Cacio e pepe—cheese and pepper pasta

The classic Italian dish cacio e pepe is just grated cheese on hot pasta served with pepper. The cheese is usually Pecorino Romano (sometimes, misnamed “Romano”) and the pasta can be tonnarelli or spaghetti. Tonnarelli differs only in that it has a square cross section rather than round. And while Pecorino is the preferred cheese, some chefs add up to 30% Parmesan to the Pecorino.

The story behind this seemingly simple dish is that shepherds could carry the dry pecorino (aged sheep’s milk cheese), pasta and pepper and make themselves a hearty meal. Maybe. But despite the fact that this dish has only four ingredients (including water), it is hard to get right in the home kitchen.

In restaurant kitchens, they keep a pot of pasta water boiling, and cook all their pasta in it. Over time, this becomes quite a starchy solution that chefs often use to enhance the mouth feel of sauces. In this dish, that starch content is critical to its success.

When you stir together the pasta, cheese and pasta water, you want the result to be pasta with a creamy sauce. But this depends on there being enough starch in the mixture. If there is too little starch, the cheese is likely to form lumps rather than melting into the sauce.

And, if the temperature is too high, the cheese can go into a gooey “mozzarella phase” instead of dissolving into the sauce.

We read through six or seven different recipes that weren’t a lot different and made it seem easier than it is. Interestingly enough, Lidia Bastianich suggested crushing whole peppercorns under a heavy flat pan rather then grinding the peppercorns, to give big pieces of pepper in the sauce. This is a matter of taste and how much pepper you really want. Babish solved the sauce problem by pouring the hot pasta water over the cheese in a blender. He also adds a bit of butter to the pan where you put the drained spaghetti and after tossing the spaghetti in the butter, he just pours the blended sauce over that pasta. This isn’t quite the same as melting the cheese on the pasta, but it is foolproof.

Research on the phases of cheese

However, the ultimate research on cacio e pepe (Phase behavior of cacio e pepe) was posted on ArXiv by eight physicists who study phases of such liquids. G. Bartolucci, D. M. Busiello, M. Ciarchi, A. Corticelli, I. Di Terlizzi, F. Olmeda, D. Revignas, and V. M. Schimmenti, working at the University of Barcellona, Max Planck Institute in Dresden, University of Padova and the Institute of Science and Technology, Klosterneuberg, Austria participated in studying the phases of the cheese and starch solution. Despite their labs being spread all through Europe, they emphasized that they were all originally Italian, and thus were not messing with someone else’s national dish.

In a nutshell, they determined that if there is not enough starch in the pasta water, the cheese is likely to clump rather than dissolving. They also noted that you should let the pasta cool for about a minute before mixing with the cheese to avoid the dreaded “mozzarella phase.”
So, rather than just using starchy pasta water, they propose making up a warm starch solution to mix with the cheese. We tried this and it works exactly as they described. They recommend potato or cornstarch.

• 240 g pasta (about half a pound, 8.4 oz)
• Water to cover the pasta in a wide, shallow pan.
• 160 g pecorino cheese (5.6 oz)
• 4 g cornstarch in 40 g water
• Freshly ground pepper

Mix the cornstarch and water and heat it gently until the mixture becomes nearly clear. The mixture will become quite thick and gelatin-like. (This is known as “starch gelation.”)
Grate the pecorino until you have a bit more than 160 g. Save the excess for sprinkling on top. You can use a cheese grater or a food processor.

Mix the starch gel with the grated cheese in a bowl, adding room temperature water as needed to make it moist enough to make a smooth mixture. Add ground pepper to the mixture.
Bring the water for cooking the pasta to boil in an open, flat pan wider than the length of the pasta, and cook until al dente. Be sure to test the pasta’s doneness, as it will take longer than the suggested 10 minutes, since the small amount of water will reduce the heat of the boiling water.
Scoop out around half a cup of pasta water about a minute before the pasta is done.
Lift the pasta out of the cooking water into a serving bowl.

