A Life Worth Eating

I believe it was Ron Burgundy of Anchorman fame who said “When in Rome.” I know others might quote a slightly more elaborate version of that old adage, but I prefer the conciseness of this one. And I’m not always prone to grasp the philosophical nuances of such sayings, but I think what the wise Anchorman means is that eating Tex-Mex in Toledo or lobster rolls in Lexington is crazy. Trying to eat like a local is definitely the way to go.

Then again, so is trying to speak like one. And frankly, I did a horrible job of both at Au Trou Gascon. As the name suggests, this restaurant features the cuisine of Gascony, an area of southwest France known to geography scholars worldwide for its exceedingly high density of people… enjoying copious amounts of foie gras and Armagnac. The region also happens to be famous for cassoulet, a slow-cooked white bean stew that can include all sorts of happy things: duck or goose confit, mutton or lamb, pork sausage, pork skin, pork belly, pork shoulder, and other particularly pleasing pig parts.

So we found ourselves about, oh, 600km from Gascony on this particular night, but this restaurant and this dish were calling my name. When the waiter expressed some hesitation in substituting the cassoulet for yours truly in lieu of a pigeon course listed on the 50€ Dîner Gourmand, I wowed him with my language skills by asking: “Plus supplement?” More supplement? Please, sir, could I pay a larger supplement? I would be ever so grateful.

Yep, I am an idiot. I should have just admitted from the start that my French fluency doesn’t extend beyond the four corners of a menu page. But the guy smiled (well, laughed) and said the substitution would be no problem as long as I was hungry. Then I felt like it was my turn to laugh. The poor guy had no idea what kind of an appetite he was dealing with. But in any case, we were all set — the five-course tasting menu for me and Adam, and à la carte selections for our friend.

First they served some sticks of toast with a tasty bean purée and a small container of piment d’espelette that would stay on our table the rest of the meal. Nursing a glass of rosé champagne while we snacked on that, we asked the sommelier to recommend a bottle of white wine to go with our first few courses. He delivered in a big way with the Domaine Arretxea “Hegoxuri” (2006, I think), an AOC wine made on a biodynamic vineyard in Irouléguy. We tasted it and reacted with a slew of four-letter words that I can assure you included none of the following wine terms: body, deep, foxy, hard, legs, long, lush, oaky, rich, ripe, soft, tart, thin. I’ll leave it to you to judge which set of words is more lascivious. In any case, let’s just say the wine was really, really good. Hopefully Santa Claus will come down the chimney with a case for me next Christmas.

The first course on the tasting menu was Gambas, royale de foie gras, émulsion de châtaignes. A single shrimp found a happy home on an island of foie gras custard in a frothy chestnut emulsion. We had seen the combination of chestnut and foie gras somewhere before, and it is a tasty one. I enjoyed the naturally sweet shrimp counter-balancing the rich and buttery emulsion, while a crispy crouton brought some much-needed texture to the dish. On the other hand, the foie gras lacked much of an assertive liver flavor, and I would’ve appreciated a slightly smoother texture (like, say, the sea urchin panna cotta I know and love at Picholine in NY).

Meanwhile our friend had the Chipirons “plaqués minute”, orzotto aux piments doux et chips de gingembre (17€), baby squid cooked on a griddle and served on sweet pepper orzotto (a fancy word for orzo prepared like risotto). A few streaks of a vibrant green parsley puree sat on either side, and some “chips” of fried ginger on top brought its characteristic spice and a new texture to the dish. I didn’t get a chance to taste this myself, but her silence while eating could only mean two things — (1) it was really good and she didn’t want to share, (2) it was disappointing and she didn’t want to share. Just kidding. The truth is she’s always really generous with the samples and most of the time she ends up ordering the best things on the menu anyway, so this was probably pretty tasty.

The next course — Noix de St. Jacques, endives fondantes — was a tango between bitter and sweet. The seared scallops were seasoned only with salt and a tiny sprinkling of espelette pepper, so their natural sweetness was allowed to shine through. Meanwhile, the tender “melting” endives had a pronounced bitterness that challenged that sweetness. A few flakes of parmigiano-reggiano cheese and a buttery foam provided some extra richness. And the brush stroke of parsley sauce on the plate brought, well, mainly just a pretty color to the plate.

We quickly downed slowly savored the first bottle of wine, so we asked the sommelier to recommend something to go with our meat courses. And by that, I mean Adam asked him while I just nodded and smiled like I knew what the hell they were saying. The sommelier came back with a bottle of Domaine de la Garance 2002 Les Armières Vin de Pays de l’Hérault, a red wine made by Pierre Quinonéro in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southwest France. I liked the fact that he again kept a regional focus to the wines, but we weren’t crazy about this one. It was highly tannic, and although it worked reasonably well with my main course, it was a bit too harsh to drink on its own in-between courses or even with the cheese that would follow.

