food. according to me.

Carlyle

      We go on a Monday night – the one night of the week famously wrong for trying new restaurants. It is my understanding that the Thursday through Saturday-and-possibly-Sunday stretch is the important part of the week in a kitchen. The Executive Chef – if he or she is anything like the cooks I know – isn’t going to miss out on Friday night. The cooks I know are too much about and anxiety and perfectionism to let “date night” (are we still calling it that?) happen without them. My point, if I can get there, is that on Monday nights, I expect that the kitchen is hung over. Having been out to eat over the weekend, most serial diners are at home, rooting around in takeout boxes for the last piece of tofu in the panang curry, or trying out a new epicurious.com recipe for white bean soup in their own stainless steel kitchens. The cooks – the good ones - are also at home. Having sweated through and nailed the Friday and Saturday night rushes, they are tired. It is very likely that neither the fish guy, nor the mollusk guy, nor the produce guy have dropped anything off since Saturday. Because of this, sometimes the full menu is not even available on Monday. On Monday there is both less to work with, and less to work for.

      The meal we ate, however, did not reflect this common Monday night mentality. Aside from the thinly populated dining room and the absent Chef (my dining companion, an especially outgoing fellow, asked after him), I wouldn’t have guessed that it was a slow night. The food was many things, but not maimed or neglected or hung over.

      I am still working to shake the bonds of child-picky-eater-hood and sometimes it is a little hard for me to find something that does not contain a scary ingredient. In Italian restaurants, avoiding cheese, cream sauces, cured meats and most tomato preparations is not easy, let me tell you. The good news is that I am practicing surrender, and I haven’t been too badly burned. The way I see it, if this Daniel Mondok fellow, this résumé chef (just whisper Thomas Keller and watch the table go silent), has decided that I will have chantrelles under my scallops, then who I am to argue? Do I wear an embroidered chef’s coat? Do people make reservations to eat in my dining room, and then happily pay obscene sums for my squab? They do not. When a body goes to all that trouble to craft a plate, as is obviously done here, you don’t suppose for a moment that he is the messiah returned, but do you take it the way he wants to give it to you.

      It’s easy to forget that this whole show – from the burnished concrete floor to the flatware to the fixtures in the bathroom – is designed, hopefully – to set off the meal. And if the food would be any less tasty eaten out of a pie plate next to a drainage ditch, then it could be that priorities ought to be reordered. Suffice it to say that the interior of the restaurant is just lovely. It's a little manly and dark without being overbearing at all. The waitstaff is well turned out in crisp black, toe to head, and topped with a trendy hairdo. There aren't many visual distractions. It is easy, in fact, to let the dining room just fade back until the your table becomes the whole world.

      So, the food.

      Appetizer, first: Westcott Bay Mussels. I heart mussels. My regular consumption of said seafood began as a way to unsettle my dining companions and make up for not liking clams. But it turns out those little suckers really do ring my chimes. A good mussel is an awe-making sensory experience. The mussels we had at Carlyle were big and fat and poufy, lounging in the most gorgeous, smoky tomato sauce in the history of ever. The sauce tasted like the grill, like fire, like all the best parts of burning without any of the bitter tongue gouges. It was mysterious and strong. It was simple. Slices of hard chorizo sausage and confit garlic cloves appeared once in a while, lending a little spice and a welcome variation in texture from the slick bivalves. The mussels themselves were perfectly executed; and by this I mean to suggest that they could taste like anything, but they were handled and cooked exactly right. A bad mussel is a horror. Aside from it being impossible to appear graceful or cute whilst trying to pry a hesitant mussel off its shell, even using one of those painfully lovable three-tined mini forks, they can get gummy, chewy, and/or crunchy if they aren’t cooked right, if they’re not so fresh, or if they’re of substandard quality to begin with. When you are eating a good mussel, you should not be able to discern its parts during mastication. No grit, no “beard,” no wobbly innards. I am pleased to write that these were the best-executed mussels I have ever had the pleasure to chew and swallow. (and I’d like to add that if they are asking $14. for a starter, then they’d darned well better be great.)

