The Deliciousness of 2008

Cemita Atomica at Cemitas Puebla	Dominic Armato

Ahhhh, always one of my favorite posts of the year. Not just because it's so much fun to remember the year's faves, but also because it's a reminder that Skillet Doux has been around for another year. My first official act as a food blog was to recap the 2005 year, making this my fourth year-in-review as Skillet Doux turns three.

2008 was a pretty damn good year from a food standpoint, which is kind of shocking considering how little I got out. I ceased traveling for work, I spent the year in a city with no relatives to watch the little guy, and I still had to struggle to whittle this year's list down to ten. Even more of a struggle was limiting myself to two entries from Grace Garden. I figured anything more would just be absurd.

At any rate, while no 2006, 2008 was a great food year. I tried a bunch of new things. I discovered awesomeness in unexpected places. Though my kitchen this year was mostly consumed with simple, day-to-day meals for the family, it did produce a couple moments of greatness. As always, the Deliciousness of 2008 isn't strictly a "best" list. Rather, these are the dishes I enjoyed the most, the dishes that taught me the most, and the dishes that will stick in my mind for years to come.

Clicking on the image provides a larger one, while clicking on the name of the dish links to the post that talked about it. And so, in no particular order, courtesy of random.org, The Deliciousness of 2008:

Dominic Armato Mushroom Fritters JFX Viaduct Farmers Market - Baltimore The JFX viaduct farmers market will definitely be near the top of the list of places I'll miss when we skip town in July. Even setting aside the scale and quality of the market, there's a great energy that I have yet to experience elsewhere. And while my exhilaration over returning to the market and the crisp spring morning may have made me unusually swoon-prone, there's no denying that the mushroom stand makes some wonderful snacks with their bounty. My favorite prepared foodstuff of the market, by a longshot, was the mushroom fritters with crumbled feta, mesclun greens, basil and a squirt of hot sauce. Hot out of the fryer, crisp on the outside, moist and tender on the inside, sitting atop just enough simple, fresh accompaniments to make them sing, they took me from happy to giddy.

Dominic Armato Steamed Whole Duck Stuffed with Sticky Rice Grace Garden - Baltimore The biggest food story of the year in my circles, by the widest of margins, was the discovery of Grace Garden -- an unassuming strip mall bastion of exceptional authentic Chinese cuisine in a town that desperately needed it. I'm so in love with the place and the people who run it that it's nearly impossible to pick favorites, but one of the dishes that was most striking to me came from one of our earliest visits. Chef Li saw fit to prepare a special dish for us -- a duck that had been completely deboned, stuffed with sticky rice, lotus seeds, bamboo, chunks of Chinese sausage as well as other light seasonings, then sealed tightly and steamed. As the duck cooks, the fat melts and saturates the rice, infusing it with an indescribably unctuous duck flavor, while the meat itself becomes impossibly sweet and tender. The duck fat shock hits you once when you first taste the dish, and again if you take some home and it has a chance to chill and congeal. Of course, as with great confit, there's no such thing as too much duck fat. But to write this off simply as a celebration of duck lipid is to sell Chef Li short. The underlying flavors, subtle though they may be, bring out the duck flavor and make a masterful dish out of something that, in other hands, could end up as little more than a pile of (tasty) goo.

Dominic Armato Kobe & Foie Slider Salt - Baltimore Getting me to overlook my annoyance with the overuse of the term "Kobe" is a feat in and of itself, but this dish was so much more. A friend described Jason Ambrose, owner and head chef of Salt, as a "flavor guy", and this dish was exactly the kind of thing she was talking about. Almost exactly a year after I sampled Daniel Boulud's famous DB Burger, I tasted what it should have been. Not that there was anything wrong with the DB Burger (other than the price), but where the DB burger only hinted at rich, meaty, truffled decadence, Jason Ambrose delivered it. The small patty was topped with an equally large slab of charred foie gras, placed on a small toasted bun and topped with a sweet onion compote and truffled aioli. It was lush and juicy and as much about the nose as the palate. Anybody who eats this with a knife and fork is missing out, big time. It may be a little messy but just pick the damn thing up and eat it. When it gets about halfway to your nose, a kind of primal, Homer Simpson drooling out the side of your mouth reaction ensues. If it doesn't, don't bother checking your pulse... just sign the organ donor line on the back of your driver's license and wait for the ambulance.