Let the pasta cool about one minute and then begin to mix in the cheese mixture, adding the slightly cooled pasta water as needed. You want to add enough water so that the cheese mixture mostly dissolves in the water.
Add more ground pepper.
Divide the pasta into two serving bowls and top with ground cheese (here you could add Parmesan if you wanted) and more pepper. Serve immediately.

If you have some left over, you can refrigerate it and reheat it in a microwave without the sauce coming apart, as the starch stabilizes it.

Nathan Myrhvold, the author of Modernist Cuisine, has suggested that you might also be able to prevent the cheese from clumping by adding some sodium citrate, suggesting that this anticoagulant might be more more effective than the starch which could blunt the flavor of the the cheese.

Chewy peanut butter cookies

This recipe was the winner of a contest for the best peanut butter cookies. The main ingredient is “all-natural” peanut butter, which is chosen not for any imagined health benefit, but because it is more liquid than conventional peanut butters because the oils are not hydrogenated. Thus, the batter comes together quite smoothly.

• 4 Tb unsalted butter at room temperature
• ¾ cup creamy all-natural peanut butter
• ¼ cup granulated sugar (plus more for rolling)
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup plus 2 Tb all-purpose flour
• ¾ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp fine sea salt
• Maldon salt for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 350˚F
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in the whole egg and then the egg yolk and vanilla.
In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, soda and sea salt, and then add to the wet ingredients and mix until evenly combined.
Put a scoop of granulated sugar into a mixing bowl. Using a cookie scoop, roll the batter into 1-inch balls and then roll them in the sugar. Arrange a dozen of these balls on the baking sheet, spaced about 2 inches apart.
Bake until they have puffed up and are set on the edges but still somewhat soft in the middle, about 12 minutes.
Remove the cookies from the oven and sprinkle each with a pinch of Maldon salt. Then slide the whole parchment sheet and cookies over to a wire cooling rack and cook the remaining cookies on new parchment sheet.

Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

How to make crumpets

Crumpets are a sort of cousin to English muffins, but a lot easier to make. They are sort of a spongy bread that is best served hot with butter, jam or even Marmite. They are pretty simple to make and the only thing you’ll need to buy are crumpet rings (also called muffin rings). You cook them on a hot griddle or a cast iron pan on the stove.

This recipe follows from one given by Lidey Heuck in the New York Times. You can stir up the batter in a few minutes, but you need to let it rise for around an hour before using it.

• ½ cup whole milk
• 2 ½ tsp active dry yeast
• 1 tsp granulated sugar
• 2 ½ cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 ½ cups warm water
• Unsalted butter for greasing the rings and griddle

Heat the milk in a glass pitcher or bowl for about 30 seconds at half power until it is warm to the touch. Stir in the yeast and sugar and set aside until it is bubbly.
Combine the flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl. Gradually add the milk and warm water, stirring with a whisk. Mix until you have a runny, sticky batter.
Cover with a damp towel and let rise for an hour until you have a bubbly dough that has doubled in volume.

Heat a griddle to 375˚F and melt a Tb of butter on the griddle.
Butter the muffin rings and set on the griddle to heat up.
Pour about 1/3 cup of batter into each ring. Scrape all of the batter in the cup into each ring, but if there is a lot clinging to the outside of the cup, don’t include it: it makes the crumpets too thick. Turn the griddle down a bit if the butter begins to smoke.

Cook for 4-6 minutes until bubbles rise. Then lift the rings away and turn the crumpets and cook for 2 minutes or so, until browned.
Serve hot with butter and jam or marmalade.

You can keep left-over crumpets in a bag in the breadbox, or in the refrigerator. You can even freeze them.

You can split cold crumpets in two much like an English muffin, and heat them in the toaster and butter them.
In fact, you can serve them with poached eggs, or make them into Eggs Benedict by adding ham under the eggs and topping with Hollandaise. They actually work better for this than English muffins do, because they aren’t as tough as English muffins, and are easier to eat with a knife and fork.

