Text 5390, 106 rader
Skriven 2006-09-10 22:37:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: lunch w/ nicholas 225
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Lunch with Nicholas. Expensive.

But it was his turn. I steered him to a place I enjoy (and it's
walking distance, almost, from my apartment), Zafferano in East
Boston. It was completely, like chef and wife sitting at one of
the tables, empty. The lunch menu is pretty abbreviated. Not
unattractive, but not so interesting as the dinner one.

It reminds me of the little neighborhood places in Italy - not
much effort put into the decor, the emphasis being on feeding
people above all; still there's a certain unpretentious charm.

The wife was a little glum, but she brightened up a little when
we chatted a bit with her. She brought one of those funny wire
cones with bread in it: the bread was cold (in Italy, it comes
cold except if it has been just baked) but quite nice, with a
dense crumb and a chewy crust.

One of my favorite things here is the trofeo di melanzane, a
tower of eggplant and cheese in a tomato cream sauce. It's not
on the lunch menu, but I asked if it could be made for us anyway.
Of course. It came a little less elaborate than at dinner, the
eggplant slices thicker than usual, the cheese provolone instead
of mozzarella, but it was still very good.

We had a bottle of Mezzacorona Pinot Grigio 03 - in the stores
a notably inexpensive wine for what it is, but no great bargain
here; it paired perfectly with my dishes and pretty well with
Nicholas's main course. It was quite acid, lemony and pineapply,
with a good and necessary palate-scouring quality. It was tamed
by (or tamed) the sauces very well.

Mussels steamed in wine and butter - there were 16 of them, not
considered a generous serving these days, but the mussels were
both sweet and gamy and extremely big for their britches, er,
shells: sometimes you get shellfish that remind you of a kid
in Daddy's clothing; these were emphatically not that. The
broth at the bottom of the bowl was perfect for getting rid
of the remnants of the bread - it was very lemony, somewhat
garlicky, a little buttery; its wine tasted as though it might
have been what we were drinking. Quite.

Nicholas, in a nostalgic mood, had veal Parmigiana, a decent-
size piece of meat in altogether too much breading, which
soaked up the good (not too acidy) tomato sauce and got kind of
soggy. The cheese on top here was also, I think, provolone. It
came with precooked al dente ziti, warmed over (so no longer
quite aldente), tossed in the same sauce.

We actually had room to split a dessert. Tiramisu was nicely done,
as was the Danesi espresso. We'll draw a discreet veil over the
bill; but Nicholas had his wallet with him.

I was all set to go back home and take a nap, but he wanted to
downtown and futz around the North End - apparently his friend
Paul (who owns a coffee shop in Gloucester called Cafe Sicilia)
told him that their friends down the street had pulled up stakes
from their restaurant La Lanterna and instead decided to start a
little food store there. So we went looking for it. It's there. He
bought some olive oil, chatted with the proprietor (who said that
he still had a picture of Nicholas from the restaurant), wandered
off to check out Haymarket, which was about to fold up, and the
vendors were beginning to slash the prices on their produce.
Decent-looking strawberries for 50c a quart, that kind of thing.
Nicholas bought 6 half-pints of raspberries for $5 and some
other stuff; as I had only three more meals in town, one of which
was to be taken care of, I didn't get anything.

Usually what we do is one of us buys the meal, the other gets
dessert, which is usually Toscanini's ice cream. We were several
miles from Toscanini's, so somehow we ended up at a place on the
way back to the parking place - Neptune Oyster Bar, a distinctly
upscale way to have dessert. We split a dozen oysters, divided
among:

Island Creek (south shore, MA) - big, juicy, salty,
a hair sweet, pretty much no edges; an oyster for
those who haven't liked oysters before

Bees River (Cape Cod, MA) - medium to small, very briny,
aggressively marine in fact; no sweetness; I'm told that
these are among the favorites at this bar

Katama Bay (Martha's Vineyard, MA) - very rich, almost
milky tasting, but that wasn't a problem because all
the oysters here were impeccably fresh (and the prices
tell you why)

Cuttyhunk (Cuttyhunk Is., MA) - my favorite, rather
wild tasting, fairly salty, sweet core

Pemaquid (Maine) - also attractive, medium salt, rather
sweet.

Nicholas had a glass of the Fruitiere Muscadet after having
rejected a Greco di Tufo that he found too delicate (it is
a gutsy, big wine, in its proper state, but winemakers there,
sensing a chance to wangle some market share, are making
their product taste like a weak Chardonnay, a big mistake.
The Muscadet had some acid and backbone and went better with
oysters anyway.

I had a Harpoon IPA, which went just as well and cost
much less.
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