. . . . or, how food trends can sometimes resemble wide-whale corduroys!

About the time that we opened this restaurant in late 2005, there had already been quite a bit of discussion among restaurant-goers and the food media about the question of bottled water versus tap water in restaurants.  I’m sure you remember it well:  coinciding with the boom times in the restaurant business in the late 90’s, bottled water had been steadily gaining popularity nation-wide as a beverage of choice and as a sort of social status symbol.

Fusing these two trends, restaurants of a certain caliber worked hard to sell expensive bottles of water to their guests, using a variety of strategies, and it was usually during the first point of contact that guests would have with their server upon being seated at their table.  Barely having had the chance to unfold their napkins or take out their reading glasses, guests would be forced to make their first big decision regarding their dining (and spending) experience.  “Will you be drinking bottled water this evening, or should I take this bottle away?  (This question was often accompanied by attitudes or implications .  . . . ” That is to say, the one that we left out here on your table on purpose so that you would feel compelled to buy it, or you can go the cheapskate route and drink lowly tap water that tastes funny and is bad for you because it comes through the rusty old pipes of the city water system and hopefully feel like schmucks for doing so?”).   How much would you be willing to pay to rid yourselves of this embarrassment — $7, $8, even $10 or more?  Many restaurant-goers had been complaining, and articles were circulating in the food media — it was a hot topic at the time.

Many months before we opened the doors to our first guests in November 2005, Nicole and I discussed this specific point as a part of our overall hospitality plan, and we determined that we did not want to participate in this aggressive behavior.   Instead, we let the servers pour bottled Poland Springs water (that we bought in 5-gallon jugs and transferred painstakingly into nice unmarked carafes) into the glasses as they came over to greet the guests — all this  at a considerable expense for us and completely free to the guests!  Slightly fancier bottled sparkling water was kept on hand for purchase by those who specifically requested it.

In our view, the first 5 minutes are very crucial to the restaurant diner’s overall experience.  Addition by subtraction; we wanted folks to ease into their seats and feel welcome among us by removing this jolting reminder that they had just entered a place of commerce.  Let them settle in, catch their breath,  let go of the worries of the world, and focus on each other for a few minutes at least!  It contributed to the friendly and relaxed, yet professional vibe that we were trying to establish here.  Our guests noticed, and they appreciated the gesture.

We even got a little attention in the press about it, a bonus — this gentle hospitality strategy turned out to be a critical as well as popular success!  But then, guess what happened . . . .

Within a year or so however, bottled water began to fall out of favor in society our for environmental reasons.  This lovely piece of our hospitality plan had soon put us on the wrong side of another, more profound issue.  It was an easy decision for us to adapt to the times and switch over to a system of filtered water that we still serve to our guests in the same carafes as before.   It just goes to show that even if  you have a good, original and well-intended idea, it’s hard to predict trends in this business.  I’m completely convinced by the sound logic against carbon footprint-increasing bottled water service, and in this particular case I hope that I’ll never have to break out those wide-whale corduroys again!

This article was posted on My Secret Boston.com – Uncovering the Best of of Food, Music, and Entertainment.

Many of you are already familiar with Shy Brothers Farm in Westport, Massachusetts, makers of cow’s milk cheeses.  They are especially well known for the ones called Hannahbells, those very tasty and cute little thimble-shaped cheeses.  For the last several weeks here at Rendezvous, we’ve been serving another one of their cheese products, a fresh cow’s milk curd — as part of our Monday Night Tapas Bar menu — drizzled with a special linden flower honey from Provence, a little cracked black pepper and a few slices of lightly grilled sourdough bread from Iggy’s Bakery.  It’s been a huge hit!

This tapas preparation is inspired by a visit to Inopia Tapas Bar + Restaurant in Barcelona a couple of years ago with my friends, Ihsan and Valerie Gurdal of Formaggio Kitchen (Cambridge, Boston and New York).  There, as a sort of semi-savory dessert substitute, they served a fresh cheese from the region nearby along with some honey from the village where the famous el Bullí Restaurant is located, about an hour to the north.  Not being big dessert eaters, it was just the right alternative for us after a sensational array of delicious tapas for dinner.

When I first sampled the fresh cheese curd from Shy Brothers Farm, I imagined that it might work well serving that same purpose on our tapas menu here.  Although technically it is not exactly the same type of cheese product, the test was a success.  This fresh curd, only about a week old, is not really a cheese.  It bears more of a resemblance to cottage cheese, but is much richer in butterfat, salt and acid, and is less creamy.  I was surprised how strong and well-balanced all of these flavor qualities were in such a fresh, young product.  As the last few weeks (4 weeks of shelf life) have gone by, it has evolved quite a bit: the individual curds are less noticeable and the general texture has developed into more of a very rich, thick yogurt.