What happened? A Nation panel analyzes the election.

One of the early sessions on this The Nation cruise was called “Dissecting Democratic Malaise: WTF happened.” The panelists were Nation publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel, Jeet Heer, Christina Greer, Elie Mystal and John Nichols, moderated by Sam Seder.

These comments are transcribed from my notes and might seem a bit choppy, but brings out the progressive view of how the election was lost.

John Nichols was the first speaker, and described our situation as “whipsaw politics,” where we go back and forth from one dangerous extreme to the other: rather than holding power for any longer period. He blamed the media for not knowing how to cover politics, but instead reduces it to simplistic gossip. He also noted that the GOP does NOT have a mandate: they had a very narrow victory.

Elie Mystal began by explaining that all the issues we discuss are shared except the issue of whiteness. All of the minorities knew that Trump was wrong, but he was essentially elected by white people. On our cruise ship, he assumed that we could easily find people who voted for Trump, but that if you asked them why, they would give you a “socially acceptable answer,” but the real issue was white racism.
Seder noted that we will have to devote significant efforts to reaching these white people.

Christina Greer said that we are watching a kleptocracy forming itself in real time. And while you might expect that poor white women (who voted for Trump) they didn’t, because they had never “experienced the boot.” Instead, voters latched onto some essentially irrelevant issue like transgender teenagers (who are a very small number of people) as an excuse to swing their vote to Trump.

Jeet Heer noted that it was amazing that we elected a con man and criminal toe the presidency. Trump’s appeal seemed to be “I will protect you,” which is unlikely to be true unless you were some of the super-rich. He also noted that Kamala ran as part of the establishment rather than as a refreshing change.
Katrina vanden Heuvel noted that Kamala spending three days with Liz Cheney was 3 days wasted when she could have been reaching the voters she needed. There is a significant need to reorganize the Democratic party, because they are heading to being the party of Rahm Emmanuel.

In general discussion that followed, the point was raised that Harris was never able to take her own position on Gaza, which probably hurt her with younger voters. She was more or less captive to Biden’s unpopular policies.

The DNC (Democratic National Committee) came under significant attack. Speakers felt that it “served no useful purpose,” and gave Harris no useful help. It didn’t have any strategy to reach the working class. Harris didn’t exploit her multi-racial, multi-ethnic characteristics in her campaign, and this, they blamed on the DNC. Their strategy was too cautious.

Christina Greer felt that had there been a primary, Kamala would not have been the nominee. Democrats chase speakers where there are problems, showing that “I can build coalitions with horrendous people.”
California needs to revise how they count votes. Democrats need to maximize their turnout. Only 63% of eligible voters voted this year, and a lot of Democrats stayed home. In California this was a significant problem for Democrats.

The media did not do an adequate job of covering the election: they are more interested in who has the power. As far as encouraging young voters, young people don’t see themselves in politics.

Great politicians may arrive in non-traditional ways. Seder sees possible candidates among Ro Kahana, Chris Murphy, and AOC, and those already active include Gavin Newsom and Christie Whitmer. Sometimes a transformational figure arrives from outside traditional politics: one such candidate might be LeBron James. And don’t count out Jamie Raskin. What we do have to do is move from party-centered politics to candidate-centered politics. And resist Clintons and Obamas getting involved!

In an afternoon session, Joan Walsh joined a discussion with Christina Greer and John Nichols.
Walsh said that Kamala’ reputation was being torpedoed quietly by Biden staffers, and said should cold cite names. Biden was more popular among black women. She said that Kamal’s campaign was inititially a sh*t-show when she took over. She tried to introduce a working class agenda for women, not men.
Kamala did better than Biden among seniors. Lower middle class women should have gotten a lot of help from the Kamala campaign, but “Nancy said no.”

The media doesn’t know how to report on black issues.

