Tossing and Turning for Tasca UPDATE – Brighton

Tasca may be Spain’s biggest accomplishment since Rafael Nadal. The décor is tall, dark and handsome, the food flaunts major muscle, and despite lacking an official title like the “king of clay”, everything about this restaurant screams king of cuisine.

Those who have mastered an art should teach, and Ten Tables could take some lessons from the Pulpo de la Gallega. A sprinkle of sea salt on already-tasty paprika tentacles turns spectacular into the best pulpo I’ve ever had. I said it at Casa Mono and I’ll say it again: no one makes octopus like the Spanish.

Unfortunately, someone must have spilled the sea salt on my Carcoles. It takes an awful lot of salt to drown out herbed garlic butter and cognac so I consider it a small miracle that my snail didn’t shrivel.

The minor meltdown with the mollusk seems like a fluke as Tasca shows some major backbone with the Salmon Ahumado. You just can’t go wrong with a slab of smoked salmon of epic proportion atop a potato pancake so good it could have stood alone.

The salmon seemed inspired by the Jews, the escargot by the French. The Brie a la Plancha is also not exactly Spanish, but I bet even Spanish brides aren’t above something borrowed. The brie is grilled into goop and jammed with an apple and raisin chutney. With all that runoff brie, this plate is hardly aesthetically appetizing, but have you ever met a shallow foodie?

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Why borrow when what you have is already so rich? The Stuffed Red Peppers are as red as a Spanish flamenco dress, stuffed with a seafood paella as traditional as the dance. This concoction of rice with generous portions ofseafood including lobster and scallops is served with so much flair that they stamped to their own beat on top of my tastebuds.

Nadal isn’t the only thing from Spain that gets a girl hot and bothered. This sensually succulent Confit de Pato glimmers with more grease than a bullfighter’s hair. The leg sits on a bed of cabbage and apples as red as a scarlet cape, with a combination almost as sexy as a matador destined to defy death.

I’m wondering if maybe they had lamb fights instead of bullfights in Tasca considering the various parts of lamb. The grilled-with-couscous preparation of Lamb Merguez may be as predictably conservative as a Spanish Moor, but I dare say even a native of Spain couldn’t have predicted how good it would taste.

The sausage was promising, but I was reluctant to give the Lamb Mollejas a try. After Craftbar’s sweetbread of legend, even Toro has managed to disappoint. Fortunately, this was one of my better decisions. These sweetbreads were less gamey than I expected, but they were simultaneously dense and light with a hearty mushroom gravy-esque sauce containing the only white wine flavor I’ve ever liked.

Tasca may not be the only tapas restaurant I’ve ever liked, but there’s very little stopping it from being one of the restaurants I like best. I always knew I’d fall for Tasca, but honestly, for all the trouble of venturing out to Brighton on a weekend, I might as well hitchhike to Spain for tapas. Even trans-Atlantic passenger ships are easier to come by than the green line trolley. But if anything is worth going out on a limb for, and Tasca lives on a very remote limb. So move over Toro, with the amazing prices, generous portions, and unbeatable appeal, it looks like I’ll be giving my heart to Tasca on a small plate too.

Magnificent Casa Mono – NYC

This week’s theme is cross-country indulgence, and not the kind of indulgence you can buy from the pope. This week is about the over-the-top, the excessive, and the way too much. This is the week we gorge, and it all starts in NYC because no one can put it down like New York City and no one can serve it up like Casa Mono.

No one would consider the chewy, often-rubbery Pulpo an indulgence, but I guess anything becomes rich when it’s lightly fried. No one makes pulpo like the Spanish, even if its pronounciation sounds like it got smashed in a juicer. The pulpo is improved by the bitter bits of grapefruit pulpo, and shiny white slices of crunch give you a fabulous fixin’ of fennel.

I expected the Mussels to be the lighter app, but not when they’re doused in Spain’s equivalent of bacon. These mussels are ensconced by red droplets of oil emanating from the grainy pork. I prefer my mussels sweeter, but the cava adds a bitter edge so I can’t say I cared for the combination. My tastes aside, Casa Mono gets an A for this indulgent effort.

I generally order artichoke everywhere I go, but I’m in awe of the Artichoke at Casa Mono. Fresh mint and oil give the light-and-sour a deep mmm that digs deep down to the base of your tastebuds.

I heart pate, and I really heart the Duck Heart Pate that accompanies the blood-red-pinks of seared Duck Breast. The breast is juicy, and the pate is a smooth-melting grain.  Sorry skeptics, offal is just not as awful as it sounds.

