Tag: Dining

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Country Cooking

Once a month, Chez Philippe takes a break from its French-Asian cuisine to give diners the opportunity to sample the foods of places such as Thailand, Italy, Portugal, and Africa.

This month’s dinner, on August 24th, will showcase the food of Cuba, which will be a culinary homecoming for Reinaldo Alfonso, Chez Philippe’s chef de cuisine. Alfonso grew up in Miami surrounded by the food of his family’s home country and was inspired by his mother’s and grandmother’s cooking. It’s only natural that he take family and childhood favorites to the Chez Philippe level of top-notch artistic presentation and fine-dining standards.

“Cuban food is Creole food. We actually called it Criolla,” explains Alfonso. “Now, you don’t want to get that mixed up with Louisiana’s Creole cuisine. Criolla is influenced by the foods of the Caribbean and Spain. In Cuban cuisine, you’ll find a lot of Spanish influences. The difference is that our food is more exotic and uses more spices — cinnamon is one example. So, Cuban food is not spicy food; we just use spices to give the dish a greater depth of flavor.”

The dinners are five-course meals with two choices for each course. Green plantain soup with roasted snapper, camarone enchilado with pan cubano, boliche with boniato puree, lime juice and brown-sugar bananas, and natilla are some of the dishes that will be on the menu for that night.

“The base for the soup is a sofrito,” says Alfonso. “Most of our dishes have a sofrito base, either green or red, which is made with onions, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, wine, and herbs. The green sofrito uses a lot of parsley and cilantro. We use sofrito in our cooking, and the French use a mirepoix [celery, onions, carrots].

“The camarone enchilado is my dad’s signature enchilado. It’s like a warm shrimp cocktail, for which the shrimp are stewed in a red sofrito with cinnamon, cumin, and lots of herbs. Boliche is like a pot roast, only I’ll be braising a chorizo-stuffed eye-round, which is served with white sweet-potato puree. Natilla, one of the desserts for the night, is a cinnamon custard that will probably be paired with lemon guava shortbread.”

The Taste of Cuba dinner at Chez Philippe is on Thursday, August 24th, from 5 to 10 p.m. The cost is $65 per person plus tax and gratuity. There are two more world dinners this year: a Taste of India on September 21st and a Taste of Italy on October 19th.

Chez Philippe in The Peabody (529-4188)

Culinary students and chefs who have an interest in foods from Spain, listen up! This is your chance to win an all-expense-paid trip to the 2006 Worlds of Flavor “Spain and the World Table” conference at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley, November 2nd through the 4th.

What do you have to do? Create a recipe that highlights ingredients from Spain, and enter it into the 2006 A Taste of Spain Recipe Contest. Some of the ingredients to choose from include Spanish olive oil, olives, pimentón (smoked paprika), saffron, and cheeses.

The deadline to enter is at 10 p.m. August 29th. Winners will be announced on or after October 2nd.

www.tasteofspaincontest.com

This weekend, the Southern Foodways Alliance is hosting Camp Nashville in conjunction with the East Nashville Tomato Art Festival. According to the SFA, campers will be in for “smooth-as-silk Tennessee whiskey and hickory-smoked barbecue; tomato-themed parades and catfish-stuffed BLTs; hot, hot chicken and cold, cold beer.”

The camp highlights Southern food favorites and will feature such luminaries as E.W. Mayo, “the king of fried sweet-potato pies.” Noted food writer John Egerton will moderate a session on meat-and-threes. Other topics include barbecue, beer, and pimiento cheese. There will also be a BLT tasting, dinner at Arnold’s, and a hot chicken run and guitar pull to make sure that the campers stay busy and well-fed.

Southern Foodways Alliance Camp Nashville is August 11th and 12th.

www.southernfoodways.com

siba@gmx.com

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

“This Is It”

The Majestic Grille is a hard restaurant to define. Its menu has a grilled cheese sandwich across from quality steaks. Its tables have white linen covered by paper tablecloths. Its décor is understated, yet there’s an eclectic rotation of bossa nova and funky jazz playing in the background.

These contradictions, however, might be what make the 10,000-square-foot bar and grill at 145 S. Main work. Owners Patrick and Deni Reilly come from different backgrounds too, but they’ve worked to create a classy meeting place with room for everyone.

Patrick, originally from Ireland, has worked in restaurants in London, New York, Chicago, and Florida. Before starting up the Majestic, he worked nearby at Swig, the martini bar.

Deni, who hails from New Jersey, has been involved in the hospitality industry for a long time, working at hotels or as a meetings planner.

“My skills and his skills blend well, and that’s why it works,” Deni says.

The building that houses the restaurant was constructed in 1912 as the Majestic No. 1 movie theater. It’s easy to imagine how it looked back then, with the mezzanine above the front door taking the place of a projection booth. Original railings surround the second floor.

Warren Jordan, whose father owned the theater, gave the Reillys a photo taken of the property in 1920. The picture features the theater’s employees and a young Jordan. The Majestic Grille’s staff recreated the photo and included the 88-year-old Jordan in the same spot he stood all those years ago.

The Majestic No. 1 operated until 1936. Then Julius Lewis Men’s Shop moved from Beale Street to the site and operated until the 1950s. The building opened again in the 1970s as Blue Light Studio.

It entered its restaurant days about 10 years ago. That’s when Breckenridge Brewery came in and installed beer-making equipment, now covered by a mural at the back of the restaurant. Breckenridge gave way to another brew pub, Gordon Biersch, which in turn closed a couple years ago, making way for the Majestic Grille.