John Nichols finished off this session. He noted that her campaign defined her in terms of Trump rather than in terms of her own plans and ambitions. While commentators were saying that they didn’t really know Harris, it was Kamala who moved Biden closer to unions and arranged all of his union appearances. The fact that she was in charge of that labor movement was never communicated.

Her campaign as too much about Trump and Liz Cheney contributed nothing useful. The DNC is not a useful organization: it is solely concerned with raising money, rather than promoting candidates and policies.

Nichols said that he had a chance to interview Kamala early in the campaign, and one on one she was very impressive. She could easily have been a good President and might have been a great President.

The Nation magazine is a 160-year old publication, originally organized to combat slavery, but moved into other progressive causes after the passage of the 15th Amendment.

On board the Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam

I arrived in Miami Saturday around 12:30 pm and took an Uber up to my hotel (Embassy Suites) in Fort Lauderdale. Then many of us boarded a shuttle bus at about 10:15 am. It was towing a baggage trailer to the pier where our ship waited. Our baggage boarded separately. We had to go through scanning of our boarding pass, and of our passports and then go to a huge room full of chairs where I was given a card saying Group 17. That sounded ominous, but in fact the wait was barely 15-20 minutes and we were on the ship. Overall, the whole process from the hotel to the ship was barely an hour.

The Nieuw Amsterdam, to me seems a pretty big ship. Walking from one end to the other takes a good ten minutes or more. It has a capacity of 2100 passengers and 910 staff, giving you a passenger to staff ratio of about 2.4. This puts it in the Moderate Luxury class. Previously, we had sailed on Celebrity once and Seabourn twice. This seemed to be a step up from our experience on Celebrity, but of course with Seaborn’s ships being smaller and with more staff, you get a lot more attention (and pay more).

We were put in elevators to the 9th deck, where there is the Lido Market informal restaurant and bar. Here you can get drinks and a plethora of food from a buffet. They will also grill your hamburgers and hot dogs to order. On Holland America ships, you can get a drinks package that gets you up to 15 hard and soft drinks a day, or an all-in-one package which includes Wi-Fi in your cabin and a contribution towards one or more excursions and one premium dining restaurant. This latter cost about $350 a week (per person).

After lunch with a beer, I went down to the 5th deck to my “stateroom” just as my baggage was arriving. I also met our cabin steward, Anton, who made it a point to greet me by name and ask if I needed anything. This is a very nice touch. It had a nice veranda and chairs, but the room was pretty cramped.

I think if I had a partner with me, we would have been running into each other. I could have upgraded from Veranda Suite to Signature Veranda suite for about $2000, but since there was only one of me, it seemed extravagant. A friend of mine suggested I ought to upgrade to Neptune Suite with Veranda for about $4000 more. It comes with some privileges like free laundry and priority boarding and access to a private restaurant and lounge area. Might be fun, but for one, I didn’t think so.

About 125 of us were on this cruise sponsored by The Nation magazine, and there are talks morning and afternoon on sea days and in the afternoon on port days. The speakers included Sam Seder, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, John Nichols, Sasha Abramsky, Jeet Heer, Elie Mystal, Kristina Greer, Eddie Soufrant, Joan Walsh and Bhaskar Sunkara.

There was a welcome party at the Lido Market Bar and pool area at 4pm, with a DJ and a lot of menacing looking drinks for sale. One was a rum punch in a souvenir glass for only $18.75. I stuck to diet Coke.

Then there was a welcoming Nation reception with free drinks and snacks in the Crows Nest bar on the 11th deck at 6:15.

After a few sips of my innocuous punch, I felt rather dizzy, but it turned out it was the ship rocking, with the 11th floor amplifying the rocking motion. You could see the liquid in the liquor bottles sloshing back and forth. In these receptions, you really have to insist to get a soda or non-alcoholic drinks. They never have any right there for the asking.

