MARIANI’S

  July 5, 2004                                                         NEWSLETTER

                                                              Comme Chez Soi, Brussels, Belgium

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EDITOR'S NOTE:  Readers may now access an Archive of all past newsletters--each annotated--dating back to July, 2003, by simply clicking on   ARCHIVE .

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Cover Story: The Great Crucible of Mexico City by John Mariani

New York Corner: Wolfgang's Steakhouse by John Mariani

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The Great Crucible of Mexico City
by John Mariani
 

     I   had come to Mexico City to discover a cuisine about which most Americans north of the border--including me--haven't a clue. I was prepared for some exotica like huitlacoche, the mushroom-like fungus that grows on corn, but nothing prepared me for lunch at a restaurant called Restaurant Chon (160 Regina; 542-0873), which specializes in the foods the Aztecs and Mayans ate before the Spanish arrived.  My first course was fried grasshoppers, followed by  armadillo steak, monkey brains, flies' eggs in mole sauce and something described as either "a dog-like rat or a rat-like dog" (neither of which is on my diet), all of which made me realize that sometimes you can be so authentic that the it jumps out at you from under a rock or rotted stump. If the Spaniards brought a ton of misery to Mexico, at least they also dragged in some pigs, cows and chickens.
           Restaurant Chon's menu is certainly not typical of most restaurants in Mexico City or Mexico.  Then again, the word "typical" loses its meaning as one discovers that Mexican food--like Italian, Chinese and American food--is wholly regional, with traditions that may date back hundreds of years or mere decades, tied to religious rites, immigration from other countries, and availability of ingredients. "We have thirty-two regions whose cuisines are the result of the ethnic people who settled there," says Patricia Quintana (below), author of Mexico's Feasts of Life (1989). "Our native people have a long culinary history, and then there were strong influences from Spain, Italy, even China and India, which gives us an extraordinarily rich bounty of ingredients to work with. The techniques of cooking vary enormously, too. The ancient Toltec tribes cooked in a pit with maguey leaves, whereas in Oaxaca they used avocado leaves.  In Baja you'll find lobster cooked with beans, in Sonora they make huge tortillas with grilled meats, and in Chihuauha the food is rife with Anaheim chilies and cheese. In Monterey they eat a lot of cabrito (goat), while Puebla is the place to go for mole sauces, of which they have dozens."
     Quintana herself has put her high reputation on the line in Mexico City at her own new restaurant, Izote de Patricia Quintana (513 Presidente Masaryk ; 5280-1671), balancing traditional dishes with new ideas, as in her fish-filled jalapeños with jicama “crystals,” her corn tortillas with lobster and pumpkin seeds, and barbecued lamb shank is cooked in a banana leaf with adobo sauce, and brings in influences from many regions.
    Mexico City, which Mexicans refer to simply as Ciudad (“the City”), is a crucible for the myriad food cultures of a country as rich in culinary traditions as any in the western hemisphere.  Stroll the streets of this huge, swirling metropolis, whose every corner shows both the highs and lows of a city whose resources cannot keep up with its soaring population, and you’ll smell the burning of charcoal braziers and steaming tacos being made street side.  Pots of oil are sizzling in the plazas, cooking up fried dough.  The mercados teem with stands that sell  chile peppers and wild mushrooms in profusion. The fish from the Gulf and Pacific Ocean are stacked high on ice, the poultry is freshly killed, and the aroma of chocolate can send you reeling.  Everyone starts the morning with a sugary pastry from one of the numerous bakeries called panaderias, drinking strong Mexican coffee at cafés at any time of the day.  Spend a moment at the 130-year-old Celaya candy store and you’ll be bowled over by the variety of chocolates, marzipan, and candies in every kind of shape and size.
     And then there are the restaurants, thousands of them, some appealing to everyone, others to an elite few who can afford them.  There is even now a branch of New York’s Le Cirque here doing haute French and Italian cuisine.  But the soul of Ciudad’s cooking is at those restaurants that feature the regional foods of the Mexico—Oaxaca, the Yucatan, Puerto Vallarta, Chihuaha, and so many more—all available in Mexico City in profusion. (Incidentally, Mexicans eat a bit later than Americans, and a business lunch can last three hours in the afternoon, so be prepared.  A few shots of tequila, sometimes with blood orange, are in the bargain too.
    At the lovely Casa de las Serenas (32 Republica de Guatemala; 5704-3225), which overlooks the cathedral and the vast, bustling Zocalo plaza, I was amazed at the more than 150 tequilas stocked at the bar and enjoyed the terrace dining room's unusual dishes like black bean soup with chorizo sausage and epazote greens, a Cornish game hen in sesame seed mole with mango slices, and a corn flan with little wafers similar to those received at Holy Communion.  I felt very fortunate to have been steered to the locally popular but not-yet-overrun-by-tourists El Bajio (2709 Avenue Cuitlahuac ; 5341-9889), where chef-owner Carmen Ramirez Degollado is an impassioned advocate of the cookery of native Veracruz. Her food is complex, with every dish having layers of flavors, perhaps twenty spices, and a richness drawn out of vegetable essences. She served me a sopa de xonequi made from small piquant herbs from Veracruz, a flaky red snapper in a vivid green mole, then a full-flavored chicken in a dark unsweetened chocolate mole fragrant with spices.
   There’s even Mexican fusion food now. A new hot spot named  (10 Andrés Bello; 5280-2506) in Polanco is where chef Monica Patiño makes her margaritas with tamarind, and her corn cappuccino soup is tinged with Indian curry.  Aura  (below) is a very hip 60-seat restaurant in the lobby of a new minimalist boutique hotel in Polanco where chef Lula Martin del Campo is doing a novel Mexican fusion cuisine like shrimp tacos along with steak au poivre.  It also has a terrace tapas bar with a grand view of the city.  The very festive Cicero-Centenario (79 Republica de Cuba; 5521-2934) near the Zocalo has gorgeous painted walls and tilework, and the food is a fine balance of the old and the new, like roast pork with turnip greens, with a menu that changes with the seasons.  So, too, the new, minimalist-designed Águila y Sol (42 Molier; 5281-8354), also in Polanca, encrusts Mexican broccoli (huauzontle) with Parmesan cheese, and dusts foie gras with cacao and guava, while at Los Danzantes (12 Plaza Jardin Centenario ; 5658-6451) in Coyoacán a fashionable clientele sits on the patio sipping margaritas while noshing on marlin carpaccio with curry and chilies, coconut-wrapped prawns in a sweet-sour sauce, and a cold poblano-pomegranate soup.
     The diversity of Mexico City’s restaurants and food stands demonstrate an enormous fascination with regional food, from the humblest to the most expensive, from grasshoppers to foie gras.  And within days of arriving in this, The City, you will have a very good sense of an entire country’s legacy of good taste—though maybe they should rethink the flies eggs in mole sauce.











