like they would taste in India -- fresh spices popping out at you separately and together at the same time, hitting different taste buds in a progression of sensations. I couldn't quite believe it, and after a few minutes, sheepishly asked if I could have a second bite, just to make sure. And another and another. So there you have it -- this is good stuff. The menu  is chock full of things I would want to try. Only, a mall is so the wrong place for this restaurant. Come on, Lehja, you deserve a location that will let our imaginations soar!

Outdoor seating at Lehja. In the winter, the reflecting pond is reportedly replaced by a fire pit. Too bad it was not in service the evening we were there!

*As a result of "On Fumes Alone", Chris created a bucket list of Richmond restaurants for us to visit. This is the fifth of such visits. For a full list of visits, click here.

**In reality, the sheltered nook we found was part of the Comedy Club, but to us, it seemed fantastical: we had just been wishing for a table in a protected space, and there it was before us. Nobody seemed to mind us sitting down to dinner there. So, thanks, Comedy Club, for indulging us.

Mom's Siam: Richmond Bucket List #4*

What makes Mom's Siam stand out from other Thai restaurants is its condiments. If Thai food is not already hot enough for you, you can choose from two kinds of chili pepper relishes and a fiery red chili powder. Apparently these are brought from Thailand through the kitchen's own sources. Chris was skeptical of this story. "They probably just got it from Penzey's down the street," she said.

It's an ongoing sore point between us. Chris is a big fan of global consumerism -- by which I mean, she delights in buying products from around the world from big box stores, rejoicing that they are available to her here in America. But for me, this sort of ready availability seems a little flat. Penzey's is a marvelous resource to be sure, offering spices with exotic names from every country you can imagine. But if the spices of the world are compressed into a card catalog of identical containers, aren't they drained of the hills and dips of local context? So who is more romantic: Chris, for believing that cultural finds can be had in a mass produced market? Or me, for believing that there really is a Mom behind Mom's Siam, sending little spice packets from Thailand?

Best dish: Siam Dumpling -- minced pork, shrimp, water chestnut, onion, scallion, shitake wrapped in wonton skin and served with soy sauce.

Siam Dumpling. You can see the condiment tray in the background.

*Note: As a result of "On Fumes Alone", Chris created a bucket list of Richmond restaurants for us to visit. This is the fourth of such visits. For a full list of visits, click here.

Mamma 'Zu: Richmond Bucket List #2*

Mamma 'Zu and Svomama's Mamma

Sometimes, I can get irrational. On one of our weekends apart, Chris called me from Richmond to say: "You'll never guess where mom wants to go eat -- Mamma 'Zu!"  For those of you following this blog, you'll know that I have been working on Chris for us to go out to eat when we are in Richmond. Mamma 'Zu is one of those places I have been dying to try, and so the idea that Chris'  mother would get there before me induced a fit of pique.

Once I had recovered my senses, I suggested that all three of us go the next time I was down for the weekend. And so we did: me, and Svomama (aka Chris) and Svomama's mamma. It was good to have her along, too. Of the three of us, Svomama's mamma was the most animated by the crush of people inside the restaurant, and did not mind having a drink or two at the bar while waiting to be seated. "It's a happening," she said, enjoying the fact that the dim lighting and lack of windows made the place seem like a night spot, even though it was only 6 pm.

 

Not everyone feels the same about the cheek by jowl intimacy in this tiny dining room.  We were lucky enough to get seats at the bar, but behind us were three layers of people jammed between the barstools and the tables. Our friend Lynn refuses to go to Mamma Zu's. "I had an ass on my table," she exclaimed, describing her experience there. "Really, is this what goes down here, I said to myself, an ass on my table?"

What about the food? I was pleasantly surprised by the fried oysters, fried so lightly that the bivalves inside retained their moist brininess. Mamma 'Zu's sister restaurant, Edo's Squid, uses a similar technique for their fried sugar toads (blow fish), which have also surprised me with their flavorful flakiness inside a delicate casing. But otherwise, the meal was disappointing. Someone in the kitchen had gone wild with the pepper pot that night.

But I will give Mamma Zu's a pass, and try again another time. After all...

...can this many people AND Ruth Reichl be wrong?

To Die For: Reputation

*Note: As a result of "On Fumes Alone", Chris created a "Bucket List" of Richmond restaurants for us to visit. This is the second of such visits. For a full list of visits, click here

Edo's Squid: Richmond Bucket List #1*

Dish To Die For: pasta

Something happened to me when I went to Edo's Squid that had never happened to me before. When the pasta arrived, I stuck my fork in, put my head down like a horse into a feeder bag, and didn't lift it up again until the bowl was empty. I kept twirling and savoring, twirling and savoring. All around me, the table was littered with other dishes to sample, but none of them mattered. I simply could not stop eating that pasta. It's not that the marinara sauce was that great -- in fact I helped it along by adding some garlic from a nearby side of greens -- but it was the perfect texture of the spaghetti and the just-right way the sauce clung to it that blinded me to the rest of the offerings.

