Like most sane people, I rarely eat Cajun food outside of Louisiana. I’ve had awful “Cajun” food in New York and Los Angeles, and even Cajun food in Texas and Mississippi can be suspect. I also think blackening fish is criminal, and chain restaurants with anything Cajun on their menu need some schooling. By schooling I mean an old nun with a cane cut from a pecan tree bent on a proper instruction, the kind one remembers for life.
|
||||||
|
It takes a lot of effort to make prosciutto. Generally about 18 months or so, and some serious patience to watch it hang until it’s ready. But when it comes, it makes patience aphoristically virtuous. But thankfully, we can just order prosciutto without the watch and wait. Annabelle’s Bar & Bistro recently offered a small plate of their special house-made duck prosciutto. PAN ROASTED LIBERTY DUCK BREAST What a panoply of flavors from Chef Scott Youkilis at Maverick in this duck dish. The Liberty Farms duck breast is perfectly pan-roasted, medium-rare, and as succulent as a great fowl can be. Then there’s crookneck squash and goat cheese custard, figs, some glorious duck jus…zoinks. Fantastic duck at Maverick, SF It’s [...] MICHAEL MINA – RESTAURANT REVIEW – PRIX FIXE DINNER With an atmosphere of contemporary elegance, plus excellent service and trays of succulent small bites coming in spectacularly focused trios, Michael Mina restaurant is certainly worth the special occasion splurge. Tables are distant enough for your group to feel safe and uncrowded. You enter the room–hidden within [...] There’s a reason that Town Hall has had buttermilk fried chicken as a menu staple since their inception. It is just awesome. It’s the best fried chicken you may have in the last year, or perhaps your lifetime. It is simply that good. Perfect batter crunch, and sweetly tender inside, the fried chicken comes with smashed potatoes slurred with a fantastic country bacon gravy 1/2 Squab Squab (pigeon) is a funky fowl that’s favored by the French. On an episode of last season’s “Top Chef” where contestants had to cook for culinary masters, Jacques Pepin confessed his passion for squab and how it resonated with pleasant boyhood memories of growing up in France. Certainly when squab is done well, it’s a [...] I must say that Louisiana Fried Chicken is killer. Super-crisp skin and drip-on-your-fingers juicy chicken. Get a two-piece or three-piece with a small side (instead of the combo with side, which is more expensive). Dirty, dirty, dirty rice. I want to wag my finger at you like Stephen Colbert, but I’ve already eaten you. Every so often, one needs the nurturing of chicken. Odd that a nervous, annoying little fowl could render such comfort, but it’s one of the mysteries of life. And the Moroccan spiced chicken at Spruce is one of the best chicken dishes I’ve had in 2009. Slightly sweet, dreamily aromatic, and skin-crisp, the bird reveals its juicy interior with a soft slice Pan-Roasted Maple Leaf Farms Duck Breast The Elite Cafe serves a simply excellent duck breast. Pan-roasted perfectly, it’s sufficiently seared on the outside with that just rare enough ruddiness inside to make it perfectly juicy, tender, and sweet. The duck is an Elite Cafe staple, partnered up with braised winter greens and sweet potatoes. The greens [...] | ||||||