A lifetime of restaurants, part 3.

It’s time for another instalment of Peter’s Nostalgia-Driven Solo Fandango Through a Lifetime of Eating.

Cottonwood Cafe (Cambridge, MA USA) was next to the train station nearest to our house in 1992/93. We would pass by it almost daily, and pass into it with, what is in retrospect, alarming regularity. It was a ‘cantina’ in the sense that so many places like it were at that time. A bar—slightly upscale, ever so slightly Mexican / TexMex / Borderland orientated in food and drink, a clientele of professionals, students (although fewer than one might have imagined), and the local party-drunks. It was nice. Their southwest platters and burritos, and even steaks were decent, the drinks strong. But what made it special was one of the great unsung appetizers (entrées for my French-aligned readers) of all time: The Snakebite. A forerunner, or perhaps a siderunner to what was to become known (or already, unknown to me, was known) as the jalapeño popper. Some of you have an image in your head, right now. Discard it. This is a thing of its own, that I still over three decades later, crave. Not complicated, but perfect.

A spicy, but not unbearably hot jalapeno, a tail-on shrimp nestled in a slit in the pepper, the rest of the pepper’s cavity filed with a jack/queso Oaxaca mix, then rolled in breadcrumbs and fried. It was served with an avocado cream cilantro sauce. Together, transcedent. Our waiter got used to us just ordering three or four rounds as dinner.

A couple of decades ago I tried recreating the dish, but as is often the case in such things, it just wasn’t right. And that was sad.

There are places like this all over the world—nothing particularly great about them in general, expressions of an homogenizing culinary culture, that nonetheless manage to do something truly good.

Next up is Au Pied du Cochon (Washington DC, USA), a sort of French restaurant that was all the rage in the early 1970s, and through their very longevity became institutions. APdC was just that. A French brassiere, packed full of all the classics of that genre. Open 24 hours, and off a main street in Georgetown, it became the destination for college kids, night workers of every stripe, and did a booming trade in the espionage business, offering discrete service and two back exits. We just went to eat the onion soup, until a few years later, the best I’d ever eaten. Also worth noting is a shrimp-stuffed avocado that was excellent, and truly the worst ratatouille I’ve ever had.

APdC was THE place to go in the late evenings amongst my set, which was (one has to admit) not of the nightclub, ecstasy set. Instead, there was something about the streetlights cutting through the blinds, the poor interior lighting, the formica tabletops, and affected accents of the some of the waiters, the ennui of those truly French, and hit-and-miss nature of the food, that made it a worthy place to go. And to still think about.

Ritz Carlton bar (Astana, KZ). What? Two mentions already of Kazakhstan? What madness is this? Indeed, what madness. But let me tell you this, or let me tell you these few things… I have—in a lifetime of drinking—had many manhattans. I’ve had manhattans in Manhattan, in Delhi, in a Spanish dive bar (although at that, I expect the mind boggles), in both high and low deserts, on mountain tops and watery basins, out of plastic canteens and cut crystal, made with nearly priceless rye and the stuff you use to clean your engine. But, never, and I mean never, have I had one as good as that made at the lounge bar at the Ritz Carlton in Kazakhstan’s capital. The latter I will remind you is in the middle of the largest and loneliest expanse of grassland in the known universe—roughly 2.3 million km², which I will also remind you, is in turn bigger than much of Western Europe.

And, look, I know the manhattan is not a complicated drink. It’s as hard to screw it up and it is easy to make it textbook-perfect. So, what gives? I. Wish. I. Knew. Really, I do. I sauntered up to the bar and watched the second one being made, and nothing, nada, rien, stood out. The barman just made a manhattan. This one with bourbon, but so what? Lots of manhattans are made with bourbon, some not even in a pinch. The bitters were house made, but again, that ain’t like the missing books of the bible. The vermouth was standard, so too the cherries. And yet, and freaking yet.

It may be the best example of the place and experience being as important, if not more so, than the thing itself. Maybe. Or perhaps it was an unusual recipe calling for unorthodox ratios, but if so, it wasn’t apparent. Whichever and whyever, it is a drink that will stay with me. And against which I will judge all such attempts in my future.

GW Deli (Washington DC, US). Fried egg, cheese, bacon, and avocado (if you were feeling fancy…some don’t even think such a thing existed) sandwiches, served greasily in butcher paper for take-a-away. Dark roast coffee with milk in enormous styrofoam cups. Attitude at counter and cashier. Location dead-smack in the middle of an urban university campus.

How many breakfasts did I eat from there, taking my paper bag to the park next door, before heading off to the philosophy of quantum physics, or Europe during the First War, or the history of the French revolutions? Also, the stop there before trips out to Great Falls State Park to climb rocks soaring above the rapids of the Potomac river, stone and white water waiting for your fall. Those sandwiches powered youth and hope and a sense of immortality. It set them, and this place, apart from all others.

Sulico (Tbilisi, GE). As I sat down to write about Sulico, now over a half-decade from my last visit, I found a review I wrote of the place in 2019. I sent it off to owner and crew-chief Baya Tsaava as a memorial to what was once great. Turns out it still is. So…I’m just going to include the review here, and encourage you to go if ever there.

The best restaurant in Tbilisi. The food is Georgian in the sense that they’re sourcing locally. But, and this is an important but, this is not your typical Georgian restaurant in either cuisine or experience. This is simply extraordinarily good and well-prepared food in an intimate space. Highlights include their cheese plates (which will completely change what you think you know about Georgian cheeses), pan-fried olives (that are nothing at all like you might expect if all you’ve ever had is the Italian ripini), the marrow (which is the epitome of what it ought to be with long bones cracked, roasted, and seasoned perfectly), fried dolma (yes, just order them), and an always-shifting collection of exceedingly good wines, a number of which you won’t find anywhere else in the city. Another plus? Probably the best steak in town. Also, the outstanding service. And, finally, whoever curates their jazz playlist ought to be kissed.

It is difficult to express how good this place was then. Tbilisi was full of restaurants. Most were mediocre, tired rehashing of an admittedly splendid cuisine. But, like the French, stuck in what was. Sulico seems to have always been about what could be. Not in a flagrant disregard for the past, or even for tradition, but rather an acknowledgement that such a cuisine had the basis for something more expansive, more subtle, more experimental. I expect it still does.

Next up, virginal-tasting of foie gras, tortillas made by grandma, queso fundido made by Jesus (or at least a close relative), pizza of the heart, and what may be the best stuffed trotter in the whole of the world.