Perhaps I was just escaping from a fraught evening. Between Lynn talking up the place for months, and Chris dragging her feet about coming ("It's not an environment in which I enjoy eating," she primly announced), I really did not know what to expect. What was wrong with this picture? Why would the normally good natured Chris be so bad-tempered about this place, and the more opinionated Lynn claim it was the best restaurant in Richmond?

Here is my theory: Edo's once was a very good restaurant, with a charming ambience and a creative and carefully executed menu. But it has not been able to cope with the resultant popularity. From the chaotic milling of people (with or without reservations)  waiting for tables, to the frantic slapping down of plates by the waitstaff, whatever delights are proferred by the kitchen are overshadowed by anxiety. And one senses that the kitchen is overwrought as well. True, the pasta was perfect, and I also want to give a shout out to the sugar toads. But you could tell by the other dishes that the kitchen was losing its grip back there.

Edo's has its long time customer base, but I believe that these loyalists are fuelled by nostalgia for a restaurant that is not quite as it used to be. Bluntly speaking: it is past its peak. Perhaps its former glory can be regained by better management of reservations, which will both take the anxiety out of being seated and take the pressure off the kitchen and waitstaff. I hope so. Otherwise, it is going to be difficult to persuade Chris to go back. And I so want more of that divine pasta...

*Note: As a result of "On Fumes Alone", Chris created a "Bucket List" of Richmond restaurants for us to visit. This is the first of such visits. For a full list of visits click here.







 

On Fumes Alone

8 1/2
401 Strawberry St., Richmond, VA, 23220
(804) 358-8505

I never thought I would post about an aroma. But this time, fumes is all I've got to go on. The downside of Chris being a great cook and having a cozy hideaway in Richmond is that we seldom go out to eat when we are there. But on New Year's day, we took a walk in the Fan with our friend Lynn, and I discovered a whole new world of tiny restaurants and independent stores tucked in between the houses of this historic neighborhood.

One of these was 8 1/2, the take-out place for two of Richmond's most beloved restaurants: Edo's Squid and Mama Zu's --both creations of Ed Vasio. After three years of visiting Richmond, I have yet to dine in either of these. (Humphh!)  

So for now, all I have to go on is the divine smell emanating from 8 1/2. An aroma so distinct that, without even asking, I can tell it was red pizza sauce with toppings of anchovies, capers, onion and olives. Yum! (I assume). I am hoping that I'll get to do more than window shopping some time early in 2011.  :)

Happy new year everyone, and here's to new food discoveries in the coming year.

Update: as a result of this post, we have now begun to visit Richmond's restaurants with more frequency!
For a full list of Richmond visits, click here

Bloggable by a thread

GERO, Rua Aníbal de Mendonçam 157, Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro, TEL: 55-21/2239-8158

Normally, Gero would not be the kind of experience I would blog about. I said from the outset that I would not use this space to bemoan disappointing dining experiences, and this was a betrayal of huge proportions.

There we were in Ipanema, Rio’s trendiest neighborhood. Dining guides and accepted wisdom sent us to Gero, the first of the Fasano group, with promises of innovative Italian cuisine and fresh pasta prepared on the spot. Chris’ first comment should have alerted me. “This is a place that both Monica and Harriet could really get into”. Now, Monica is a Hollywood agent, with academy award winning clientele, and Harriet has a stunning home in the hills of Santa Barbara. A red flag should have gone up to tell me that this was going to be the kind of place where the glamorous outdid the gastronomic. I missed it.

As we settled into our respective caiprinhas and white wine, an array of breads and spreads was laid out before us. Saving my carbs for the pasta, I shunned all of this. It had been so long since I travelled in Europe that I had forgotten to beware of the customary “couvert” charge for the little starters that appear unordered – most definitely not on the house. The custom was replicated here, in this case boosting the bill by a whopping $25. Mercifully, we only found out about that later.

I had arrived with a decisive yearning for fish – and Italians do fish so well – but the price points on the menu dictated pasta. Grouper with basil sauce sounded good, but not so good as to warrant $40. Anyway, the pasta was what all the fuss was about. Since the gnocchi with calamari and scallops seemed to satisfy the pescatory requirement, I decided to go with that. Chris also compromised on the exorbitant lamb chops with truffles, ($60) and settled instead on pasta with foie gras. (My look of “oh how gross” was returned with the tart “Only you and Jillian Michaels could malign this combination”).