Dominic Armato Steamed Blue Crabs Hard Yacht Club - Baltimore Because of the disarray surrounding our arrival in 2007 and our forthcoming early summer departure in 2009, 2008 was my one big shot at crab season in Baltimore and I tried to make the best of it. I ate steamed blue crabs at a number of places, and never quite got around to posting about it, but the folks here take pride in this tradition and they should. Crusted with Old Bay, steamed and eaten with nothing more than maybe a touch of vinegar, this is the perfect example of enjoying the natural flavor of one of nature's greatest foodstuffs. Blue crabs may be a lot of work, but I'm a convert. They have a sweetness and an almost gnarly intensity (especially if you get into the mustard, which I love) that makes a lot of other breeds of crab taste like surimi. Few of my 2008 experiences were more satisfying than taking the last slug of beer as I surveyed a chaotic pile of chitinous carnage left in the wake of an evening of crab picking. Hard Yacht Club didn't actually have my favorite crabs. I preferred Mr. Bill's slightly mellower custom spice blend. But the whole experience -- sitting outside on a dock overlooking the water on a summer evening, ordering a sack of crabs that's delivered 20 minutes later by the guy who'd just fished them out of the Chesapeake, drinking beer and sucking Old Bay off your fingers as day turns into dusk turns into night -- this will be among my fondest memories of Baltimore.

Dominic Armato Fried Zucchini Blossoms Dom's Kicthen - Baltimore And so the first of our 2008 themes, battered and fried vegetables, emerges. I found a great source for perfect zucchini blossoms at the new farmers market in Harbor East, and over the course of two weeks this this past spring, I went a little nutty. I think I ended up consuming over 150 of them. Not all of them were fried, of course. Most of them made their way into ravioli. But the ravioli, as proud as I was of that recipe, couldn't match the ohmygod awesomeness of the freshly battered and fried blossoms. I borrowed a batter recipe from the Tornabenes, cooked up a huge batch, dusted them with a little coarse salt, and ate until I could eat no more. The crispy fried exterior acted like armor during the cooking process, causing the blossoms' innards to almost liquefy into zucchini blossom soup. That such a delicate floral flavor is best brought out in fried form, I'll never understand. But rather than doing mental backflips trying to determine why, I prefer to marvel, instead, at the wisdom of centuries of Italian cooks.

Dominic Armato Fish Noodles Grace Garden - Baltimore Enter the second of our 2008 themes, Grace Garden. As mentioned above, I opted to cap Grace Garden's participation in the Deliciousness of 2008 at two entries. If I spent too much time thinking about it, they'd probably end up dominating half the list. But as hard as it was making that cut down to two, and while I can't get enough of Chef Li's bolder dishes, the incredible technique and restraint that goes into his fish noodles astounds me. The noodles themselves are made of fish, which is reduced to some kind of seasoned paste and then extruded into a simmering broth to cook. How he achieves their delicate but firm bite, their unusual shape and texture and their wonderful flavor, I have no idea. But they're a technical marvel. Just as impressive, however, is the treatment they receive, tossed with slivered mushrooms, chives and Chinese sausage, and dressed with a light gingery sauce that's mellow and comforting. In every possible respect, this is a perfect dish, and its gentle countenance belies the remarkable skill that goes into its creation.

Dominic Armato Peruvian Ceviche Rinconcito Peruano - Baltimore 2008 was the year I rediscovered Peruvian, after my whirlwind tour of the country a few years back. This rediscovery was inspired and sustained by the proximity of a great little family run Peruvian place just a few blocks from home. Again, there are so many favorites, it's difficult to pick one. But the dish that I tell people they can't miss, the one that is always excellent, and the one that caught me a little off-guard the most was the fish ceviche. Fresh, light and spicy, the inclusion of corn, sweet potatoes and seaweed was an exciting departure from the other ceviches to which I'm accustomed. But what kept me coming back to the dish was simply the fact that the flavor was so clean and crisp. Almost everything Luz served me this year was wonderful, but this is the dish I'll miss the most.

Dominic Armato Kuy Teav Chha Kreoung Tek Trey Phem Phnom Penh - Cleveland 2008 was also the year, just barely, that I discovered Cambodian. Perhaps not like Columbus discovering America. More like your mother discovering text messaging. But it was new to me. It's tough for a completely new cuisine not to make an impact, and make an impact Phnom Penh did, putting together familiar southeast Asian ingredients and techniques in ways that were unfamiliar to me. The result was a whole new spin on one of my favorite culinary regions of the world, and a truly memorable meal. There were other dishes as delicious as the kuy teav, but none that were so unusual and striking to me. The dish combined the noodles and seasoned fish sauce of a Vietnamese bun dish, the peanuts and creamy coconut of a Thai curry, and the almost curry-like turmeric based kreoung that, for me, was reminiscent of Indian. It was three of my favorite cuisines in one, and at the same time, none of them, and it was delicious. From a meal that opened up a new door, this was the one that intrigued and delighted me the most.

Dominic Armato Berkshire Crispy Bacon with Halloumi and Pickled Tomato Lola - Cleveland The wait to put this on the Deliciousness of 2008 list has been a long one. I sampled this dish right after New Year's -- before I'd posted the Deliciousness of 2007, in fact -- and knew immediately that it would be on next year's list. The downside? It's long gone. Even worse, though I'm generally loathe to pick a singular favorite of the year, this is it. I loved this dish. Loved, loved, loved it. The crispy pork belly was topped with a wedge of pickled tomato, atop a slice of seared halloumi cheese, and dressed with a mint oil, slivered toasted almonds and a number of other small components. The result was simply explosive. It was bold and exciting and full of flavor with an unusual profile the likes of which I hadn't encountered. Every bite was a joy, and I'm sad that, most likely, I'll never have the chance to eat this one again. If every other dish he served me was tripe -- figuratively or literally -- this dish alone would have made me a Michael Symon fan. In 2008 I had three great meals at his restaurants, but this was the knockout dish that I'll be pining for.