I am pleased to be able to serve such a unique and wonderful food here in the restaurant that is being produced in nearby southeastern Massachusetts.  I have a longtime personal connection to the area around Westport, where farm and pasture land often go right up to behind the dunes at the ocean’s edge.   We are lucky to be able to benefit from all the great products of our farmer and fishermen friends along the south coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

For more information on Shy Brothers Farm and their cheese, I am including the link to their website:  http://shybrothersfarm.com/

In virtually every Spanish tapas bar or restaurant, croquetas figure among the most ubiquitous of menu items.  And happily so: in most places, they’re very good — what’s not to like about little fried butter-flour cylinders with bits of ham inside, all warm and salty?  They are inherently beverage-friendly, and go well with just about any wine, white or red, you might be drinking.   And yet,  in some restaurants they are sensationally superior, and when that happens it’s a revelation: the familiar friend instantly gets elevated to star status!

Here at Rendezvous, we make a batch of croquetas every Monday for our tapas bar menu.  As is usually the case, we put our individual spin on the classic preparation.  The flavorings are something of a hybrid combination: salt cod AND potato AND Virginia ham.  And as far as the technique goes, we departed somewhat from the usual approach and intuited our way to a delicious result.  Here’s how we did it:

A little kitchen science, and how experience is a wonderful thing when tinkering around in the kitchen

Most Spanish cookbooks explain that croquetas are made of a thick béchamel batter, with flavorings.  What is béchamel?  It’s a sauce/thickener made of scalded milk, flour and butter.  It can be enriched towards the end of cooking by the addition of some eggs or cheese.  However, in approaching this preparation here, I was wary of the most common fault of these savory little fritters:  underdone and slightly gooey in the middle when served.

To help guard against this problem, I resorted to another traditional French recipe, pâte-à-choux pastry, which is also a combination of milk, flour, butter and eggs, and then baked.  The most common use of this pastry is for éclairs and cream puffs, but a savory version also exists in French cooking, gougères, that includes grated cheese and sometimes fresh herbs.  Because I had experimented earlier in my career with frying choux pastry,  I already had a feeling that we were on the right track.

Inspired by another traditional Spanish combination, salt cod and potato, I decided to take it one step further.  I baked a couple of russet potatoes in the oven, in their skins, so that the flesh would be cooked through but dried out slightly, much in the same way that we do when preparing potatoes for our gnocchi.  I scooped the potato flesh out and added it to the choux pastry batter along with the poached and drained salt cod and the bits of chopped Virginia ham (childhood sentiment), and voilà: we nailed it on the very first try!  The potato helped bridge the gap between too gooey on one end and too eggy on the other.

We roll this dough into little balls and roll them in finely ground toasted breadcrumbs before frying them briefly.  We serve them with some lightly spiced mayonnaise.  Warm, crispy, salty and tasty — what’s not to love?

For the last 4 years here at Rendezvous, we’ve continuously prepared an assortment of charcuterie items for our menu, 100% made in-house.  The platter that we offer to the guests always includes 5 different preparations that from a variety animals — pig, cow, duck, goose — sourced mainly from top-quality, local family farms.  At the same time, we strive to present a dynamic assortment of textures and cooking techniques on one plate, and over the years these have included: traditional French style pâtés, terrines and mousses, jellied terrines (pig’s ear, head cheese, jambon persillé, for example), Italian inspired dry-cured salamis, emulsified forcemeats (mortadella), multiple confit items, cured meats, smoked meats, etc.

These charcuterie items are usually garnished with cornichons, mustard emulsion, olives, caper berries, sea salt, and sometimes with a small salad or homemade jelly or mostarda.  The resulting combination provides our diners with 12-15 small, intense taste treats,  and all of this goes for what we think is the remarkably low price tag of $11.  It’s a great way to experience and share a variety of tastes and textures.

This week on the charcuterie platter at Rendezvous you will find:  duck rillettes, chicken liver mousse, housemade mortadella, bresaola, and beef tongue — 4 different animals, 5 different techniques, each one a unique presentation.

One of the most indispensable ingredients to Moroccan cooking, the flavor of preserved lemons is completely unique and magical.  Here at the restaurant we always have a large bucket of them on hand for traditional uses, and we are constantly on the lookout for new applications for this wonderful homemade condiment.  Preserved lemons are basically salt-pickled lemons, and our recipe includes the aromas of fennel seed, clove, bay leaf along with some garlic, onion and a few dried  red chilies.  There’s no other aroma quite like the bright fragrance of salted lemon and clove as the steam rises from the pot, and it is instantly recognizable when you enter the kitchen while our staff is preparing a new batch.

