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Sat, 04 Aug 2007

Nebraska roundup, part 3

This last trip began in a decidedly unusual manner, in that when we headed from the airport into Lincoln's Haymarket district for dinner at The Oven, the result was what Bruce Springsteen might have called a 10th Avenue Freeze-Out -- that is to say, there was not a parking space to be had, traffic was bumper-to-bumper, the peloton of a bicycle race passed through town, and the crowd waiting for tables at The Oven was spilling out into the street. All on a Tuesday. Well, it was good grilling weather, so we headed to Leon's Food Mart, picked up some nice New York strip steaks and a bottle of Coppola Claret, and headed home to Maggie's for a less harried dinner.

By Thursday, though, we'd made it to The Oven, with our friend Amy, and for the first time that I could remember, sat outside and watched the pageant of Haymarket pedestrians. I was determined not to have my usual lamb shank vindaloo, and settled on the lamb malai kebab, which was tender chunks of lamb marinated and cooked in the tandoor, with sauteed pea pods, mushrooms, and onions, and a mild sauce on the side. Very tasty, but I think I still prefer the lamb shank. I did get a chance to try the chicken kadai, which features a complex seasoned sauce with tomatoes, onions, chilis, and coriander -- the name gives no hint, since "kadai" is simply the name of the Indian wok-like pan that it's prepared in -- but it's one of the Oven's very best curries.

The remainder of the week was spent plotting a very special Chinese dinner.

Over the last few years, Maggie and I have been getting our Chinese takeout from a restaurant named Jade Rivers, near 40th St. and Old Cheney Rd. (The site was formerly the steak-and-seafood house Charlie's, which closed in the early 2000's.) Jade Rivers is a pleasant, attractive restaurant that serves a lunch and dinner buffet as well as an a la carte and take-out menu of familiar Chinese classics -- kung pao beef and chicken, General Tso's chicken, Mongolian beef, salt-and-pepper shrimp, and a variety of shrimp, scallop, and chicken combinations. It's much better than anything else in town.

One night, however, Maggie made a serendipitous discovery -- while waiting to pick up an order of fried dumplings and twin curry (chicken and shrimp in a light Chinese curry), she and the hostess got into a conversation about the Chinese food in San Francisco, where Maggie lived for a number of years, and how she missed the Sichuan and Hunan food from there. Much to Maggie's delight, it turns out that Jade Rivers' owner, Chef Dong, attended the Beijing Culinary Academy, had a stellar reputation in the Chinese fine dining world, cooking at luxury hotels and for visiting dignitaries, and loved to cook Sichuan-style food.

But... would it be possible for Chef Dong to cook some of that Sichuan food for us? Why yes, quite possible indeed, with a little notice. We headed down there, armed with a couple of take-out menus -- in English and Chinese -- from some Sichuan places in the Bay Area, and I had the pleasure of meeting Chef Dong, and arranging for a couple of special dishes for a dinner that Sunday with our friend Mike.

The result was delightful. We started with real pot stickers -- which, believe it or not, are somewhat hard to find in Lincoln -- and the three of us managed to put away two orders, washed down with Tsingtao beer. This was followed by one of my personal favorites -- pan-pan chicken (sometimes written dan-dan or bon-bon), a cold plate with chicken (and sometimes cucumbers, scallions, and noodles) tossed with a spicy sauce of pureed peanuts, sesame, and chili peppers.

Next came cumin steak -- slices of beef dry-cooked with chili peppers and cumin seeds; and twice-cooked Chinese bacon in black bean sauce. The latter is another of my favorites -- the meat is sometimes called side pork, pork belly, or fatty pork, and is usually boiled or steamed, then sliced and wok-fried with scallions, other vegetables, and a spicy black bean sauce.

Chef Dong came by to greet us and we toasted him with more Tsingtao. It was a wonderful spice-fest. It would be wonderful if Chef Dong could open a real Sichuan restaurant -- I think it might catch on in Lincoln.

By early the next week we were thinking about eating out again, and this called for a trip to M's Pub in Omaha. We got caught in a classic midwestern cloudburst while walking around the Old Market, but ducked into M's in time to claim a table. After the escargot (with a glass of Bouvet Brut, a méthode champenoise sparkler from the Loire Valley, made from chenin blanc grapes), I had a feta-stuffed rack of lamb with olive tapenade, accompanied by mint-rosemary orzo and sauteed vegetables; Maggie had the veal cordon bleu with savory acini di pipi. We split the chocolate marquis for dessert, and drank a big zinafandel (M. Cosentino's "The Zin", 2003).

A few days and a couple of grilled rib-eyes, Indian take-out curries, Runzas, and serrano ham sandwiches later, it was time to hit the road. That's right -- a return to Kansas City and Arthur Bryant's Barbeque. 2006 came and went without a return engagement in KC, and I was determined not to let that happen again.

The spin this time around is that we were going to skip the Jazz District original, and try the new branch on the Kansas side of the border, at the burgeoning shopping and entertainment complex called Legends at Village West, adjacent to the Kansas Speedway. Same menu, same recipes -- but would the Q survive the transplant to the whitebread suburbs?