To start, we decided to split the green salad (splitting charge: $5). Though mostly green leaf lettuce, it was fresh and included a leaf of endive and a single spear of asparagus. All would have been well, had we not been offered what turned out to be an extra shot of olive oil. The salad had already been dressed, and this unnecessary flourish sent it over the top.

My misery reached full throttle when the gnocchi arrived. Tiny little morsels, they were immersed in a pool of butter. Rather than succulent scallops and perfectly grilled calamari sitting recognizably alongside them on the plate, the mollusks had been shaved to a nearly invisible (and correspondingly tasteless) skein.

I turned to Chris: “Can you believe how the gnocchi are swimming in butter?”

“Ever seen them doing the backstroke?” she cracked right back. It was the perfect joke at the perfect moment. But it dissolved the ire that I needed to send the dish back. Relief at finding humor in this horror of a restaurant mugging kept me from acting, and I suffered through the meal, picking at the dish and not quite being able to get through it. Chris polished off her two patties of foie gras, washed down by muscat to cut the richness. She looked quite green by the end of it, but that was to be expected, I sniffed.

It was Chris that found that elevating moment. In the bathroom of all places. There she found…a never-before-in-a-restaurant accoutrement…a dental floss dispenser. She came back to the table beaming. So there you have it. Not a food moment; not even mine, but bloggable, just by a thread.

Photo credit: Jan Chipchase

Notes on dining in Rio: Rio is not really known for its restaurants, and in fact, my favorite food moments in the city have been on the beach, where you can buy grilled shrimp with a splash of lime right from your beach chair. Still, we did have some pleasant dining experiences while we were there. Although none was to die for, here are a few I would happily go back to:

Carretao is a neighborhood churrascaria in Ipanema. At $29 for all you can eat grilled meat and elaborate salad bar, it was a good antidote to Gero, and more fun too. Drinks and dessert are extra. http://www.carretaochurrascaria.com/

Garcia & Rodrigues in Leblon is another down to earth place, and has a wine store and bakery on the premises as well as the restaurant. http://www.garciaerodrigues.com.br/

Rio Scenarium is a nightclub in the hip Lapa neighborhood, recently reclaimed from drug traffickers. You will mostly be going for the live music, samba dancing, and three floors worth of Brazilian collectibles, but it has surprisingly good food. People from 20 -75 years of age are on the dance floor. Make a reservation, come early, or be prepared to wait in a very long line. http://www.rioscenarium.com.br/

Opium’s patio on the Rua Farme de Amoedo in Ipanema is the perfect place to have a drink at the end of the day and watch people coming back from the beach. Beautifully presented but overpriced Japanese food.

Passion in the Air

In July, Chris and I went to Brazil together for the first time. My job entails a lot of international travel, and Brazil is a country I go to quite often. But this was the first time Chris was joining me, and I was looking forward to the vacation time in Rio that we had carved out.

There was a problem, though. In the best of all possible worlds, I have a direct flight from Dulles to Sao Paulo, an overnight flight lasting 10 hours. This allows me to have dinner, wash down my Ambien with the last sip of my red wine (I know you are not supposed to mix alcohol and sleeping pills, but it really takes a lot to put me down), go the bathroom, and then get a solid six hours sleep before the harsh lights blink on again and breakfast is served.

This time, because we were flying into Rio rather than Sao Paulo, we had to catch a connecting flight in Miami. Therein lay the problem. The flying time from Miami to Rio was only 8 hours. This meant that, by the time dinner was done, only 4 hours of sleeping time remained. Which meant, in turn, that we would arrive grumpy and disoriented in Rio, and our first day there would be shot. I worry a lot about these sorts of things.

So I developed a plan. Our departure time from Miami was 11:15 pm. Since we would be hungry for dinner way before then, it would make more sense to eat at the airport, and then skip the airplane meal – which would be awful anyway – and instead grab those crucial extra hours of sleep.

At first, all seemed to go well. Our terminal in MIA sported a real restaurant in addition to the food court options, and we had ample time to enjoy a solid meal. A couple of hours later, we went through the usual hassle of boarding the plane – the shuffling line to enter the aircraft, the congestion in the aisles as people search for a place to stow their overhead luggage, the bright nervousness with which people take their seats…Finally we were settled in our two-seat row, me in the window seat and Chris on the aisle. In my plan, we would have a drink and then, having already eaten dinner, we would don our face masks, insert our earplugs, and sink into oblivion until morning.

