gastropoda

One of the saddest phrases on the state we’re in is “hope is not a plan.” To which I would add “charm is not edible.” Three times in the last two months I have been lambasted by friends who took my raving recommendation on a restaurant run by a sweetheart in the West Village. The first report was politely lukewarm, the second vitriolic (one dish was described as “shit-on-a-shingle,” a waiter as “dumbshit”) and the third rather scarifying (amid  thoroughly underwhelming food and wine, waterbug falls on waitress, who is unflummoxed). I would go back and see if they have all lost their minds, but I know I would be snowed by the inedible factor. Someone chefly should be hollering Yelp.

After serving two sentences there, I know the NYTimes lets nothing into print without at minimum three sets of eyes having run over it: backfield, copy editor, slot. So how can it possibly explain what ran under “Avoiding a Heaping Helping of Disappointment” unless that headline was meant to be a warning to the reader with nothing better to do on a Saturday morning than stare slack-jawed at the most poorly organized, sloppily written, careless, confused and simultaneously self-aggrandizing and rube-ish piece of filler outside of a couple of restaurant blogs I could mention? A regional reviewer is presuming to advise New Yorkers on how to find a good dining experience at an upscale joint by touting someplace down the Shore? And she advises looking at a restaurant’s web site? We live in the age of internet chatter, goddamn it. Talk about a classic case of the sauce lapping over the sides of the platter. A smart food writing teacher would let a class take it apart, right down to the misspelled Ariane. After all, you can’t do good until you really see bad. This accomplished the unthinkable: It made Panchito look brilliant. But at least I’m clear on one thing. Salads and “well-made vegetables” are not brain food.

My other too much, too soon outing was to Borough Food and Drink, where we lured a friend fresh off “The Colbert Report” who likes to try new places and loves Fatty Crab. Good thing the guanciale and ricotta flatbread and the jerk chicken were excellent, or he would never listen to me again, Zak or no Zak. The “hostess” was apparently hired for what the Cod refers to as sweater puppies (although hers were more tank top mastiffs), because she led us to a table facing the wall in the very back of the half-empty restaurant and refused to seat us in a booth (one that was still unoccupied when we left). The din was brutal, the menu was meant to be all over the subway map but ended up dinery, and the duck in my salad was fatigued. But at least we could entertain ourselves talking about having eaten at all the previous incarnations of that doomed space. When the waiter started out by saying, “We’ve only been open 30 days,” I couldn’t tell if he was apologizing or bragging.

After our first meal in Rome, it seemed even more laughable that Panchito was ever plucked out of foreign correspondenthood to be restaurant critic. Eating there makes Manhattan look like the Bois de Boulogne with multiple three-stars; it’s even riskier than Venice or Florence. The trattoria we braved in a Sunday afternoon panic was so dispiriting I wanted to tell the chef when he passed me on the way to the bathroom: “You should be ashamed of yourself.” But then anyone who spends a few years facing down lukewarm cannelloni sauced with the same anemic tomato cream as the “special” ravioli would probably be just the guy Moltoville needed.

While we were tooling around Tuscany and Rome, an Italian friend was in Arles, for the fabulous photo show where we were heading next, and we got an email from him warning that the restaurants there “sucked” and saying he was longing for “good, honest Italian food.” I wrote it off as the usual semolina chauvinism, confident that even the worst French meal would always be more rewarding than endless plates of pasta. The joke was on me at our very first stop, in Grasse, where we found a relatively cheap hotel to break up the drive from Nice. The owner suggested some pizza/French hybrid, but we went wandering through the deserted streets of the oldest part of the city, stumbled upon Le Gazan and settled into a table outside, thinking it was the only option. I have eaten some bad French food in New Jersey, but this kicked the bar even lower. My monkfish tails were steamed okay, but the “bouillabaisse-style” sauce was the color and consistency of the squitters, and both came on more a platter than a plate, strewn with broccoli florets and boiled potatoes and a carrot flan and a single roasted slice of roasted zucchini. The whole assemblage looked as if time stopped in 1977. I wrote it off to the same rube mentality that produced a cup of good espresso topped with a Montblanc of whipped cream and dusting of shaved chocolate when I asked for a cappuccino at a cafe the next morning. Then we got to Arles, and I was ready to email Carlo for directions to the nearest honest Italian.

