This is a golden age of dining and drinking in a city that 15 years ago was about as cutting edge as a tomato in January. Every little neighborhood in this city of funky neighborhoods now seems to be exploding with restaurants, food shops and markets, all benefiting from a critical mass of passion, skill and experience, and all constructed according to the gospel of locally grown ingredients.The article singles out Pok Pok, Paley’s Place, Le Pigeon, Ken’s Artisan Bakery and Ken’s Artisan Pizza, Carafe, and Clyde Common. Also, included is a slide show.In close proximity is a cadre of farmers committed to growing environmentally responsible produce with maximum flavor, delivered to restaurants and to the gorgeous farmers’ markets that dot the city. There are local fisheries and small beef, lamb and pork producers. Not far away is the Hood River Valley, with its myriad fruit growers who supply glistening, fragile berries and stonefruits of every stripe and color.
While on the subject of restaurants, Sunday night Bev and I dined with some Madison High School friends at fenouil.
The dinner was a special event, $41 per person, wine included, that featured what I would call southern soul food or French Creole. We started with a dish of pickled shrimp, very tasty; followed by crab cakes with a kind of cole slaw topping: hoe cakes, a kind of cornbread pancake with apple sauce; pork tenderloin with collard greens. My first collard greens and they were good with the pork. Then deep fried okra, not so good! Then came a dish of shrimp and grits, again my first try of grits (and okra). I haven't missed anything all these years. After a very leisurely dinner with abundant conversation, dessert of pecan pie. (Waiter there's too much pepper in my paprikash, but I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie.)
The Madison High group gets together once a month to taste foods an eastside boy never tasted. We volunteered to be an alternate, we liked the experience so much.
