Camille-Beau

The James Beard org is keeping up with the news: From Beard Bites: "Fabio Trabocchi, who earned a James Beard Foundation Award for his inspired cooking at Maestro at the Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner in McLean, Virginia, is moving to the Big Apple, where he will become the chef at Fiamma Osteria in Soho. Fiamma's previous chef, Michael White, has moved to L'Impero and Alto in Midtown. "

Good call!

Worth every penny. Recognize anyone?

Worst restaurant name ever: "MOOO..." -- the new name for "The Federalist" in the XV Beacon hotel.

Can't go wrong with any of the three choices listed, but if I were facing that decision, I would choose Hugo's. You should at least stop by Fore Street for a drink or perhaps one of their excellent desserts -- also worthwhile just to see the space. Note that Street and Company is part of the same group that owns Fore Street. Have a great trip!

Giada's Weekend Getaways - in DC!

Two votes for Julia here as well

Very sad news regarding Grant Achatz of Alinea. Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Chef.

More press on Fiamma Osteria

We've taken the dobermans to dine with us on the patio at New Heights. They just lay quietly under the table while we dine. Typically the corner table on the outer edge of the patio is best if you wish to avoid sitting near anyone who is not comfortable around dogs.

Cathal Armstrong was serving a goose egg with truffles in the tasting room at Restaurant Eve

Another restaurant suggestion is Crush. Jason Wilson's cooking is pretty great and yes, he is another of Food & Wine's 10 best new chefs (2006). The Inn at the Market is probably the best location in town. Awesome hotel right across the street from the Pike Place Market. Speaking of the market, I had the best peach of my life there during one trip in late August. The vendor wouldn't allow the softball-sized fruit to to be handled so you pointed to the ones you wanted If you have time, maybe drive down to Mt. Rainier National Park and stop at the lodge at Paradise (the lodge closes for the winter after Labor Day weekend) for a hike on the trail that circles up the mountain behind the lodge. Takes a few hours and is time well spent for mountain views that are truly breathtaking. Keep us posted on your trip! -Camille

If you like books on wine and cooking, checkout this new store: Rabelais and a story about Rabelais in the Portland Herald