Then we all went to dinner in the main dining room at 7:30, each with assigned seating so we could all get to know each other. Most of the diners at my table ordered the Mahi-Mahi, served with shellfish as shown. They all devoured it. I ordered the nightly special: pork belly served with mashed sweet potatoes and spinach. It was not the best example of pork belly I’ve had.

Among the desserts, we had a strawberry sundae, bread pudding and a chocolate tart. Only the sundae received much praise.

For breakfast this morning, I had a delicious room service American breakfast with perfectly done eggs and sausage, with orange juice and toast. They sent two by mistake, so I photographed one on the veranda.

Lunch on these ships is limited to the Lido Market, which is, in essence, a great big buffet. I have never liked waiting in line for food from a steam table, but I was able to pick up a delicious little premade sub sandwich, and went back for some ice cream for dessert. Very nice. There are always free tables, already set and helpful staff everywhere.

So far, I am having a great time. Tonight I’ll visit one of the fancy restaurants (Tamarind) and tomorrow, I’ll summarize the fascinating talks I heard from The Nation’s writers.

Slow-rise pizza dough in 72 hours

You can make simple pizza dough in an hour or two before you want to make pizza, but that is a pale imitation of the great pizza dough this recipe makes. It’s no more work: you just start earlier and stick the dough in the fridge for 3 days to let it rise slowly and ferment a bit. The result is a smooth cohesive dough as the gluten opens up and tangles together, that is springy, lighter and tastier.

This just means that you mix up your pizza dough Monday night or Tuesday morning and put it in the fridge, to have pizza on Friday or Saturday. The work is about the same otherwise.

I got this recipe from my friend (and old IBM Instruments colleague) Sue Egan. Her recipe is all in grams, and is really simple to weigh out. I give you the full recipe, which makes 4 pizzas, the half recipe and approximate conversions to English measures. But it is simpler and more accurate to use a cheap kitchen scale. If you don’t have one, put it on your holiday gift request list!

In this recipe, we use King Arthur general purpose flour. Other flours made have slightly different densities. We suggest using Kosher salt, and measuring it by weight is easiest. The density of Diamond crystal salt and Morton’s kosher salt are quite different because of different crystal shapes. Morton’s is nearly twice as dense, so you measure half as much by volume, but of course by weight you just weigh the salt.

We mixed up the dough using a stand mixer. The dough is not so heavy that you need the dough hook beater: the normal beater will work fine. You can also mix it in a food processor or by hand.

• 932 g King Arthur flour
• 560 g lukewarm water
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 16 g kosher salt
• 8 g sugar
• 1 Tb olive oil

Half recipe

• 466 g flour (3 ½ cups)
• 280 g lukewarm water (1 ¼ cups, scant)
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 8 g kosher salt (1 Tb plus 1 tsp if using Diamond)
• 4 g sugar (2 tsp)
• ½ Tb olive oil

1. Weigh out the flour, sugar and salt and add to the mixer bowl.

2. Weigh out the water, and add the yeast to it. Add to the mixer bowl

3. Add the olive oil to the mixer bowl.

4. Mix until well combined. The dough will be a bit sticky.

5. Place the dough into a covered plastic container with room for 100% expansion, and place in the refrigerator for 72 hours.

Pizza day

On pizza day, take the dough out of the fridge 3-4 hours before you want to use it, so it warms up to room temperature.

1. Put a pizza stone in the oven and heat it to 475˚ F for an hour or so.

2. Prepare the pizza sauce. We use one 6 oz can of tomato paste, one can of water, and 1/4 to 1/3 cup homemade tomato sauce. Put them in a blender and mix in 2 cloves of minced garlic, along with basil, rosemary and oregano. If the sauce seems sour, add a pinch of sugar.

3. Empty the dough onto a floured board, and weigh it in a small, tared bowl.

4. If you use the half recipe, divide the dough into two pieces weighing about the same. In our case we had 744 g of dough and divided it into two pieces weighing 372 g each. Check the weight of both pieces to make sure it is evenly divided. The weight will vary depending on how much flour the dough picks up.