NEW YORK CORNER
by John Mariani

WOLFGANG'S STEAKHOUSE
4 Park Avenue
212-889-3369

There seems no let-up in the number of steakhouses NYC can absorb; just in the past few months we've seen the arrival of Laurent Tourondel's BLT Steakhouse and Jean-George Vongerichten's V, both adding a French twist to this tradition-bound genre. Now comes  Wolfgang's Steakhouse, set in a very beautiful space with arched ceilings tiled by the great Rafael Guastavino, who also did the Grand Central Oyster Bar and the Great Hall at Ellis Island, as well as the vaulted ceilings under the 59th Street Bridge that is now a restaurant named after him.  It's stunning work, found nowhere else in America, and it does have the feeling of a dining room where large men of another century came to spread their wealth and girth around as they gobbled up platters of oysters, giant lobsters, and huge rib eyes, all of which you can still do here.

     Wolfgang Zweiner has built a quick reputation here on the strength of his service as a waiter and headwaiter for 41 years at the venerable Peter Luger's in Brooklyn, a restaurant whose own reputation is decidedly not built on decor, nor on service (which is brusque), wine list (which is dreadful), or anything else on its menu except for a nonpareil porterhouse, sliced for the table and served on a hot platter tilted to bring the juices to the edge.  This and only this porterhouse, hand selected by the family that has run the place for decades and considered even by competitors a some of the finest beef available in a very tight beef market, makes Luger worth a trek to one of the less tidy sections of Williamsburg.  I have always been perfectly contented to feast on the good sirloins and rib eyes  at established NYC steakhouses like Ben Benson's, Palm, Smith & Wollensky, Patroon and Strip House, so I've little desire to haul myself out to Luger's, although I have to admit that that porterhouse is a real winner. There's only one Luger's
(actually two: there's another in Long Island).
     Leaning on the Luger name has therefore become a promotional gimmick several restaurants have tried over the past decade, whereby former waiters open up steakhouses claiming to approximate Luger's in style and substance. 
Wolfgang's is a far more congenial place than Luger's for all the right reasons of decor and service, though the greeting by the maître d' up front may be somewhat less than refined.  Mr. Zweiner himself is always around, however, to see how things are going throughout the night at every table, and he's a gregarious fellow. The place is blastingly noisy after 6 PM, and there's a big raucous bar crowd of guys who seem either headed for a Knicks game or on their way to a strip club. 
    The wine list is solid, if pricey, the tablesettings fine, and the prices about the same you'll pay in just about any other competitive steakhouse in town--$35.50 for most meats, market priced lobsters, seafood at $28.95, and the sliced porterhouse (said to be dry aged) ranges from $73.90 for two to $147.80 for four. 
      Mr. Zweiner is not trying anything new here, so you get the regulation steakhouse menu, starting with jumbo shrimp cocktail, a nice meaty crabcake, and  mozzarella and beefsteak tomatoes.  The only innovation is to offer a juicy slab of Canadian bacon (priced by the slice), which was pretty darn tasty.  The lobsters weigh in at three pounds, the ribeye is as well-fatted and succulent as you could wish, the cottage fries are crispy and mashed potatoes have heft. As for the sliced porterhouse, it's very good--not as good as Luger's in its intense beefiness--but certainly very good. 
        If I don't seem overly impressed or enthusiastic, it's not because I think there's anything inferior about Wolfgang's; I'm just not convinced there's anything particularly new or noteworthy except to say it's a fine addition to an already overcrowded steakhouse field.  Go, you'll have a good time, but it's going to be loud and it's not going to be leisurely. Not a place to ask a woman to marry you, maybe, but a good place to take a client after you've nailed down the deal.

