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Best Dish of the Year?
First, let me get some shameless self-promotion out of the way: I’ll be at St. Paul’s Micawbers Books (www.micawbers.com) tonight at 7 p.m. for a talk and signing of my book. Last one before Christmas! Come on down and I’ll inscribe one for your Aunt Judy. Assuming you have one. If you haven’t got one, I can either lend you mine (wonderful woman, who makes the greatest peanut butter balls on earth) or lend a shoulder to cry on: Why were no Judy’s hitherto provided unto you? Savvy planners will want to make a reservation at nearby Muffaletta for after the talk; cynical planners will note that it’s awfully easy to walk into any St. Paul restaurant at 9 p.m. and get seated immediately…
But now on to the meat of the matter: What was your best dish of the year? Seriously, I want to know. Here are three of mine, presented in no particular order.
1) Ribeye with sauteed mushrooms at Trattoria Tosca. Was this the best steak of my life? I think maybe, yes. Young Chef Adam Vickerman dazzled me with any number of his just-out-of-the-garden dishes this summer, but that ribeye was thunderous and perfectly cooked and profound.
2) Scallops with pressed cucumber at Sea Change. The raw-bar selections from Sea Change were all astonishingly good, but the composition of compressed cucumber, briny but sweet sea scallops, and good Italian olive oil told me something completely new about scallops, namely that their sweet minerality can be framed by herbal notes and the faint numbing taste of cucumber in such a way that they sing like berries. (Note of great interest to Sea Change fans: On occasional Mondays, Sea Change’s chef de cuisine, Erik Andersen, is doing a sort of omakase at the Sea Change bar; call the restaurant for details, but I’m guessing it’s phenomenal.)
3) Sea-salt French fries, goat’s milk ice cream, and heirloom tomato & local pork nachos and five-spice mini-doughnuts at the Chef Shack. The tang of the goat’s milk ice cream, the wind off the sunny Mississippi, the rich and tangy nachos… Sigh. What a great morning.
But what else? I may do a part two of this list, or maybe it will just swell in the comments. So tell me, look back over the year; anything you got giddy over? Home cooks, feel free to chime in on any ingredients you scored that led to a phenomenal meal at home.
Posted on Friday, December 18, 2009 in Permalink
Comments may be edited for length, clarity, or appropriateness.
Reader Comments:
I can't get the Bar Americain burger at Salut out of my head— carmelized onions, blue cheese, and Bordelaise sauce on grilled ciabatta with hand-cut fries... Sensational. And I don't usually order burgers. I wanted to re-do the meal as soon as it was over.
I had two dishes at Senor Wong in downtown St. Paul that blew me away. I don't remember the details, but one was centered around scallops and the other red meat. The play of Vietnamese and Latin flavors is out of this world, and I really think this restaurant is flying under most foodie's radars right now. They do good stuff.
I hesitate to post this one, because my writing won't do it justice...
Every year we have a Callister Farm turkey at Thanksgiving and it's always delicious. But this year we brined it (overnight in your basic salt solution). And it tasted like that same delicious Callister turkey... times 100!! Every bit of meat was tender and juicy - none of it overcooked. The true test was when the little kids (age 2 & 5) with extremely fussy palates were caught in the kitchen after dinner gnawing on the pile of bones we were saving for soup.
So, to summarize: a simple quality ingredient + a simple technique = my most amazing food highlight of 2009.
I don't take notes when I eat at restaurants, unfortunately. So, like Oscar voting, my views on the best dish of the year skews toward plates still fresh in my memory. That being said, I think the grilled swordfish cassoulet at Sea Change stands up to anything I've had this year. It hit all the right notes of heft (perfect for a cold MN winter night) and flavor (creamy, salty, garlicky). The fish was jump-out-the-water fresh and cooked to perfection, and the accompanying cassoulet was full of wonderful chunks of sausage, shrimp, and beans. I only ate at Sea Change once, and overall I found the entrees to be rather anticlimactic (though most of the offerings from the raw bar were topnotch). But that swordfish haunts my dreams.
Where is Chef Shack? Is that one of the mysterious St. Paul mobile food places? Man that food you describe from there sounds good.
Hands down - - - Bar La Grassa's GNOCCHI with CAULIFLOWER and ORANGE or their SOFT EGGS and LOBSTER Bruschetta. I'm still confused by your review of it Dara. I've been to Bar La Grassa and Sea Change 3 times each, and there is no comparison in my mind - - Bar La Grassa is far more inspiring! The ironic part is seafood is my favorite food and pasta my least. Do you hold Isaac Becker to a higher standard than a James Beard award winner?
Kristin S. and I will disagree on Bar La Grassa (I'm with Dara on this one), it seems. But my best dishes of the year:
- I've never had it before, and the egg foo young at Shuang Cheng was the real thing
-Cherry soup with honey panna cotta (with cookies and honeycomb) at Sea Change. I am not a dessert person. This impressed me.
- Palak paneer at Dancing Ganesha- it was the freshest version I've ever had, it tasted like they just picked the spinach and added it right before it was made.
- I would marry the blue cheese potato gratin at 20.21 if I could.
- I will always miss the egg yolk raviolo with truffle brown butter at D'Amico Cucina.