5. Pick up one dough portion and begin tucking the dough ends into the middle. Continue this until you have made a smooth, round ball. Repeat with the remaining dough.

6. Flatten one of the dough balls on the floured board with your hands. While you may be tempted to roll the dough out with a rolling pin, you will get lighter dough if you don’t press all the bubbles out, but instead stretch the dough by hand. You can freeze the remaining balls for another day if you wish. We stored ours in a Ziplock freezer bag.

7. To stretch the dough, pick it up and stretch the top of the disk and then rotate the disk. Keep rotating the disk and stretching until it is close to the final size.

8. Here is a good example video on stretching the dough. If the dough tears, lay it down and patch the dough by pulling a little over the tear. You can finish your stretching with the dough on the floured counter top, rotating it as you stretch. Resist the temptation to toss the spinning dough into the air unless your kitchen floor is scrupulously clean!

9. Lift the dough and sprinkle a little cornmeal under it to make sure it doesn’t stick to the counter, and slide the dough disk onto a pizza peel. Sticking to the counter is less likely than with 1-hour dough, since the dough is much more cohesive.

10. Pour some of your tomato sauce onto the dough and spread it out, and then add slices of fresh mozzarella. Top with whatever you like.

11. Slide the pizza onto the hot pizza stone in the oven and bake for about 18 minutes.

And now, you have a delicious pizza with a crust you can be proud of!

Addendum a week later

We made another pizza from the frozen dough ball. It was even more cohesive and easier to stretch. The resulting pizza crust was tenderer and a bit more flavorful.

Pizza using San Marzano tomatoes

We’ve been making pizza for many years, making our tomato sauce out of tomato paste mixed with a little homemade tomato sauce. But many people swear by the excellence of pizza made using San Marzano tomatoes instead.

San Marzano

The San Marzano tomato originated in the town of San Marzano, near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. It’s a plum tomato, but longer and thinner than other plum varieties. It has more flesh than many other varieties, with a stronger, sweeter taste.

The tomatoes originally were grown only in the volcanic soil near Mt Vesuvius, which may have led to their somewhat unique flavor. Here’s a nice summary of the tomatoes and the town where they are grown.

Canned San Marzano tomatoes are widely available, but only those with a DOP label are considered authentic, since they are grown only in the Campania region. Seeds are widely available, and you can grow them yourself, but they won’t be the same as ones grown in the warm climate of southern Italy.

The tomatoes are indeterminate (which means they keep growing rather than stopping at a particular height) and are thus prolific have a long growing season. My own experience of growing them in New England would suggest that they are a pale imitation of their Italian cousins: they need the Italian climate. They are also somewhat disease prone in northern climates.

So, to make your San Marzano pizza, you would use canned San Marzano tomatoes, just as the Italians do. They are readily available, but more expensive than other varieties. We found a 22 oz can of Cento brand organic San Marzano tomatoes at Stop and Shop for about $6.00. However, you can buy the same tomatoes with the organic marketing label for about $4.00 at Walmart. (For a complete discussion of organic marketing, you can read about how the organic program developed here).

Our recipe

Still, San Marzano are more expensive. Cento sells a 22 oz can of “canned Italian tomatoes” for only $2.99. But for this recipe, we bought the Stop of Shop Cento organic San Marzano for $6, carrying them gingerly to our car. (We found the Walmart price for the non organic version later).

These tomatoes come in a puree, also made from San Marzanos, but a bit watery to use in pizza sauce, so we scooped out the actual tomatoes and drained them in a sieve before using them.

We always make our pizza sauce using garlic, oregano, basil and rosemary, so we put the drained tomatoes into a blender with the cut up spices and minced garlic. This was really all there was to our pizza sauce, but since it was still a bit watery, we drained it again before spreading it on our homemade pizza dough.

We rolled out our usual pizza dough recipe and slipped some cornmeal under the dough so we could easily slide it onto the pizza peel. We spread the sauce on the rolled out dough.