The main course I’m talking about is of course Le cassoulet “Trou Gascon” aux haricots de maïs, confit de canard, couston de porc, côte d’agneau et saucisse de couennes.  This was so big and hearty as to be entirely inappropriate for a tasting menu.  Which is to say I reveled in the excess and later returned the dish completely clean.  The white beans were neither grainy nor mushy but instead just tender and quite flavorful.  And how can one choose favorites among duck confit, rack of lamb, pork couston (the upper part of the rack), and pork sausage enriched with pork rinds?  Thankfullly I didn’t have to — they were all in attendance and all quite tasty.  An added plus was that I felt like the cassoulet gave me a headstart on developing a sufficient layer of blubber to comfortably hibernate next winter.  Who says I am not a good planner?

Adam stuck with the Filet de pigeonneau en croûte de noisette, la cuisse effilochée en cannelloni de chou tendre originally included in the tasting menu. And I guess he was happy with his decision since he pronounced this pigeon perhaps the best he has ever eaten. Granted, we were about two and a half sheets to the wind by this point, so I took that with a grain of salt. Until he let me try it. The breast was crusted in hazelnut and cooked to a beautiful rosy pink throughout. The leg meat was stuffed into a roll of cabbage and accompanied by some potato purée and a rich pigeon jus. I must say, Adam was right — this was absolutely delicious.

Our friend, on the other hand, was underwhelmed by the Agneau de lait des Pyrénées, pommes de terre écrasées aux cebettes (32€). This was just two huge chunks of milk-fed lamb from the Pyrénées mountains served next to a large pile of chive mashed potatoes. Nothing more, nothing less. The flavor of the meat was unremarkable, and the texture was not quite as fall-apart fork tender as one might expect from a (presumably) braised cut like this. The bigger problem, though, was the repetitiveness of eating this. She seemed to get bored with it about half-way through.

We also tried a few cheeses, the first of which was part of the tasting menu. The Faisselle pastorale, miel citronné, huile d’olive et pignons was a soft, almost Greek yogurt-like cheese served with honey, lemon juice, olive oil, and pine nuts. I hate to be so blunt about it, but this was just not good. It was like a fight between the natural tanginess of the cheese and the overwhelming acidity of the lemon, and really they both lost. At least the wine hadn’t completely washed away our mental capacities yet — we still had the good judgment to leave most of this behind.

Thankfully the other cheeses — Cabécou fermier et Brebis de la Vallee d’Ossau (9€) — saved the day. The small round of Cabécou goat cheese from the Midi-Pyrénées region of France was creamy and soft. Slightly runny beneath the rind, it was also udderly utterly delicious. Too bad it is made with raw milk and matured for less than 60 days so I won’t be seeing it stateside anytime soon. The other cheese we had, called Brebis, is a sheep’s milk cheese made in the Ossau Valley. In my opinion the sheep’s milk cheeses that come from this area are just phenomenal — Abbaye de Belloc, P’tit Basque, Ossau-Iraty, I could go on… — so it was no surprise that I enjoyed this one. This simple, unadorned cheese course was really one of the highlights for me.

At this point, we realized we were the only ones left in the room. Even the waiter was gone. Or maybe he was just hiding behind the huge display of Armagnac along the opposite wall. Mmm. Sweet, sweet Armagnac. Wait, no! We needed dessert first!

Adam and I each had the Glace chocolat noir “minute” servie devant vous, meringue vanillée, mangue confite. The English translation of the menu on the website calls this “instant dainty chocolate ice cream”, though I’m not sure what exactly that means. A frozen form of Jell-O instant pudding, perhaps? Nah, that’s an unfair comparison because this ice cream actually tasted like a product derived from the cacao bean. And it was pretty good, in fact. The texture was almost mousse-like, and flavor was pleasantly bittersweet. Formed tableside into pretty little quenelles, the ice cream was served with mango confit and a really nice layered sandwich of vanilla meringue and Chantilly cream. With this presentation I think they did a good job of dancing around the fact that this dessert was basically just a serving of chocolate ice cream.

I said earlier that our friend inevitably finds the treasures on restaurant menus, and I meant it. Her dessert here even caused a case of Plate Envy on my part. She got the Tourtière chaude et croustillante, glace caramel salé (pate très fine étirée à la main avec quelques lamelles de pommes cuites) (9€). Almost like a strudel, this pastry is also sometimes called Pastis Gascon or Croustade, and it is a regional treat. The filling is comprised of Armagnac-soaked apples, and for good measure this one had a few Armagnac-soaked prunes on the side. The tourtière was flaky and buttery and friggin’ tasty, if I do say so myself. And I haven’t even mentioned the salted caramel ice cream that kept this thing company. It was great also.

Not everything we had that night was perfect. But at pretty reasonable prices for food of that general quality, it didn’t need to be. Between the combination of the food, wine, and great company, I’d say this was one of the most enjoyable restaurant experiences I’ve had in a long time. We were able to take a short trip to Gascony — on a weeknight, no less — without ever leaving the big city. Now I’m not recommending that you stumble from restaurant to restaurant in a slightly inebriated state mumbling “cassoulet, plus supplement” over and over again. Far from it. You might get some funny looks. Instead, just head to Au Trou Gascon. It shines exactly the way a Michelin star should.