Mouthing Off

After trying some of Cartagena, Colombia’s well-known, classic restaurants I was curious to discover which chefs and restaurants were currently garnering buzz. To my surprise, there were quite a few—Cartagena is having a bit of a restaurant moment. Not only are these spots serving excellent food, but many are also set in distractingly beautiful spaces. Here, the short list of my favorites:

La Perla: Colombia’s top mixologist, Roberto Carrascal (he’s a partner in Bogota’s super hot Scirocco Bar and trained at London’s venerable cocktail lounge Eclipse), opened this stylish Peruvian-fusion spot last November near the Plaza Santo Domingo. Peruvian chef Gean Carlo Mayorga Macchiavello creates outstanding dishes like grouper served over squid ink risotto; a delicate corvina (similar to sea bass) carpaccio and a sinful suckling pig that gets roasted for four hours, so the skin is crackly, salty and perfect and the meat is juicy and moist (at $19, it’s the most pricey item on the menu). An impressive cocktail list includes the signature La Perla, an electric blue gin martini mixed with hypnotiq, basil, cucumber and lime juice). Ask to try Roberto’s homemade limoncello. He wouldn’t share the secret ingredient, but it was deceptively potent and way too delicious.

Mila: Colombia’s star pastry chef and caterer Camila Andrea Vargas (she supplies freshly baked bread to most of the city’s boutique hotels) opened this chic French-style bakery-restaurant eight months ago. Domaine Chandon Champagne is displayed on wooden shelves (and served at the Champagne bar on the rooftop terrace), and glass cases show off almost-too-perfect-to-eat desserts like torta porteña, a chocolate cake topped with a dollop of dulce de leche. This became my regular morning spot for their excellent café con leche, which is served with a tiny treat (usually a small square of banana bread) and a shot glass of mint water (for fresh breath afterward).

El Pulpito: This tiny, two-week-old casual cevicheria, opened by one of the chefs from Cartagena’s hip Palma restaurant, serves superfresh, ridiculously affordable ceviche. I tried the mixed seafood (octopus, shrimp, scallops, sea snails, fish) dressed in El Pulpito’s special sauce (a mix of ketchup, mayo, yellow chile sauce and lime juice). A small serving cost just $1.75 and was the perfect midday snack.

El Santisímo: French-trained chef-owner Frederico Vega recently moved his restaurant to classy new digs on Calle del Torno. The new two-level space feels like a home, with high ceilings and modern artwork on the walls. He’s kept the Caribbean-French menu mostly the same, right down to the wacky religious names for his dishes, like La Anunciacion, thinly sliced grilled beef tenderloin with a mustard sauce. The menu also includes some local staples, like cloyingly sweet plantains marinated in Kola Roman, a bubble-gum-pink version of Coca-Cola. It reminded me of a Latin American version of candied yams. Most of the desserts feature unique local fruits, like candied mamey, which tasted like maraschino cherries and was perfect on top of vanilla ice cream.

By day three in Berlin I’d already had my fill of bratwurst and wiener schnitzel and was directed to a superhip sushi restaurant on the ground floor of the chic Lux 11 hotel called Shiro I Shiro. The name is Japanese for “white castle” and refers to the amazing white interiors accented with pops of bright blue and pink neo-baroque-style furniture. If Louis XIV were still alive, this is what his modern-day dining room would look like. French-trained chef Eduard Dimant recently took over the kitchen and prepares French-accented Japanese food and exquisite sushi. I also noticed some South American influences on the menu, like a section devoted to tiradito, a Peruvian-style ceviche. I tried the yellowtail tiradito (superfresh yellowtail marinated in citrus and olive oil) and had an excellent rice-paper roll filled with tuna, tobiko (flying fish roe), cucumber and tamago (egg). I always ask what the server recommends and he gushed over the miso cod. I hesitated before ordering something so obvious, but it was superb. The lightest touch of my chopstick broke off tender flakes of black cod marinated in ginger and soy. Nobu would’ve been proud.