Then we added some EVOO and topped the pie with fresh mozzarella, pepperoni, onions and some sliced mildly hot peppers. We slipped the pie onto a hot pizza stone in a 475˚F oven and baked it for 18 minutes.

We’ll have to say that it tasted great. Was it different than our usual recipe? Yes, it did have a slightly different taste. Was it better and worth the expense? I think I’ll quote Martha Stewart here, and suggest that you have to decide for yourself. Some people will find it worth it, and others would not be able to tell the difference from ordinary canned tomatoes. It’s up to you!

Finding great Pho at the Mecha Noodle Bar

Pho is a Vietnamese beef noodle soup, and is a delicious work of art. It is not something simple like American chicken noodle soup, but a deep, rich beefy broth made slowly for hours. You can make your own, but a really good pho broth is made by simmering beef meat and bones for 6 hours or more. Even an Instant Pot version of pho takes up to 3 hours of simmering. And, of course, there are pho beef broth concentrates you can buy. And if you do go to all that work, how would you know if you’ve achieved anything like what real Vietnamese pho is like? And these recipes don’t easily scale down to broth for just a few people.

I looked around my area for restaurants that served pho to see what it should be like. There were two places in Norwalk, CT that offered pho, as well as one more in Stamford. So I set out last week to try the closest one, Good Hope Dumpling and Ramen House. They offered pho for $16 and with beef slices added, $20. They also offered pork soup dumplings, a favorite of mine.

Well, their pho came as a do-it-yourself kit. A quart of chicken stock and a bowl containing the rice noodles and bean sprouts, and some rather dry slices of beef. They also provided containers with a lime, some jalapeno slices and a sprinkling of cilantro. They also provide little cups of Sriracha and Hoisin sauces to mix in. As a quick soup, this was OK, but from reading about pho, I expected a spiced beef broth as a base.

The soup dumplings were OK but a a bit tough.

The dumplings at the Ren Dumpling and Noodle house are tenderer, when they are available.

So, I went the following week to the Mecha Noodle Bar on Washington Street in Norwalk. Mecha Noodle Bar is a small chain: they have restaurants in Fairfield, Norwalk, Stamford, New Haven, West Hartford, CT and Brookline, MA, Boston, Columbus, OH and Denver, CO. But here, you can get pho, pho sure! They offer five versions, as well as Steam Bao, Hand Rolls, Ramen and Munchies. I ordered the Pho Bo Vien (with rare beef and meatballs) and an order of Sweet and Sour Spareribs. They also have an extensive drinks menu.

This is definitely where you should go to get pho as well as anything else on their menu. It was superb!
There was a container of spiced beef broth and a bowl of rice noodles, topped with the meatballs and rare (raw) beef, that cooks when you pour the hot broth onto it. The result is shown at the top of the article.

But, while Mecha offers takeout, they suggest that these dishes are better fresh at their tables, and that’s what I’ll do next time. I’m looking forward to it!

Le Cremaillere in Bedford

We were always happy to visit Le Cremaillere for an excellent French meal, and this visit was another outstanding one. The restaurant reopened after the pandemic in 2022 with Chef Thomas Burke in charge. The menus were fresh and the chef came and chatted with you during your meal. It couldn’t have been a better experience.

In February of this year, Burke and his partners announced that they were revamping their menu to be “seafood forward,” and renaming the restaurant Le Poisson. They also rearranged the bar area as a lounge where you could eat without a reservation. They started serving in March and those who got there found it impressive. But eventually Burke and the owners had disagreements, and Burke left in late July, taking the “Le Poisson” name with him. The current restaurant simply restored its original name, Le Cremaillere. Watch for Burke to reopen his dream French seafood restaurant soon.

It was this latest incarnation that we visited last weekend. Before we even saw the menu, we received excellent hot rolls and butter and a little amuse-bouche crab puff.