That is when the trouble began. Chris was earnestly studying the menu that the flight attendant had handed out. I think I’ll have the pasta, she announced.

But…didn’t we already have dinner? Yes, she said, but I am hungry again. I took a deep breath as my heart contracted. Roll with it, I commanded myself. For the next 55 minutes, I gave Chris bright smiles as my insides tensed into a mass of coiled springs. Bright smiles because I did not want to quash her unjaded delight at eating in the air. Bright smiles because I love the way she is so in the moment. But I kept looking anxiously her way, wondering how long this was going to take. As a byproduct of these glances, I noticed that the food actually did not look that bad. So how’s the pasta? Mmm…good! The tubes of ziti looked firm liked they were cooked al dente. The flecks of tomato sauce delicately enhanced rather than smothered the ziti…pasta with sauce, not the other way round. Looking at it I could almost taste the perfect ratio of white wine to olive oil, of garlic to salt. Want a bite, she asked? Oh no. I have already had dinner. I am satisfied.

From there, Chris moved on to the dessert. It looked yellowish and unknowable in its plastic container. Watching every move now, I followed her fork as it plunged into the nameless mass, scooped up a mouthful and made its way orad. Oh-my-god, she said. You must taste this. I was starting to get exasperated. This was airplane food, after all! No thank you. I really am quite satisfied. But it’s your favorite: passion fruit cheesecake! No thank you. There will be plenty of that, and much better, once we get to Brazil. Oooh, this is so amazing. The essence…….her voice trailed off at a loss for words beyond “the essence”. She repeated it, shaking her head in disbelief. I clenched the armrests.

After what seemed like a very long time, dinner was finally over and the carts were trundled down the aisles to collect the empty trays. Now I could get on with my routine. I swallowed my pill, and made my way to the bathroom. Waiting my turn, I found myself wedged between the bathroom wall and a parked food cart, still laden with the dinner dishes. There on the top shelf sat an uneaten serving of dessert. I stared at it, and it stared back. It’s your favorite….Chris’ words reverberated ….the essence….passion fruit, your favorite…Resolve gave way with a thud. I stuck my finger in, and sent it towards my mouth. Oh-my-god. It really was the essence….the essence of passion fruit, given flight in the most aerated cheesecake I have ever tasted. Almost a mousse, it nevertheless retained its cakey identity, then exploded in full fruitiness in your mouth. How was this possible?

In Rio, we searched to duplicate this delight, but without success. There were passionfruit cheesecakes everywhere you looked, but none like that one. Not in the Ipanema hippy market,

Ipanema Hippy Market



not in the neighborhood churrascaria, not even, once Chris had flown home and I had gone on to Sao Paulo, in the Pousada Dona Zilah where I had first discovered it. Tam Airlines takes the cake award, for the best passion in the air.

 Update: Later I was to find out that Tam's international menus are devised by the highly acclaimed Brazilian chef, Helena Rizzo. Rizzo is responsible for the São Paulo restaurant and city hot spot, Mani, at the top of chef Paulo Barroso de Barros' Top 10 list of restaurants in the city.



L'Enfant Cafe-Bar

Dish To Die For: frangelico and nutella crepes

Bittersweet Crepes

Chris and I were sitting on the patio at L’Enfant enjoying our salads one late summer evening, when Chris noticed that her baby greens were still clinging to their clump of earth. The waiter’s eyes almost popped out when he saw it, and he hurried the plate back to the kitchen. When he returned with a replacement salad, he announced that dessert would be on the house. This was fine with us, because, although the food at L’Enfant is always pleasing and fresh, the dishes to die for here are the sweet crepes. Chris did not hesitate to order her favorite, crepes au grand marnier, and I followed suit with mine: frangelico and nutella.

As the hazelnut-chocolate-wrapped-in-liquid-gold flavor made its way down my throat, the mishap with the salad faded from my mind, and I was taken back to the last time Chris and I had had crepes at L’Enfant. Sunday, January 18, 2009, the Sunday of the Obama inauguration weekend. It had been a weekend of galas and parties, and that morning, people -- us included -- were still in celebration mode. L’Enfant was operating at full capacity, and I remember the gauzy winter light slanting into the bistro, bathing the happy revelers. We spent the better part of three hours sampling the crepes and downing grand mimosas, by the end of which we had racked up a bill of close to $100. But hey, it was a special occasion, and we enjoyed every moment of it.

Back in the present, Chris was making moaning noises as she helped herself to my frangelico and nutella crepes. “So, do you like them better than the grand marnier?” I asked.