Well. First of all, calling Village West "burgeoning" is like calling Tokyo a "big city". The developers ate up hectares of Kansas cornfields faster than the Genesis Device from Star Trek II. (Or was it Star Trek III? Anyway, enough with the metaphors.) Legends itself is a combination of an upscale outlet mall and an entertainment complex, built in the form of a late 19th-century town with a brick-fronted Main Street and a tall smokestack. ("Legends" appears to refer to Legends of Kansas, historical figures whose images and statues are placed throughout the complex.

Then there's the Great Wolf Lodge, a resort complex built around a water park; a branch of outfitter superstore Cabela's, and just down the road, a branch of Nebraska Furniture Mart said to be the world's largest single-store retail location under one roof, and a collection of hotels and restaurants, including a Hampton Inn where we stayed. (Which was perfectly fine, and a heck of a lot better than the aging and musty Hotel Raphael near the Country Club Plaza we stayed at in '05.) After checking in we explored the mall, hit a few stores including a Le Creuset outlet (!), and headed over for some barbecue.

Arthur Bryant's is across the road from the Legends mall, with its own parking lot (which is a good thing). It looks amazingly like the original, which is impressive since they clearly wanted to match the the look while at the same time complying with Village West's architectural guidelines. The interior is pretty similar, with perhaps 50% more seating and a separate, drive-through take-out window.

So. The moment of truth. Would their barbecue measure up to the original? We ordered a slab of ribs and a pound of burnt ends, an order of fries, cole slaw, and a pitcher of beer.

The result? To be candid, I was slightly disappointed. This was good barbecue, maybe even great barbecue, but it lacked a certain something that my first visit had two years before. The ribs seemed a bit drier, and the burnt ends seemed a little less juicy and less burnt. (Maggie disagreed, and suggested that it was either the romanticization of my first visit, or that I'd picked some of the less juicy parts of the ribs and ends. Upon reflection, I'm pretty sure she's right.)

It was nevertheless a mighty, mighty, night of Q, and nobody went back to the hotel with an empty stomach. And I decided that whatever the result, the difference between the two slabs of ribs was well within the expected variation of two given barbecue experiences -- barbecue is not like fried chicken or pizza or even veal scallopini, where it comes out -- or should come out -- identically every single time. (Which, despite the occasional disappointment it produces, is part of the attraction of barbecue.) So maybe we hit the original on an exceptional night in 2005, and the new branch on an average night. So it goes.

After a good night's sleep at the hotel and a leisurely morning, we headed back to Legends for some lunch. And what's the perfect light counterpoint to barbecue? Sushi, of course. Legends hosts a location of Stix, an upscale pan-Asian restaurant with a good selection of sushi, sashimi, and Chinese and Japanese small plates. I has a sunomono, some fried calamari, and a very nice seared tuna tataki with ponzu, and shared some sushi with Maggie. (Purists might wag a finger, but I think it's a good thing that you can get excellent sushi and sashimi in suburban Kansas on an ordinary summer weekday.)

We looked around the immense Nebraska Furniture Mart for a while, started thinking about hitting the road back home, and Maggie had a brilliant idea -- why not hit Arthur Bryant's takeout window, and bring back a second sample to eat that night in Lincoln?

They packed up a slab of ribs in a narrow pizza-style box, and put some burnt ends and pulled pork in sealed containers, and we got back on the Interstate.

And when we re-heated it that night, the suburban outpost of Arthur Bryant's was completely vindicated. This slab of ribs was as juicy and flavorful as the original in 2005, and the same with the burnt ends. (It was my first taste of the pulled pork, and it was fine, too.) All is right in the world of barbecue.

The next order of business was clearly a trip to Omaha to pick up some La Casa pizza, which, as is traditional, provided two days of meals. Which left time for a couple nice meals out -- the first one at Fireworks, which moved from its Haymarket location to a new, free-standing building near 84th St. and Pioneers Blvd. earlier this year. Fireworks' menu is built around a wood-fired grill and rotisserie, with steaks and chicken predominant. We sat outside, in a pleasant shaded and screened-in area with large stone-topped tables. We shared the crab and asiago cheese dip as a starter, and I had the prime rib (which was perfectly done and wonderfully smoky), and Maggie had a filet of beef with gorgonzola sauce. We drank a crisp, flinty Chilean malbec (Montes, 2006) with the meat, and Francis Coppola's 2005 sparkling blanc-de-blancs, "Sofia", with raspberry tiramisu for dessert. (The Sofia, sadly, seems no longer to be on the wine list at Fireworks, but seek it out elsewhere if you can; it's a light and cheerful bubbly made from pinot blanc, sauvignon blanc, and muscat, and is now available -- brilliantly -- in 187ml cans, each a generous pour; about $16 for a 4-pack equivalent to a 750ml bottle.)

And my last dinner in Nebraska was a return to Venue, with Maggie and her family, for a nice steak -- filet "Oscar", with crab, asparagus, and bearnaise sauce, with Hans Fahden 2004 cabernet. Next thing I knew it was time to head back to California, and soon I was at my usual table at Pour la France! in Denver Airport, eating a cheese plate and enjoying the view while waiting for my connecting flight.

Posted at 15:55 | permanent link

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