The menu is divided into five courses, Froids (cold dishes), Chaudes (warm appetizers), Les Poissons (seafood) and Les Viandes (meats), and Desserts. You couldn’t possibly eat all five large courses, but they do offer a Chef’s Tasting Menu for $145 , in which you can pick one from each category and receive a smaller portion of it. The only drawback is that your whole table has to order the same 5 things. But this was a disagreement easily resolved, because everything on the menu was outstanding.

We started with the Country Style Duck Terrine, with pistachios, truffle, cornichon and condiments, along with some crusty bread to eat with it. It was silky smooth with a nice crunch from the pistachios. Other choices included smoked salmon, burrata, aromatic house salad and foie gras au torchon.

The Chaudes section included the beloved Billy-Bi (PEI mussels and saffron cream soup) as well as Green asparagus with hollandaise and Hudson Valley foie gras, but we chose the Baked Escargot in Garlic Custard with breadcrumbs, nuts, tomato puree and parsley sauce. This was a really interesting take on escargot: no shells, no curry flavor, but a lovely fusion of flavors.

The seafood course offers sea scallops, sautéed red snapper, and seared Scottish salmon. But the outstanding choice was the Dover Sole with fava bean puree, broccoli, carrot and caviar beurre blanc. I’ve never had a better serving of sole.

The meat course selections include Rack of Lamb, Duck Breast and Roasted Chicken, but we chose the Filet Mignon, with crispy shallot topping, pommes puree, mixed mushrooms and sauce au poivre. It was tender and juicy and much more flavorful than the run of the mill filet you often get.

The waitress suggested come French fries to go with it, but all this food we barely touched them. They were excellent, however.

Finally, while the full dessert menu contains nine selections, the waitress only suggested two when she took our dinner order. We chose the chocolate souffle with Grand Marnier and pistachio. This was a do-it-yourself souflee: you got to poke a hole in it yourself and pour the pitcher of chocolate sauce into it. And, if you look carefully, you will notice a small serving of a rich, chocolate gelato alongside.

And, of course, there were final cookies as well.

This is not an inexpensive restaurant. With 3 glasses of wine, coffee and tea and tax, but before tip the bill for two was $392. But it was a lovely evening, with superb service throughout, and outstanding food in every way. We’ll be back again!

Ventuno is absolutely top notch!

Eating at Ventuno (21 Federal St) is always a great pleasure. The breadth and creativity of their menu makes every visit delightful.

Last week was Nantucket Restaurant Week, and Ventuno gave you a choice of their Restaurant Week menu: 4 courses for $75 or their full menu. The only real difference is that that the smaller menu skips some of the more expensive items, but everything else was the same, and there was plenty to choose from. Either way, you get a selection from Antipasti, one from Primi, one from Secondi and a dessert from Dolci.

We were going to just order from the reduced menu until we discovered the breast of duck on the full menu. Thus, we became a full menu customer.

Our Antipasti choice was a Caesar Salad, made with Romaine, celery, ciabatta-parmigiano croutons, a Caesar dressing and thin slices of parmigiano cheese. Crunchy, delicious and substantial in size.

As a surprise, the waitress gave us an extra little course of the Chef’s Ricotta spread on toast as well. It was smooth, creamy and quite flavorful.

This was followed by Strozzapreti, dre’s spicy chicken sausage, broccoli rabe, and pecorino, served with some extra parmigiano cheese to sprinkle as needed. This was spicy but not overpoweringly so, and quite a change from the usual Nantucket fare.

And finally, the main course: cherry & balsamic glazed duck breast, roasted cherries, farro, radicchio, endive, hazelnut crema & candied hazelnuts, with scallions & pecorino. What a magnificent preparation. Tender, juicy duck breast sitting on the cherries and candied hazelnuts. What could be better?

Well, of course, there was still dessert. We’d had many of the other desserts, so we went with the burnt sugar and orange flan with a candied orange slice in it.

What a great way to finish a terrific meal. We are always really impressed with Ventuno, and hope you will be too!