Today, I met Wolfgang Nitschke, the fabulous general manager at the Regent Berlin, for lunch at his hotel’s two-Michelin-star restaurant, Fischers Fritz (the name stems from a German tongue twister). Chef Christian Lohse is definitely one of Berlin’s rising stars, creating stunning seafood dishes that get served on gorgeous French china in the elegant dining room. In my mind, this is Germany’s Le Bernardin. Wolfgang and I split an unusual, yet delicious, tartare of smoked eel and foie gras with pepper caramel and eggplant puree (usually only offered on the dinner menu). The wild char was amazing, roasted and served with Lombard-style cabbage and red chicory. All of the fish comes from France. The orange-leather-bound wine list is quite thorough and wide-ranging with depth in the German and French bottles. Dessert was among my favorites of the year: three tiny Persian figs lightly drizzled with honey and olive oil. I’m usually a chocolate lover but this was so interesting and flavorful that I wasn’t even tempted by Wolfgang’s decadent-looking chocolate-caramel fondant. In this economy, the meal felt indulgent and luxurious—and it was—but it reminded me what fine dining should aspire to and why I don't think it will ever die.

What do U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling have in common? Besides being responsible for rescuing their countries' faltering economies, they've each received a tin of the aptly named Credit Crunch Cookies—exquisite shortbread cookies with chunky chocolate chips baked in the Central Highlands of Scotland. We hope the cookies provide some superhuman economic foresight—or just a delicious reprieve ($8; giftgenius.com).

With little notice, we are moving our Test Kitchen to temporary digs across town. Not only do we have to pack up equipment and tools, we have to empty our freezers—freezers that (in my case) have housed long-since-forgotten items, held on to for some future use. (I've had this fridge since 2002...) It's sort of liberating to get rid of things, but I must say, I'm very sad at tossing my two quarts of rendered duck fat. Yes, I could take it home to fry potatoes, but I'd like to someday meet my grandkids....
I did find several packages of frozen sweet cherries that I couldn't bear to toss (remember how thrifty/cheap I am). I didn't feel like baking them into a clafouti or pastry, so I threw them into a food processor with some honey and lemon juice and made a superfast sorbet. Since I can't eat it all in one sitting, it will have to go back into the freezer, but with a few more days until the move, I'm sure it won't get lost in there.

QUICK CHERRY SORBET
MAKES 4 CUPS

Two 10-ounce bags frozen sweet cherries
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup honey or agave nectar

Put all the ingredients into a food processor and puree until smooth. Transfer to a shallow bowl and freeze until firm, about 1 hour. Scoop and serve!

I have a disproportionate amount of guy friends, which means I usually start getting distraught calls around this time of year (i.e., two days before Valentine’s Day) asking for gift suggestions. Case in point: Over the weekend, I asked my newlywed friend Adam what he was doing for his wife on Valentine’s Day. His response: “I didn't know you still have to do Valentine's Day after getting married!” For any other guys out there who may have forgotten, or waited until the last minute, here are a few ideas for the food-and-wine-loving woman that will fit every budget.

* The newly introduced Pulpe Vitaminée facial ($235) at the Caudalie wine spa in New York City’s Plaza Hotel is an hour and 20 minutes of pure bliss. The grapeseed-based vitamin-E serum used in the treatment is superhydrating and left my skin glowing. After the treatment you get to relax even more in the spa’s glamorous wine lounge, where a sommelier will serve you a complimentary glass of the house wine, Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte.

* Cult beauty brand Fresh recently launched a new collection, Citron de Vigne, inspired by Veuve Clicquot’s vintage La Grande Dame Champagne. The perfume is $75, but I also love the soap, which comes hand-wrapped in kimono-inspired paper and costs $14.

* I eat out for work all the time, so I’m always more impressed when a man offers to cook me dinner. It’s much more intimate and thoughtful (and usually less expensive!) For inspiration, check out Food & Wine's most sexy recipes and irresistible milk-chocolate desserts.

 

                

President Barack Obama's new homespun tactic for winning over Republicans: personally serve  freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookies.

More enticing cookie recipes for wooing friends (or frenemies):

Milk-Chocolate Cookies with Malted Cream Like an Oreo-sandwich cookie, just a million times better. 

Sugar-Crusted Chocolate Cookies Jacques Torres’s take on sablés, a classic French butter cookie.