Without boring with details, I’ll just say sucks is an understatement for the food there. We started at a gorgeous little restaurant the manager of the incomparable Grand Hotel Nord Pinus recommended, Le 16, where both my duck and Bob’s rabbit could have been raised by Perdue for all their flavor. We continued the losing streak at the very hospitable Au Brin de Thym, where the chewy magret was partnered with a baked potato in foil(!) Gritty salads one night outside at Les Deux Fondus were redeemed only by the amazingly accommodating host and the carafe and a half of decent rose. Lunch at Le Jardin de Manon did not exactly qualify for the S word, since the appetizers were actually nicely done if American-portioned: a gateau of salmon tartare with fennel, and a sundae glass brimming with whipped cheese layered with roasted tomato, eggplant and pistou. But my braised rouget with watery pistou, beans and tomato made an unbeatable argument for grilling or sauteing that wondrous fish, while Bob’s rabbit stuffed with kidneys and more pistou gave new meaning to the words tough and tasteless (the mashed potatoes with it, however, were superb).

We did eat well in France a few times, astonishingly well once, but even a restaurant my friend led us to for Sunday lunch in Languedoc was a letdown despite the gorgeous setting overlooking vineyards, the exceptional service by the chef himself and his wife, and the world-class wine they suggested, Mas Champart Saint-Chinian made by what the chef joked was his second wife. Everything was too much muchness; it was if the French don’t have a word for restraint.

Of course I may have only myself to blame for not doing better in Arles in particular, because we resisted the insistence of a friend living in Provence that we try what she swore was the best restaurant in the region. I just could not see sitting through endless courses and dropping what the Michelin said was 55 euros a head and she warned was even higher. Of course it turns out to be the one-star getting all the press, but I’m still glad we pinched centimes now that I’m home and doing the Bush-league math. That Saint-Chinian was 27 euros. And for roughly $40, it should have been good.

Years ago we swung through Atlanta to visit friends who took us on a weekend expedition to a rural B&B where a 300-pound relative of the proprietor was rocking on the porch as we arrived and warning that “if I don’t eat in 30 minutes I’m gonna starve to death.” Which taught me that “Deliverance” can take many forms. The Italian translation on this trip came about an hour or so out of Fiumicino when we pulled off near Mazzano for something better than Autogrill processed crap and came across an Old West-looking restaurant where three or four people were sitting out on the veranda. The fattest of them jumped up as we locked the car and asked something starting with “mangia . . .?” We said “si” and followed her inside as she slapped on a cap and showed us to a table in a huge unlit dining room with a pizza oven on one wall and black lawn jockeys scattered around the others. She rattled off a few pastas and sauces, we nodded first at strozzapretti and then at amatriciana and she waddled off, seemingly disgusted that we did not want wine. Not long after she slapped down two plates of something toughly frittata-like topped with zucchini blossoms, plus a carafe of water, and we sawed away until a big-eyed young girl wearing a red T-shirt with a swastika on it brought bread and condiments. Then the pasta landed, two medium bowls of chewy noodles with chunks of pancetta and onion in faint tomato sauce. I sprinkled mine with grated cheese, ate a few bites and threw on a little more much-needed cheese, only to have the Dick Cheney of cooks appear and whisk it away disapprovingly. She was even more annoyed when I left behind half our shared insalata mista. I think the tab was $40US for two pastas, one salad, two coffees and all the scorn we could swallow. The printed menu I had sneaked a peek at listed pastas at 7E. Several times on this trip Bob quoted John Krich, who said when they worked on a travel story together many years ago (and I paraphrase): Getting ripped off occasionally is the price we pay for not speaking the language. And at least this time we didn’t have to squeal like pigs.