Dominic Armato Miso Marinated Foie Gras Sea Saw - Scottsdale And our final theme of 2008 was foie gras. Only fitting, in the year the Chicago City Council came to their senses (even if neither of the foie dishes in question were, in fact, obtained in Chicago). While naming two foie dishes seems like the easy way out, both really were exceptional. On the strength of these two dishes, 2008 may have been the best year in foie I've ever had. While Salt's slider went the meaty, juicy route, Nobu Fukuda's miso marinated foie went the sweet route. The foie was marinated in miso, sake and mirin, then seared and sauced with peaches sautéed in foie butter. The miso turned the foie into even more of an umami bomb, but the subtle bite of the sake cut through and kept it from being pure richness. It was, as I put it in my post on Sea Saw, eyes rolling into the back of your head good. And after all of that sweet and creamy richness, the little bit of tart yamamomo was the perfect palate cleanser.

And that's ten. But I'm going to break the rules a bit this year and add a last-minute honorable mention. I had my list all set for publication, thinking I was in the clear on the morning of the 30th, but today's lunch forced me to add one more dish to this year's list.

Dominic Armato

Pierogi
Smak-Tak - Chicago
Confession time. I'm a food nerd who was born and raised in Chicago, and the first time I ever set foot in a Polish restaurant was today [pause for shame]. And now I've gone and started myself off with impossible standards. There's no link, because I haven't even had the chance to write about them yet, but we had lunch at one of LTH's newest darlings this afternoon, and it was one of my best meals of the year. At Smak-Tak, I expected simple, good and hearty. I got hearty, surprisingly complex, and absolutely outstanding. This was the kind of meal that forces you to reconsider using "meat and potatoes" as a pejorative. This was, undeniably, rib-sticking piles of protein and starch. But it was made with such care and bursting with so many flavors that it completely broadsided me, even though I was expecting good things. I could have named many of the dishes I sampled -- the Hungarian potato pancake stuffed with pork goulash, the subtle and smoky hunter's stew, the incredible chicken liver and onions special that's in the running for the best example of its genre I've ever tasted -- but I keep coming back to the humble pierogi, hearty yet light, filled with an assortment of meats, mushrooms, cheese, potatoes and sauerkraut and accompanied by a dollop of fresh sour cream. I finally understand why some people harbor such love for pierogi. These were not the leaden lumps to which I'm accustomed. The dough was pillowy soft, the fillings were full-flavored and beautifully seasoned, and the entire plate was slathered with butter. They were outstanding, and I'm ashamed to admit that I'm just getting acquainted with the bounty of my own backyard. Better late than never, I suppose.

And with that, I bring 2008 to a close -- a good food year that went out with a bang. 2009 already promises to be interesting. Very shortly, I may be moving to within an hour of Napa Valley. But we'll save that for next year.

Happy New Year's, everybody!

2005   |  2006   |   2007   |   2008   |   2009   |   2010   |   2011

Comments

[Megan]

Disclaimer 1: I don't eat meat.
Disclaimer 2: Your descriptions make me question that choice with every fiber of my carniverous genes. My mouth is, literally, watering.

Where will you be going in July?

[Megan H.]

Woah...you have at least two vegetarian Megans who are into this blog. I'll call myself Megan H. from now on to keep us straight. But I could have written the above comment myself!

[Wangus]

Happy New Year, Dom and everyone!

I just had a fantastic new year's eve that was kickstarted by a dinner at the same Woodberry Kitchen that was written about here a month or so ago. Absolutely fantastic and memorable dinner. Great snacks to start, soups and oysters for apps, and a flurry of meats for entrees (sorry to the Megans). Also, a really fabulous waitress and a hilarious souffle story to retell every New Year's Eve party for here-on-out were all mixed in.

Hope you all had a great time too.

[Jason]

Hi Dom,

Love your blog and I look forward to reading it every week. We miss you here in Chicago and I hope you've had a great year! Not sure if you are writing about food trends but I'm noticing something fairly disturbing going on with a food trend in Chicago and it came to light when I saw your Berkshire Crispy Bacon review. The trend is pork focused menus everywhere (eg. The Bristol and The Publican out of Chicago). What gives?

[savory not sweet]

Hey Dom, Symon's Berkshire Crispy Bacon
with Halloumi and Pickled Tomato isn't completely "long gone". You can have it again, just come to Detroit. I ate at Roast, his latest venture, last night and it's on the menu there. I really wanted to try it, but we were sharing appetizers and I was outvoted. We ended up trying the marrow and pierogi (both good, but I still want to try this based on your review alone).

www.roastdetroit.com