I spent 2 weeks of May in Portland and was fortunate to be able to try several of the well-known restaurants in town. While Fore Street is a lovely restaurant with an open spit and wood-burning oven as the centerpiece, with only a couple of exceptions, the food was good, but not great and I dined there three times (once at the bar and twice in the dining room with colleagues.) The menu, which is modified daily, is divided into the following sections: Appetizers, Pan Seared, Wood Grilled, Turnspit Roasted, Wood Oven Roasted and Simmered, Vegetables and Sides. There is an emphasis on seafood including scallops, mussels, oysters, calamari, skatewing, tuna and, while I was there, both shad roe and shad filet. Following the advice of shad aficionados, I ordered the filet which was roasted in the wood oven. The fish by itself was deliciously light and flaky. Unfortunately it was accompanied by a 'garlic bread stuffing' which was basically a mound of large, dry (and not very flavorful) bread cubes piled down the center of the filet that did not pair well with the fish. Oysters were merely OK and the wood grilled calamari was somewhat chewy, although it did have a nice smoky flavor and was served with spicy sauteed greens tossed in an herb vinaigrette that were very good. One exceptional dish was the 'house special' dry rubbed pork loin. The loin is spit-roasted and is tender & juicy with a nice spice crust on the outside. Sides were all really good: fiddleheads sauteed in butter with lemon and fresh herbs, roasted beets in a rosemary bacon cream sauce, broccolini tossed in a caper olive vinaigrette and -- my favorite -- duck fat roasted Maine girasoles. I will say that, along with the sides, the desserts are the highlight of dining at Fore Street. My favorite was a goat-cheese cheesecake served with a beet and orange sorbet. The beet lovers at the table (myself included) raved about the sorbet. It was pure beet flavor with a hint of the orange that made for an odd but very refreshing pairing to the light and tangy cheesecake. They also offer a trio of custards with the flavors changing frequently. The one time I ordered this dessert the flavors were chocolate, vanilla and banana. The combination included a dark chocolate pot-de-crème topped with caramel sauce, vanilla panna cotta and a banana crème bavaroise that tasted just like a ripe fresh banana. Another night the dessert listed a coffee crème brûlée in place of the banana. Something worthy of note. The wood-burning oven is huge and the side wall of the oven extends into the back (side) dining room. Our party of 11 dined at a table along the side wall of the oven. The group with their backs to the wall were apparently very warm for the entire dinner but never mentioned it until we were leaving the restaurant. The gentlemen would not remove their jackets, primarily because one of the diners was Sir David McNee (former head of Scotland Yard), a proper Brit who wouldn't think of dining in his shirtsleeves Something to keep in mind should you find yourself dining in the back room. All in all a good restaurant but in my humble opinion not necessarily the best in Portland. Hugo's on the other hand, was complete perfection. On the last night in Portland, I dined with a colleague in the small, elegant candlelit room. We ordered the chef's 8-course tasting menu with wine pairings since the tasting menu offered all of the dishes (and more!) that we wanted to try from the a la carte selections. Every single dish was beautifully prepared and tasty from the tuna tartare, the fresh and light spring pea soup sitting in a bowl of aromatic herbs, the tempura morels and asparagus with each item carefully placed on a pool of fiddlehead gribiche, the olive oil poached salmon, the braised shortribs to the buffalo ricotta cheesecake and El Rey chocolate cake for dessert. You can see how his work at The Inn at Little Washington and the French Laundry have influenced his cooking (or vice versa perhaps). The wine pairings perfectly complemented each dish. Service was impeccable and I like that they keep a small dish of Malden salt on the table even though it wasn't needed. One funny incident - during the evening we heard a bell ding like the kind of bell you find at the front desk of a hotel. Immediately after hearing the bell, the FOH staff hurried to the kitchen. As they passed by, we heard one server quietly say to another "Oh no, it's the angry bell". When we asked him about that later, he laughed and said that when the bell rings, they need to get to the kitchen pronto as Chef is not happy about something. Too funny! At the end of dinner, we talked with Chef Evans for a few minutes, then left the restaurant around 10:15. It's worth noting that we were the very last patrons to leave -- on a Friday night! They really do roll up the sidewalks in most of Portland by 10pm. Honorable mention: Hugo's has an informal panini restaurant called Duck Fat. I haven't tried it but the menu looks interesting with paninis, soup, salads and duck fat fries served with truffle ketchup or several kinds of mayo. Good italian is easy to find in downtown Portland. Cinque Terre which has been suggested before and it's sister restaurant Vignola are both excellent. Vignola has the added bonus of being open every evening, 7 days a week, for dinner until midnight. Unheard of in Portland except for the countless bars and pubs you'll find all throughout the Old Port that seem to stay open until dawn. At Cinque Terre the dishes I recommend are the classic Vitello Tonnato with tuna aioli and crispy capers (yum!) and whatever the pasta special is that day. I was fortunate to have the lamb bolognese served over parsley fettuccini. The sauce was spicy and rich but not overly so and paired perfectly with the freshly-made pasta. My dining companion had the prosciutto with melon and fresh parmesan followed by the pansotti which was stuffed with veal, herbs, and ricotta in a sage/balsamic brown butter sauce. This was really good but very rich with just a little too much butter. Good for sharing though. The extensive Italian-only wine list is reasonably priced with the most expensive bottle at about $130 and many in the $30-$50 range. I would love to have this restaurant in DC. Vignola is attached to Cinque Terre but faces a different street. (Skawinski also in charge here.) This place is usually busy right up to midnight with a lot of regulars sitting at the bar. The restaurant is not large but has a lot of character with exposed brick walls, high ceiling, hardwood floors and large windows for watching the people strolling along the cobblestone and brick streets of the Old Port. Vignola offers wines other than just Italian with all wines served in stemless Riedel. As with Cinque Terre, the prices are very reasonable and the selection, while not extensive, is very good. For the antipasti we tried the salumi plate (hot coppa, soprasotta and mortadella) and the speck which was served with crostini and a horseradish cream to die for. The server brought extra cream for the grilled flat iron steak that my colleague had for his main. The sides for the medium-rare steak included Maine white beans, sauteed chard and radicchio with pickled peppers and aged balsamic. This was really spicy!! The grilled misto included octopus, shrimp scallops and tuna and was served on top of arugula drizzled with olive oil and lemon. Everything was great but the octopus was definitely the best I've ever had. Tender, smoky, perfectly prepared. I would go back to Vignola just for that dish. No room for dessert so I can't make any recommendations there but they sounded good. Particularly the lemon panna cotta with blueberry sauce and bourbon cream. Also dined once at 555 and am glad to see that they recently updated their website. Even though this restaurant isn't located in the Old Port as the others are, it's worth the few blocks walk (or cab ride) to try the cooking of Steve Corry, one of Food & Wine's Best New Chefs for '07 (he's standing right behind Johnny Monis on the cover photo). Must try: the white asparagus and goat cheese soup and the venison carpaccio. The soup is deliciously tangy and creamy with a little crunch from the topping of crispy leeks. The carpaccio with the fried pickles and mustard aioli makes for a great start to the dinner. Follow that with the amazing peppercorn-crusted seared scallops on roasted fennel potato puree with a light drizzle of vanilla-butter sauce and you'll be very happy. These are outstanding scallops! Sweet and fresh with that lovely pepper crust... awesome. Very nice place that was once a firehouse. The kitchen is open and there is an upstairs balcony for extra seating (just like Cinque Terre). Places not visted but on the list for the next time: Bar Lola. New place off the beaten path up on top of Munjoy Hill. Ogunquit: If cost is not an issue, you might want to try Arrows So the good news is that there are a lot of choices for good eats in Portland. The bad news is that you're only there for one night! Have a great trip and please do report back. -Camille