The most common use for preserved lemons in Moroccan cooking is in dishes involving chicken and olives.  Inspired by that, we use them to make marinades for roast or grilled chicken dishes — along with garlic, olive oil, ground coriander, fresh herbs, etc.  But in my mind the opportunities for culinary applications are quite broad:  we also love the brightness and silky texture that thin slivers of preserved lemon rind bring to small bittergreen salads — like arugula and watercress — and when mixed at the last minute with freshly cooked green kale.  Lately we have used that small salad as a counterpoint to seared scallops, and the green kale as a satisfying accompaniment to grilled skirt steak.

More on this subject soon, and keep an eye out for the posting of this recipe.  You will be able to make these at home and add preserved lemons to your personal repertoire of condiments!

This roast chicken is one of our signature dishes at Rendezvous and is featured on our popular Sunday Prix Fixe menu.  This spice mix is inspired by the Moroccan combination called “ras al hanout”, or “top-shelf”.  Though I designed it specifically for this chicken dish, it can be used also when grilling or roasting other meats.

The recipe for the spice rub below makes about 2 cups total in volume, enough to keep in stock on your spice rack for use over several different meals – a great condiment to have on hand!

For the spice rub:

1C  ground cumin

1/2C ground coriander

2T  hot chili powder

2T  paprika

2T  cinnamon

2T  ground allspice

1T  ground cloves

2T  kosher salt

2T  ground black pepper

1/4C     mixed dried herbs (Italian seasoning or Herbes de Provence)

1t  cayenne pepper

1T  ground anise seed

In a mixing bowl, mix the spices together well.  Store the blended spices in a container with a tight-fitting lid for later use.  This mixture can be made in batches and stored indefinitely.

This spice combination is not intended to be “spicy”, but rather an aromatic blend of “earthy and sweet” flavors that is very familiar in North African cooking.   It is a great example of how to use spices to give lots of personality to cooked foods without necessarily resulting in dishes that are spicy-hot.

At home, I roast the whole chicken in a cast-iron skillet in the oven.  Here’s how I do it:

To prepare the chicken for roasting, rinse the bird inside and out with cold water, and then pat it dry.  In a mixing bowl, rub the chicken with a bit of good olive oil, season it lightly all over with kosher salt and then with the spice mixture.  The bird should be covered lightly — but completely — with the spices.

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Heat a cast-iron skillet on the stove top over a medium flame and add 2T of olive oil to it.  Place the chicken in the skillet and when it starts to spit and crackle put it in the oven and cook for @ 75 minutes (for a three-pound bird), turning it from time to time in order to ensure even cooking throughout.  This method is superior to using a roasting rack because the heat of the cast-iron skillet helps to crisp up the skin of the chicken all over as it roasts.  The chicken is fully cooked when the thigh joints begin to loosen and the juices inside it start to run clear.

Restaurant  method — valuable additional information:

At the restaurant, we roast the chickens usually 4-6 at a time in the oven in the afternoon in preparation for evening service.  After roasting and when they are cool enough to handle, we use a boning knife to remove the breast from the ribcage, leaving the wing bones intact, and we remove the leg at the thighbone.  We separate the drumstick from the thigh, remove the thighbone from the meat, and we usually snack on the tasty drumsticks ourselves!  This is called a partially boned chicken.   We use the leftover ribs, backs and thighbones to make roasted chicken broth.

Crispy on the outside, moist on the inside: It’s very simple: the key a really great roast chicken is making the skin crispy while keeping the meat moist.  When the guest orders the roast chicken in the restaurant, we reheat each half chicken, resting in some roasted broth, under the broiler skin side up.

The sauce that we make for the roast chicken is designed to re-create in larger quantity the flavorful juices that flow from a freshly roasted bird as if you were cooking only one at home for dinner.  To do this, we simmer the leftover bones of the roasted birds in white wine, light chicken stock and water with aromatics (vegetable mirepoix, fresh and dried herbs).  This results in a thin but very flavorful sauce that we then additionally season with fresh rosemary, drops of sherry vinegar, a few crispy fried capers and kosher salt.

Every Monday at the restaurant, I cook a simple lunch — usually a quick pasta dish — for José, Carolina, Rambo, Bob and myself.  Occasionally, one of the delivery drivers might happen to show up at just the right time, too!  For the last several weeks, I’ve been hooked on the flavor combination of sautéed cauliflower and toasted pine nuts, and it makes a really delicious dish with some bucatini (one of my all-time favorite pasta cuts), crumbled duck sausage, garlic slivers and grated asiago cheese.  If there’s a little leftover sautéed green kale on hand then I’ll toss some of that in, too.  Cauliflower has become one of my very favorite vegetables in recent years, and I cook it in the cooler months with potato, Savoy cabbage and onion, sometimes just as a complex vegetable dish on its own and others as a compliment to meat dishes.

