Month: January 2006

hero worship

C is in town again this week, and last night we went to Frontera Grill. I was pretty excited to try it out at dinner time, and it didn’t disappoint. We had to wait for a table, of course, but a) C & I only just met and see each other like once a month, we had plenty to talk about, and b) Frontera has the best fucking cocktails in Chicago as far as I can tell, so this was not a problem. The mezcal margarita is pretty rockin’, and I got the barkeep to show C the little laminated mezcal-info thingy, and C had a pretty great super-tart no-frills margarita, so yum.
One of the things I enjoy about C is his habit of ordering two starter courses, followed by a course of mains, and we did this again last night. First in line, a trio of ceviches: one tomatoey and reminiscent of my favorite treat at Maxwell Street Market, one limey and light and full of squid and shrimp, and one, our favorite, also limey and tangy but more assertive, and full of halibut — ceviche fronterizo. We’ll totally get the single order of this one next time.
Then we had sopes de chilorio, crispy little masa cups with soft pork flavored with toasted orange peel and ancho, which i loved but C found a little too spicy and a little too reminiscent of his detested winter squash, at which point i had a minor giggle at his expense. 🙂 Also we got a huarache de barbacoa, which totally rocked the house: a perfect blend of corn base, smear of bean, and soft moist goat, topped with a little old cheese and a tangle of radish and pea shoots.
We’d ordered a Gigondes (woo, yay me, remembering the name of the wine without writing it down on an envelope even!), which went awesome with the barbacoa but fought with the spicy pork. C had a great conversation (several conversations, really) with the sommelier, who was really cool, helpful, friendly and knowledgeable. During the course of one of these conversations, I happened to mention that Rick Bayless is my hero and I think he is so excellently nerdy about his food — so she went in the back and sent him out. Yikes! So last night in the middle of my dinner, I shook Rick Bayless’s hand and told him some mangled foolishness about how great I think his stuff is. C pointed out later that what I should have said was that when he took on Bobby Flay in Iron Chef America, and lost to him by one point of plating, he was ROBBED — Bayless totally spanked Flay in that battle. Flay’s plating is so irritatingly late-80s NYC southwestern, and Bayless’s dishes in the battle were straight-up brilliant in concept, execution, and look, without any flouncy flourishy bullshit. But I am lame and failed to do so. 🙂
Anyway, after Senor Bayless was gracious enough to spend a couple of minutes with his adoring public, we moved on to mains. I had smoked duck breast in a delicata-squash/ancho sauce, with roasted green beans and more duck rolled in a soft masa polenta-ish stuff and sliced. This masa/duck thing, whatever its official name is, was totally the star of the show — YUM. C had a green pork posole, which was delicious but much much lighter than either of us were expecting. He felt he probably should have ordered a different wine, though the one we had worked well enough. C may have to henceforward be referred to as WineNerd in this blog. Hee hee hee!
We got the mezcal-spiked hot chocolate, which WineNerd enjoyed as much as I was hoping he would, even though it wasn’t as strong as the one I had last time. And we had blueberry-tequila and nectarine-brandy ice creams, with hot cajeta sauce (goat milk caramel, clearly homemade with cinnamon & vanilla in there dancing around with the goatiness). And as we were leaving, the sommelier came by with little food-wine-pairing pamphlets they’d made up to help people learn how to match wine with Mexican food, which was supercool.
The food is always foremost in my evaluation of a restaurant, and Frontera totally makes the grade. But it’s the geeky devotion of one man and his love of fresh food and Mexican cooking that shines brightest at this place — how many celebrity chefs do YOU know who are in their first restaurant’s kitchen most nights? — and makes me love it even more.

in the interest of scientific inquiry, or spicy lamb stew

Yummy thing to do with leftover lamb leg roast (and random contents of kitchen, because you are trying an experiment in which you eat for a month without actually buying any food you didn’t already have):
Cut off all leftover meat you can. Saute a little onion in olive oil, add 2 sliced carrots and a bunch of Penzey’s Turkish seasoning mixed with a bit of smoked paprika and cayenne, and a bit of salt. Add a can of diced tomatoes, a can of beans, a big handful of currants, and the lamb, plus a 1/4 cup or so of water. Cover and simmer till meat falls apart and everything is tender.
Sorry, no photo – i keep forgetting, and it’s almost gone because it’s yummy. Very good with thin slices from stale baguette that went with the roast dinner, toasted till crunchy. Make stock from the denuded lamb bones. I’m planning to put whole wheat rotini, beans and meatballs into mine.