Apparently some new items on the menu - Beersicles - are generating trouble (and press coverage) for the restaurant. Watch this

'Coat of Arms' sign that covered 'Indian Ocean' is gone. Windows covered. Dead again.

AS HungryProf point out, there are some serious chefs in this season. Along with the various pedigrees from Guy Savoy and Jean Georges, there's Tre Wilcox who's been nominated for a Beard award twice (in '05 and '06) as Rising Star chef. Makes the Hell's Kitchen lot seem even more miserable by comparison

Last Thursday night Beau and I stopped in to say hello to JW and to see what personal touches he'd added to the menu during his first (fragile) week back in the NH saddle. We were thrilled with the lamb carpaccio described by Rocks. The slight sear on the thinly-sliced lamb, combined with the lively fresh chutney and that dash of crunchy salt makes for an awesome summer dish. Loved the mushroom risotto appetizer (could also be a main) with big chunks of oyster mushrooms, sweet corn and a hint of tarragon. Really delicious! Entrees included the duck breast and the marinated pork chop. Liked both dishes very much -- particularly the preserved shiitakes tossed onto the duck which added a nice tangy crunch to the dish. Glad to hear that softshells were added this week Welcome back John

If Rock won, then he wouldn't still be cooking at B. Smith's at Union Station.

How do you compare 'better' when the two types of pizzas are so different. BBQ vs. tomato/basil/mozz... Just asking.

I must respectfully disagree with you DPop. Had the burger today and it was even better than on two previous visits. I've only had slight issues with messiness -- perhaps because with my big mouth there's no need to smash it down to fit : Perfectly cooked medium rare, juicy, cheesy, bacony, crispy, buttery.... what's not to love? -Camille

Thanks for the heads-up. I think 'Vinnie' looks like Roberto Donna

Jeffrey Chodorow and Michel Richard meeting at Central yesterday. Any possibility of a Central or Citronelle-like restaurant opening in NYC?

Consider the cost of dining at each of the restaurants for the chefs listed -- CityZen, Citronelle, Restaurant Eve, Crush (trip to Seattle), Melisse (trip to Santa Monica), the Maillouhana itself (trip to Anguilla) and Michel Rostang's restaurants in Paris, including lodging (oceanview luxury rooms included at the Maillouhana), not to mention the cost of the wines that will be served. Hmm... might be worth it. Perhaps one could make that assessment once one has actually experienced the event.