The trick I use is very straightforward:  I sauté raw cauliflower rather than blanch it ahead of time.  It’s an approach that I use regularly with certain vegetables that results in a fresh, lean and true flavor rather than a watered-down version; unlike most cooks I apply it to brussel sprouts, broccoli rabe and even green beans.  Using a cast-iron skillet with a good-fitting lid is key to making it work.  Here’s how I do it:

Cut the cauliflower in to little florets, trim the stems, and then slice them flat about 1/2″ thick.  This method of preparation allows lots of surface area for cooking on both sides and results in very even cooking.  In a large cast-iron skillet, heat some olive oil and add the flat-cut florets.  Sauté them over medium heat until golden on the first side, seasoning lightly with salt.  Flip them over, add some chopped garlic, maybe another little drizzle of olive oil and again a tiny sprinkle of salt.  Cover the pan with the lid and turn the heat way down, letting the cauliflower cook through while becoming golden on the second side.  This is the beauty of the cast-iron skillet; using the heat of the skillet to finish cooking the vegetable (w/o burning!) as the use of the lid adds a little steam to the process.  Then toss in the cooked sausage, already crumbled, the toasted pine nuts and the cooked green kale.  Ground black pepper?  Red pepper flakes?  Your call!  Add the cooked pasta and stir, double-checking the seasoning.  Turn off the heat altogether, put the lid back on and allow everything to heat through completely as the skillet cools down.

Transfer the pasta dish to a serving bowl, using a rubber spatula to get all the tasty bits from the pan.  Drizzle lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with grated cheese.  Serve immediately.

Any questions or little issues with this recipe?  Give me a call at the restaurant, and I’ll give you free tech support over the phone!

In the late ’70’s, I spent 3 years in Montpellier, France studying French language and literature and working as a graduate assistant.  It was during that time that I first came in contact with a whole new world of flavors and ingredients that I had never experienced before, and it wasn’t limited to just French food.  Montpellier was home to the third largest North African expatriate population in all of France, and there were entire neighborhoods where markets, stores and restaurants supplied the people with the foods and necessities of their culture.  It was there that I learned about the “holy trinity” of fresh herbs:  parsley, mint and cilantro — you weren’t ever allowed to purchase only one of them — they always go together!

It was there also that groups of us would take advantage of the inexpensive and delicious food in the restaurants when we wanted to take a break from the university cafeteria cooking (also delicious, I might add!).  On Thursdays, we would go to the restaurant Chez Prosper on the canal and eat all-you-can-eat couscous dishes family-style for 12F50 per person — a very friendly price at the time even on a student’s budget.  Over time during those years, I became familiar with the tastes and flavors of North African cooking, and have been pursuing them ever since in my professional career.

Currently at Rendezvous, we are making our version of merguez, the popular lamb sausage of North Africa.  We purchase top-quality lamb shoulder from New England farmers and bone, trim and grind it ourselves in order to control the quality and mixture.  We combine it then with some (same source) pork, ground coriander, maras pepper, garlic, etc, and then shape them into little sausages w/o casings and grill them over the wood fire.  On the plate, they are surrounded by some familiar friends:  poached quince, spiced yogurt sauce, fresh mint and pomegranate seeds.

Every Monday 5 -10pm.  Come visit us at the bar anytime after work

all evening long and enjoy any tapas

or small appetizer plates for $5 — selection changes each week.

This week’s menu will include:

Grilled Iggy’s country bread with caponata

Muhummara + marinated olives

Grilled  sardines with charmoula

Salty head-on shrimp with garlic + chili oil

Sauteed Squid with chorizo + arroz negro

Grilled swordfish with cumin seed + preserved lemon

Salt Cod + Virginia Ham Croquetas

Shy Brothers Farm artisanal cow’s milk curd drizzled with linden flower honey

Baby brussel sprouts with piave

Roast cauliflower with garlic + pine nuts

Grilled merguez sausage with yogurt sauce, pomegranate + mint

Maine butterball potatoes with rooftop rosemary

To pair perfectly with your tapas we are offering tastes of sherry, this week:

“La Cigarrera” Manzanilla for $5.

Come visit us @ the bar!

Ben’s Tuesday Night Special

Traditional French Bistro Classics

Offered either at the bar or in the dining room,  every Tuesday evening

Sous-Chef Ben Ladd will prepare a different bistro favorite

Tuesday, February 23rd: Boeuf Bourguignon

Tuesday, March 2nd: Coq au Vin

Tuesday, March 9th: Choucroûte Garnie

Tuesday, March 16th: Blanquette de Veau

Cassoulet Sundays!

Every Sunday night in January & February Steve will prepare a big batch of cassoulet !

Available à la carte or as part of our Sunday Prix Fixe.

Hope to see you soon!