I used to think that the farther you got from Union Square’s tricked out touristic taints, the better the food would get. On the continuum of Baohaus, to the iconic Momofuku, all the way down to the legendary Spotted Pig, this theory works, but Casa Mono holds firm on 18^th and Irving, turning my theory to dust. 

Tossing and Turning for Tasca – Brighton

When Miranda saw men who were not her father for the first time in The Tempest, her iconic quote “Oh brave new world that has such people in it!” captured this unforgettable moment in her life. When I first tasted Tasca, I uttered (silently, so that neighboring tables wouldn’t think I was crazy), “Oh brave new restaurant that has such a prix fixe menu in it!” It is rare that I rave about a place, but it was actually raining the day I visited Tasca, and I will forever consider those showers the wondrous storm that blew me there.

Tasca is a dream, but a good dream, not the drug-induced Requiem-for-a-Dream kind of dream. And if you’re the type who has trouble getting into a deep enough sleep to dream, let the wine flights take you there. The wine flights are ideal for the indecisive, hence my immediate affinity for them. I didn’t care for the whites, but then again, I rarely care for whites. The three they offered tasted a bit bland, but I hardly regret the fun of trying three Spanish wines. The red wine flight was a different story. The Rioja was a fabulously different kick of spice, and the Carinene was also tasty. I would have a bottle of either next time…any volunteers to be my DD?

The Butternut Squash Soup was a sweet start to a fantastic meal. Grainy-creamy liquid-solid that warms you to the core as it goes down, as hazy as a non-REM sleep. When I heard puree of butternut squash, I wasn’t sure what to think. It sounded like baby food, but the taste was nothing less than grown-up. The semi-sweet soup sips like a sweet spirit and slides down like a sleepy daydream. I was one happy baby.

There was something fishy about the Bacalao and Spinach Spring Roll…Such tasty fleshy salt cod seems impossible. The most impressive part was that although the cod was clearly SALT cod, it wasn’t salty enough to overwhelm and didn’t require a pitcher of water to wash it down.

The Wild Boar Meatloaf was too heavy on the pepper, and I wasn’t all that thrilled about trying to dip around the peppercorns in the gravy, but it was excellent meatloaf. Although rooting around the copious peppercorns like a truffle pig was a nightmare, but I swear I snorted/oinked with pleasure a few times in appreciation of this finely-ground, yet dense, gamey delight. And I don’t even like meatloaf.

The Vegetarian Gratin of Sweet Potato was a creative, carefully-crafted vegetarian dish. Roasted sweet potato with rich Manchego cheese and a tasty touch of tomato sauce and mushroom doesn’t leave much room for improvement. There is an undeniable art to making a vegetarian dish that makes a carnivore forget/not care that it’s vegetarian.

While we’re on the subject of dreams, Derek Shepard was my original McDreamy at the start of Grey’s Anatomy. He was on his way to being usurped by fine dining after the medical drama became as exciting as the common cold and more painful than rubbing alcohol in a paper cut. It took a lot for McDreamy to finally be overthrown, but the desserts at Tasca were as luscious as his hair, and…Who’s McDreamy? Tasca’s desserts got me as hot and bothered as what’s-his-face used to.

The texture of the Flan is just right – not creamy enough to be crème, not firm enough to be rubber, and a trace amount of sugar that remains traceable.

The Pineapple and Caramel Cheesecake tastes like cheese. Dense but with pleasant air pockets, this salivation-inducing slice gives you just enough sweetness to be dessert with just enough flavor to be real cheesecake. The sheer restraint shown by withholding the sugar combined with the meticulous attention to detail turns these mundane desserts to into something truly exceptional, just enough pressure to turn graphite into a flawless diamond.

Contrary to the title of this review, none of the generous portions from the prix-fixe menu could ever qualify as tidbits. But every bite qualified as a mind-blowing tidbit. Three courses for $18? Seriously? What a deal! With generous portions that fill you to the brim, Tasca is simply a place with no regrets. I know it takes a lot of time to get there if you’re carless in Boston (or sleepless in Seattle?), but believe me, it’s worth the hike.

Langston Hughes once asked, “What happens to a dream deferred?” Nelly crooned “It was only just a dream…” Fortunately for me, and hopefully, soon to be you, Tasca is not only just a dream, and if it’s good food you dream of, Tasca won’t leave your dream deferred.