      Our second appetizer – for we were foolish, greedy children and ordered too much food – was a big ol’ plate of fried. On the menu, it’s Crispy Calamari Fritto Misto – “mixed fried.” Squid tentacles are another thing I love to munch for the contorted faces the act sometimes inspires. They don’t taste like much, but they’re fun. Tossed with the squid were preserved lemon (an unexpected and very, very happy surprise for the palate), pieces of something passing for cod, green beans, and parsley. Parsley, my friends. If this is something we’re doing now, I am definitely, woefully out of the loop. Fried basil is pretty normal for garnish, but I have never seen leaves of parsley battered and deep-fried. To my delight, they were not soggy or greasy or heavy: that bright twang was completely intact - even, as with the lemon, amplified.

      The scallops came next, after a little break to digest (another bonus for going when it’s not busy). They were silver dollar-sized, naked, seared on one side only, laid out in a neat row of three over a potato hash, ringed with sauce, and hugged in an oval dish. [Breathe.] And the best part – they felt and tasted just like scallops.

      I was impressed with the dessert menu. In crafting a menu, it’s important, obviously, to make sure there is something – at least one thing – that should appeal to anyone, within reason I guess. For American and European dessert menus, I make sure always to include a chocolate, a fruit, an ice cream, and a pastry. Coffee’s good too, but not essential in my book. From there you can play – highlight seasonal fruit or a signature dish. I’m not so hard to please in the dessert department, however, at least as far as choices go. I’ll take the persimmon crème caramel, the wine poached bosc, or the chocolate and passion fruit mousse cake – just so long as it’s perfect. Since the sweet kitchen is where I’ve spent most of my time, I am much less forgiving there. If I can do it as good or better myself, then there’s really no reason to eat out, eh?

      After a quick state-of-the-stomach conference wherein we decided to push the limits and maybe not eat for the next few days, we chose the chestnut soufflé. It came in a sea of vanilla crème anglaise studded with chocolate sauce so thick it was almost ganache. The soufflé itself sat humbly in the middle, dusted with confectioner’s sugar. It put on no airs and made no apologies. The outside was light and firm and just a little crunchy on account of the granulated sugar used to line the mould. As our spoons made their way inward, the soufflé yielded to a soft, just-baked center. It wasn’t gooey, exactly, just warm and loose and spectacularly tasty.

      I find that I cannot properly explain what a chestnut tastes like, let alone a chestnut soufflé. They are vaguely sweet and earthy, and the texture of the nut itself is surprising. The only other time I’ve met with a chestnut was in Spain, in the Plaça Major en Palma de Mallorca. A viejo had a small cart in one corner selling hot roasted chestnuts – castañas – in paper cones, y la única decisión: entre grande o pequeño. I think I could not have loved them more or felt any more content as I walked slowly down the narrow cobbled streets nibbling on my simple treasure. And so with this soufflé. I suppose you will have to go try it yourself.

      I am hesitant to overtly recommend Carlyle. It’s darned expensive. There’s a blurb on the website about their being dedicated to locally farmed stuff, which I like. I hear, also, that the Chef is a good tipper and likes to play table tennis in his kitchen. This suggests to me that he’s a swell enough guy who deserves success just as much as the rest of us. High-end designer food is a tricky thing, though. It obviously isn’t just a meal and that’s where I get hung up. It’s an experience. It’s being able to pay ungodly sums for dinner. It’s enjoying being coddled and wooed by the attentive waitstaff. It’s the shiny bar and the linen napkins. It’s knowing that someone wants you to have all of this, because you are special. Dinner here was a nice vacation from the real for me. Life isn’t and won’t be about eating divinely perfect mussels every week, or about “house infused habanero pepper vodka” – but it’s a nice trip once in a while.

Check 'em:
www.carlylerestaurant.com
1632 NW Thurman/PDX/97209