“You’ll never get me to say that,” came the reply. This puzzled me for a moment…until I remembered something she had told me. Late January, 1982. It had been Chris’ last day in Paris, and she had gone to visit Les Invalides where she had seen a holocaust exhibit. Depressed, she decided to see how many grand marnier crepes she could eat before leaving the City of Light, hitting every corner crepe stand that she passed. By the time her head hit the toilet (her words), she had consumed 27 grand marnier crepes with extra grand marnier. If she now conceded that actually another crepe was better, all that would have been for nothing, her tribute to life at its best undermined. I understood then that Chris’ long term relationship with crepes au grand marnier could not be tampered with. And I feel the same way about my allegiance to frangelico and nutella. Now, if only Obama could recapture his glow, I could remember that inaugural moment in its full sweetness...

Inspired by Mark Bittman

The Minimalist Meets His Her Match

Mark Bittman is a hero of mine. Many of my most successful meals can be traced back to his Minimalist column, and my recipe collection is stacked with cuttings from it. People say that I am a great cook, but really what I am good at is spotting great ideas, and The Minimalist is a font of those. My attraction for this style is not so much the ease of preparation, as much as his innovative attention to the pairing of complementary flavors, so that, using a minimum of ingredients, he can create a dish of understated elegance.

Chris has a different approach to cooking. In her eyes, I like to tease her, Mark Bittman is the Antichrist. This is because I have never met more of a “more is more” foodie than Chris. It’s as if she views ingredients as having a multiplier effect on taste, while I am trying to balance an equation. For example, presented with home canned pears, Chris will marinate them in apple juice with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, throw in some apple jack brandy for good measure, then grill them and drizzle with the canning fluid that has been reduced with extra orange zest and a bit of milk to make it creamy. All of this will be served over a cinnamon crumpet. (For more about this creation, and about Chris’ approach to food, see Brian Blaho’s brilliant rendition in his story Pills). But for minimalists like me, this plethora, even redundancy, of ingredients is a bit overwhelming. How can you ever find those delicious pears that are submerged in there somewhere? It’s like with bagels and lox. If I am getting a bagel and lox with the works, no way am I going to get it on an everything bagel. “The works” and the “everything” compete too much against each other. Chris, on the other hand, would not dream of getting anything else.

This basic difference between us is reflected in the way we have furnished our respective homes, too. Mine has clean lines, each piece chosen with care and arranged in a way that each gives the other lots of space to be itself. I have only the number of glasses, plates, and silverware I need, and they are respectively: clear, black and white, or grey. Chris is a collector. An eclectic collector. Her house is filled with furniture, ornaments, and kitchen gadgets that she has amassed, all rubbing up against each other. She has a collection of glasses that range from antique ruby red goblets she inherited from her Italian grandmother to brightly colored perspex tumblers found on sale at Target. Somehow it all makes sense in her space, and I feel at peace being there, as she finds relief in mine. At the same time we sort of marvel at each other’s insanity.

Where we have common ground is in grilling. Chris loves to grill, and this preparation lends itself to the simple seasonings and spices that I favor. Here is a recent menu I put together, with me seasoning and Chris executing:

 Corn grilled directly on the flame, topped with olive oil, salt, and torn basil leaves. This was inspired by The Minimalist’s July 28 column. In his version, Bittman calls for parmesan cheese as well as the olive oil and basil, but I left this out and added salt instead. It turns out corn and basil work fantastically together, and I will be forever grateful to The Minimalist for this one.

Porterhouse steaks, seasoned with “Something South African” Sweet and Smoky spice rub. Chris discovered this rub at Marshall’s, and while I am generally suspicious of store- bought spice blends, in this case I can vouch for its authenticity: it is the closest that I have found to replicating the flavor of the South African braais of my childhood. If you can’t find it, you can always make up a batch yourself, using sea salt, garlic, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, cumin, ginger, garlic oil, chili, and sugar, and use wood chips in your fire. We would always make some version of this from scratch when I was growing up, braaing over wood fires.

No frills grilled asparagus

Bellingham Cabernet Sauvignon The hearty porterhouse, particularly in this zesty version, calls for a big wine. I paired it with the Bellingham, a South African wine which is not widely imported, but which I stumbled on at Libbie Market (formerly Joe’s Market) in Richmond, VA. If anyone knows of a DC source for this, please let me know!

Ciao Bella Key Lime Graham gelato. Truly, Ciao Bella gelatos render me speechless, and this flavor was no exception.

For the occasion, Chris brought out her gold and white Plaza plates with a big P in the middle that she picked up at the hotel’s fire sale, and her silver pedestal ice cream dishes from eBay.




This post is dedicated to Dr. Joseph Svoboda, Chris’ dad, who passed away a few days before we had this meal. Brian talks about him in his story too.