Colicchio and Sons. New York City

This was somewhat of a surprise visit to Tom Colicchio’s new restaurant in Chelsea on a Wednesday night. Earlier in the day, I was planning on heading back to Vermont. I spent an hour and a half lugging an unnecessarily large bag through subway stops, train stations, and seemingly endless walkways at JFK. Arriving at the ticket counter, I soon found that I was not on any of the afternoon’s flights. Spending the next half figuring out the cost of getting on a flight, I decided to head back in to the city. My step-dad would be in town for work, and getting a ride back to Vermont with him seemed like the best option. Luckily, a friend of mine was also able to set me up with a place to stay for the next two nights.

Slightly frustrated with this misfortune, I decided to release some steam. What better way to do this than to head out the door in search of a great meal. Recently, I have seen a few articles and heard of some good things being done at Colicchio and Sons. I hopped on the subway from the Upper West Side and arrived in Chelsea in just fifteen minutes. When I arrived at the door, I was greeted by the front of house staff. There were at least four or five of them, each one happy to see each customer to walk through the doors. On the way to a table for on in the Tap Room, I had a host and a hostess each ask me how my day was, and both seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say.

The decor in the restaurant was striking. The deep browns that dominated the surroundings gave the room character. It was dark but still managed to be inviting. A wall of wine bottles separates the tap room from the main dining room. The bar is on the tap room side of the wall and holds a great number of options with significant variety. There was what seemed like endless choices. The two beers (of about 25 on tap) I had were ones that I had not tried before, and they fortunately complimented the food quite well.

The beers were great, but I was more excited about the food to come. I started with a squid salad with chickpeas, raddichio, celery, carrots, red onion, and a vinaigrette. The salad was well dressed with a nice kick from the acidity in the vinegar. There was a pleasant chew to the squid, but it wasnot tough. My only issue with the dish came from the number of chickpeas served. The dish was pretty heavy on the beans. Don’t get me wrong, I ate every one of them, but I am a fan of chickpeas and could deal with a few forkfulls that were about 90% chickpeas.

For an entree, I ordered the braised rabbit legs over polenta w/ soffrito. The dish came out with two rabbite legs sitting on top of golden polenta, a ring of jus surrounding the dish, and a couple of spoonfulls of soffrito on top of the pair of legs. The rabbit came our well caramalized and was extraordinarily tender. The dish’s aroma was enticing and was begging me to dive in. This was not as hard as I had imagined, the meat eager to be eaten. Needing only a fork, the tender flesh flaked apart and away from the bone. The polenta was creamy, but maybe could have had more corn flavor. It was also a bit loose for my taste. It did, however, compliment the tangy and salty soffrito, contributing to a well rounded dish.

Having been somewhat wowed by the food, I had to change my original plan. This plan involved skipping desert, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it. I ordered a cinnamon raisin pain perdu with grapefuit slices, pine nuts, and rosemary ice cream. The cinnamon raisin bread, with caramalized sugar glistening on the outside, had soaked up the custardy liquid. In cooking, the center set up nicely contributing to a pleasant texture. The caramalized outer layer gave way to a creamy interior. The dessert had some complexity as well. The ice cream was smooth, and the rosemary provided a complimentary herb flavor that did nor overstep its bounds. The grapefruit added some tartness, and the crunch from the pine nuts was a welcome addition. In fact, I would not have minded a few more scattered on my plate.

The service in the dining room did not veer from professionalism and warmth I felt from the front of house. The wait staff was not intrusive, but they also did not skip a beat. They were well trained, made you feel comfortable, and their attitude and professionalism contribute to your ability to enjoy the food as much as possible. Chef Colicchio was speaking on a panel uptown that I was disappointed to miss. Knowing that he had an event, I had not expected to see him in the restaurant. To my surprise, he walked in the dining room buttoning his chef’s coat, around 10pm. After a couple quick hellos, he headed back to the kitchen. It was refreshing to see a celebrity chef making this kind of effort to be around. If this keeps up, the restaurant is sure to have a bright future. Upon exiting the restaurant, I was handed a carrot muffin for the morning and was wished luck for safe travels home. I thanked them and assured them that I would be back, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Rabbit: Another White Meat

Rabbit is well known in the culinary world, but it cannot come close to being called so in the home kitchen. Personally, I enjoy cooking with rabbit. It is as lean as can be and I enjoy the flavor of the meat. No, I don’t think it tastes like chicken. It has a nice gamey flavor when you get quality rabbit, and there is almost no animal out there more healthy to eat. That being said, I have very little experience cooking it. For the average home cook, it is not the easiest to find. For me, I come in contact with it everyday. So why don’t I cook with it regularly? I can’t afford it.

I find this unfortunate, because I would love to consistently have it in my kitchen. It is not the easiest to cook most parts of the rabbit, as they tend to dry out. I find this aspect fun. I welcome a challenge in the kitchen. Not too long ago, I made a rabbit stew. This was one way to help keep the rabbit moist. I cooked it in a red wine and tomato based braise with onions, carrots, and celery. I added herbs during the cooking process and had a comforting stew after a couple hours.

Right now, I am watching the end of an Iron Chef episode. The secret ingredient? Rabbit. With my little experience cooking rabbit and the way I saw it dealt with on the show, it is clear that rabbit is a vehicle for a tremendous variety of flavors. The challenger utilized many different flavors from all over Asia. He cooked the rabbit with Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, and Indian flavors. Each one complimented the rabbit in a different way, from Indian curry and tumeric flavors to the different miso flavors of Korean cooking.

The Iron Chef focused on his specialty, Mediterranean cooking, but made a point of using the whole animal. From the kidneys, to the hearts, to the loin, the entire rabbit was being utilized. This is something that I appreciate when working with any animal, and it is something that the meat department where I work also focuses on.

A couple weeks ago at work, we made a rabbit terrine. I learned how to break down a rabbit, removing the limbs, the tenderloins, and then removing the meat from the bones. We made a mousseline out all of the meat excluding the tenderloins, hearts, kidneys, and livers. The mousseline consisted of the ground rabbit and heavy cream. The tenderloins were seared whole, and the hearts, kidneys, and livers were sauteed with garlic and thyme. They were then roughly chopped and mixed in with the mousseline. We lined a loaf pan with bacon, put in half of the ground rabbit mixture, placed the seared tenderloins in the middle, then added the rest of the mixture on top. After cooking the whole thing at a low temperature in the oven and allowing it to cool and set overnight in the walk-in, the terrine was unmolded.

It looked like a nice paté with some slightly crispy bacon on the outside and two little surpises dotting the center. These pearly white circles were the tenderloins. In this form, It was difficult to tell you were eating rabbit. With the added fat of the cream, the flavor of the herbs, and the distracting layer of bacon surrounding the whole thing, the rabbit flavor was somewhat lost. Don’t get me wrong. It was a tasty paté.

So why isn’t rabbit cooked more often? Well, it isn’t as available. Farmers who raise rabbits do so at a higher cost, and the consumer is forced to pay the higher price per pound. And quite frankly, it may just not be worth it. The flavor is not quite unique enough and there are other healthy alternatives that come without the high price tag. It is unfortunate, and one might hope to see the price of rabbit go down while its availability increased, but that trend has yet to reach the horizon. I may cook with it again, and I hope that I do. It might have to wait for a somewhat special occasion, or a night when a visitor makes a request to try something new.

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