“Conceptually, it’s a 1940s bar and grill, an old- fashioned, nice American restaurant,” Patrick says.

The Majestic Grille seats 220 inside, with room for 50 more on the front patio along the trolley line. The food is straightforward, with a variety of big salads, hamburgers, steaks, seafood, and pasta.

“It’s not meant to be complicated,” Patrick says. “There are no fusions here.”

Cooks prepare a meal for employees from 3 to 5 p.m. each day. The night crew comes in early to eat, while the day crew sits after a hard day of work. While this might not be the way staff breaks are handled at most Memphis restaurants, it’s a high-end style of management.

“It’s just the way it is,” Patrick says. “Everybody sits down and breaks bread. It’s crazy to work in a good restaurant if you can’t eat.”

That philosophy extends to other areas.

The Majestic Grille offers its employees health insurance and is setting up a 401(k). It also requires that staff have direct deposit. It makes for a stable work environment.

“We want this to be a career, not just a fly-by-night job,” Deni says. “We want people to have a good place to work where they can earn some money but also learn things along the way. We want them to have the same passion about this that we do.”

The interview process is lengthy. Prospective employees meet with three or more managers, with at least one of them a supervisor. Hired applicants then train on everything from wine selection to service.

If it sounds like a lot of work, it is. But it’s been worth it so far.

Deni recalls the restaurant’s first Saturday night. There was a party of 30 on the mezzanine, the bar was full, and every seat in the house was occupied. The lights and music were perfect. Patrick and Deni had been at the restaurant all day. Still, they enjoyed the controlled chaos in front of them.

Remembers Deni: “We sat in the back and said to ourselves, ‘This is it. This is our restaurant.'”

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Be Real

“In Europe, a restaurant without cheese on the menu is like a restaurant without wine,” says Jose Gutierrez, chef/owner of Encore restaurant. “Now even in Europe, there are restaurants that don’t offer cheese, but why would you want to do that?”

Encore, of course, has a cheese course. Dish, Wally Joe, and Bari are among the other restaurants in Memphis that have cheese on the menu. At Mantia’s International Market, there’s even a cheese-of-the-month club called Friends of Fromage.

But let’s face it: Most of us don’t feel that an essential part of the dining experience is missing if a restaurant doesn’t offer cheese. When we think of cheese, we think of something bright-orange and individually wrapped.

Much of what we consider cheese — be it a log, sauce, dip, or slice — is “processed” cheese. The Food and Drug Administration ruled that it can’t be sold as cheese. Instead it has to be labeled “cheese product,” “cheese spread,” or “cheese food,” because it is made from one or more real cheeses, other unfermented dairy products such as cream, emulsifiers, and additional ingredients such as water, salt, spices, and artificial color and flavorings. The good thing about processed cheese is that it melts wonderfully, doesn’t separate when heated, and has a mild, unobtrusive flavor. Its shelf life is nearly indefinite, and scraps that accumulate during the cheese-making process can be reused for the next batch.

“Real” cheese, by comparison, is made from the curdled milk of cows, goats, sheep, and other animals. Differences in the levels of milk fat, bacteria, molds, aging time, processing method, and even the animal’s diet will produce separate types of cheese. Most of these cheeses lack all the benefits of processed cheese but are far superior in flavor and quality. Connoisseurs may wince, but some people think of processed cheese as a variety just like Camembert, Cheddar, or Parmesan. However, comparing real and processed cheese is like saying that a Shirley Temple and a martini are the same thing.

“People here are slowly beginning to realize that cheese can be more than that yellow slice you put on a burger or sandwich,” says Jason Severs, chef/owner of Bari Ristorante, which offers a menu with more than 30 Italian cheeses.

But old habits die hard, and people like what they grew up with. Real cheese can be intense and runny and not very pretty to look at or smell. “We have a customer who just loves the stinky cheeses,” says Alyce Mantia, owner of Mantia’s. “One day, he stood at the register waiting to check out when a girl came in the store and thought we had some rotten food somewhere.”

Like picking a good wine, finding the right cheese can be intimidating. “When we opened Mantia’s nine years ago, we started with 12 cheeses,” says Mantia. “Now we have about 150 on our permanent list. That can be overwhelming. When people come in and look at the board with cheeses that they’ve probably never heard of, they often end up ordering some Brie.”

So, how do you choose? If you are at a restaurant that offers a cheese course or a store with a cheese selection, don’t be afraid to ask questions. You don’t want to go home with four ounces of cheese for which you’ve paid $7 only to discover that it’s not what you wanted. The $15 a month that members pay to belong to Mantia’s Friends of Fromage gets them a selection of three cheeses.

“If we get a new cheese, I usually include that,” Mantia says. “Or, if we decide to pick a well-known cheese like Manchego, we’ll add some quince paste because that’s the traditional accompaniment in Spain. We try to keep it interesting, because we want the customers to be able to explore.”

Once you’re ready to enjoy some of the better cheeses, don’t be disappointed at the sight of a one- or two-ounce portion at restaurants. “Cheese can be a very intense experience for your taste buds, and you usually can only take so much of it,” says Scott Lenhart, chef at Dish. “Sure, if you have a flavorless, boring cheese you can keep on eating it like butter, but good cheese is something that should be savored like a piece of rich quality chocolate.”