    

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HELL, ELVIS USED TO ORDER TWICE THAT AMOUNT EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT

The two people working the counter at a Detroit White Castle took an order at 3:30 AM for 240 burgers, 25 orders of fries, and 25 orders of onion chips to go for a total of $328.  The order was for the Anaheim Angels, whose flight to Toronto was canceled that evening.

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YOU FORGOT TO MENTION VOMITING

"Summering. Drinking. Summering and drinking.  For the prep the two words are synonymous from  Memorial Day to Labor Day. Whether at the beach or in the `country' (i.e., suburban Connecticut), on the tennis court or on the yacht, there's a drink for every activity.  Like the madras Bermuda shorts and sundresses favored by preps this time of year, the prep summer drink is light and colorful.  It makes a fine accessory. So take off your socks and pass the gin."  --From Tipsy in Madras: A Complete Guide to 80s Preppy Drinking by  Matt "Johnnie" Walker and Marissa "Mitzy" Walsh.

                                                                                                                                  

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* From October 17-29 John Mariani, publisher and editor of this newsletter, will be a host aboard the Crystal Serenity cruise ship, from Athens to Barcelona, with stops in Dubrovnik, Zadar, Venice, Taormina, Monte Carlo, and Barcelona.  On October 19 he will welcome guests for a cocktail reception and 6-course tasting menu with wines in the Private Vintage Room. On Oct. 26 he will host a dinner at La Chevre d'Or (two Michelin stars) in Monte Carlo with a 6-course meal with fabulous wines. The activities to be announced. For info call FESTIVALS AFLOAT at 1-800-297-8505.

* On July 4 the Mandarin Restaurant in San Francisco offers a $55 pp 5-course menu, including champagne toast poured during the fireworks. Visit  www.themandarin.com. Call 415-,

* From July 12-18 Bistro 100 in Charlotte, NC,  will mark this time-honored tradition with a decadent week-long menu, as well as a special event on Bastille Day – Wednesday, July 14. On Bastille Day, Bistro 100 will adopt a national theme for the evening, greeting guests with an array of patriotic colors – red, white and blue, with traditional French countryside cuisine in Chef Mickael Blais' 3-course prix fixe menu at $39.95 pp. Call 704-344-0515

* On July 18 Palo Alto's Tamarine Restaurant's semi-annual benefit silent art auction will be held, showcasing the artwork of renowned contemporary Vietnamese artists, to benefit VN Help.  The event includes live jazz, international wines, cocktails and hors d'oeuvres.  Call 650-325.8500, ext. 104 or by email to info@tamarinerestaurant.com

* New Brunswick, Nova Scotia's  Kingsbrae Arms is now offering "two-nights-for-the-price-of-one" rates and  the "Taste of France" sampler, which offers French culture and cuisine-Canadian style: Two nights' lodging, Full country breakfasts each morning, one 5-course candlelight dinner with Champagne from  Chef Randy Akey. Call 506-529-1897.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: This newsletter is also available on the very comprehensive food site www.sautewednesday.com
which has dozens of other links to food articles from around the world.  New York Corner reviews are also available at
 www.nycvisit.com/johnmariani

MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly.  Editor/Publisher: John Mariani. Contributing Writers: Robert Mariani,  Naomi  Kooker, Kirsten Skogerson,  Edward Brivio, Mort Hochstein, Lucy Gordan. Contributing Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery,  Bobby Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.

 John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire, Wine Spectator, Diversion and the Harper Collection. He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink (Lebhar-Friedman), The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink (Broadway), and, with his wife Galina, the award-winning new Italian-American Cookbook (Harvard Common Press).   To  purchase from amazon.com, click on the image below.

copyright John Mariani 2004