Chocolate Cookies 'n' Cream Towers Perhaps our gooiest cookie, and definitely our tallest.

 

 

 

Our December gift guide  only had room for 40 items. Here are three more, from a steal to a splurge, that I'd almost love to receive more than give.

$5 and up
Me & Goji Cereals
This brilliant new service from a New Hampshire–based company allows you to custom-design your own breakfast cereal—or your friends'. Drag and drop your favorite flakes, nuts and dried fruits into the website bowl, name your mix and send it off in a 100% post-consumer-recycled-material cylinder to your favorite cereal junkie.

$25 and up
Colson Patisserie Financiers
Financiers: also known as God's Perfect Cookies. My favorite Brooklyn bakery, Colson Patisserie, just launched an online store. Their pistachio financiers are moist and fragrant, adorably small and hopelessly addictive. A tin of 30 should be just enough for one.

$100 and up
Roseda Beef Boxes
Roseda raises Angus cattle just north of Baltimore, MD, and ships its corn-finished, dry-aged natural beef nationwide. Themed packages include "Keeping It Lean," ($97 for seven of the most low-fat portions, like Tri-Tip and Culotte Steaks), or the higher-rolling "No Bones About It" ($187 for 10 boneless cuts like, Filet Mignon and Delmonico steaks, plus four of Roseda's amazing dry-aged steak burgers). Definitely share with friends.

I love to bake and I test a ton of baking books throughout the year so I get a little tired of seeing the same old recipes for chocolate layer cake and oatmeal cookies. Once in a while a great surprise will land on my desk, a book with originality that rethinks familiar sweets. Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito of Brooklyn's Baked bakery is '08's inspired dessert cookbook. Yesterday I made the Peanut Butter Crispy Bars, a cross between a Rice Krispies Treat, a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and a Whatchamacallit (but for grown-ups, of course). A coworker called these luscious, silky bars "dessert's answer to foie gras."  Another one of my new favorite recipes: the Sweet and Salty Cake, a fairly traditional chocolate cake layered untraditionally with salted caramel and coarse salt.

Emily Carrus, our super food intern, has made a great discovery on the white-chocolate front. Here’s her report:

Last month, I was lucky enough to attend a demonstration hosted by Valrhona Chocolate led by two adorable pastry chefs, Phillipe Givre and Derek Poirer. Days later, I was still thinking about one concept from it that was totally new to me: roasting white chocolate. Phillipe and Derek had cooked Valrhona Ivoire (Valrhona’s white chocolate) in the oven until it darkened in color and its sugars caramelized, much like the conversion of sweetened milk into dulce de leche. The chefs then incorporated it into a mousse-like dessert and told us that with proper handling, you can use it as you would “normal" chocolate: for flavoring creams or baked goods, or making bars and bonbon shells. (Also important to note: The chefs said roasting works only with high-quality white chocolate.)

[More]

While the media remains fascinated by what the presidential candidates are eating — or maybe even more so what their running mates are eating — restaurants and bakeries are trying to predict the outcome of the election based on sales of political-party-themed dishes.

Starting in October, SusieCakes, a Los Angeles bakery that specializes in classic American comfort desserts like whoopee pies and layer cakes, will be selling Red State Red Velvet cupcakes and RNC elephant sugar cookies to Republican sweet tooths, and Blue State Vanilla Cupcakes and DNC donkey sugar cookies to Obama supporters. SusieCakes will be conducting informal polls at its three locations to determine which candidate will win based on sugar sales. The results will be revealed on Election Day.

Abroad, the French are obsessing over two things: burgers and the U.S. presidential race. At Paris’s Hotel Concorde La Fayette, chef Laurent Belijar created special candidate-themed burgers for his menu at La Fayette Bar.

The O-Burger, a nod to senator Barack Obama and his birth city of Honolulu, is made from curried beef and topped with pineapple carpaccio and coriander-flavored shrimp. The Elephant Burger is made of ground lamb and pays homage to senator John McCain’s adopted state of Arizona with Southwestern ingredients like guacamole and a side of nachos and salsa. Guests vote for their preferred burger, and chef Belijar will announce the best-seller on Election Day.