Manolo’s Food Blog

At this instant in Barcelona’s old city Mr. Henry is posting from the wifi at Cafe del Born Nou. Its beamed ceiling reaches as high as Mr. Henry’s spirits. Vintage Joe Cocker is playing on loud speakers without distortion, loud enough to highlight Cocker’s peerless growl but not loud enough to split Mr. Henry’s jet-lagged head. Sparkling cava light and bright in the glass welcomes the arrival of white anchovies on toast, first in a line of tapas that will stretch from evening until night.

Thirty years ago when a callow Mr. Henry first set foot here Barcelona was emerging from under Generalissimo Francisco Franco’ heavy boot. Each plaça exploded with folk singers shouting their long forbidden language. If you spoke Spanish in Catalunya, locals frowned.

Now Catalan cuisine has seized the vanguard. Foam overspreads the culinary world. In one day Mr. Henry has already eaten foam crema catalan and foam tempura soy dipping sauce.

As a mark of confidence in themselves today if you speak Spanish badly or Catalan barely at all, locals smile graciously and respond in beautifully phrased English.

Wandering down the Argenteria Mr. Henry found Café El Magnífico, purveyor of estate coffees so rich and so delicate that not only is their name not a boast, it is a sharp understatement. Its natty proprietor, Salvador Sans, launched into an eloquent disquisition on the virtues of drip coffee over the iniquities of espresso. An acolyte of Bostonian George Howell, “god of coffee,” Salvador argued that espresso method’s heat and pressure not only destroys subtle florals and aromatics but also transforms desirable bitter flavors into harsh metallic ones.

Mr. Henry appreciates the opinions of enlightened iconoclasts especially when their opinions bolster his own. For years he had hidden his preference for drip coffee over espresso fearing that to foist unwanted opinions on friends and relations might spoil their after-dinner happiness. No longer. Drippers unite! Take back the aromatics!

In an act of divine mercy deserving of his name, Salvador telephoned his favorite Catalan restaurant, Taverna del Clínic, to secure a table for the Henry party who passed an evening feasting on sea worms with artichokes, whole squid with its ink intact, and braised rabbit ribs no bigger than the wishbone of a quail. Desserts were created by a chef who in 2006 won best chocalatier in the world. Magnífico.

Not for fifteen years has Mr. Henry enjoyed steak tartare.

In the 1990’s finding himself hungry for lunch alone in London’s Soho, he remembered a genuine French bistro where years before he had enjoyed a very good steak tartare, the kind of bistro where middle-aged French waiters make a genuine career out of good service.

“Steak tartare?” said the waiter with a touch of alarm. “Steak tartare?”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Henry assuredly. “You still serve steak tartare here, do you not?”

“Oui, monsieur.” Addressing his colleagues sharply he barked, “Steak tartare tout de suite.”

Mr. Henry waited quietly. The day’s International Herald Tribune lay undisturbed by his side. Would it be gauche to open it at the table? Perhaps he should wait until after he had finished eating.

The waiter arrived at tableside with steak properly minced, not ground, and with capers, mustard, lemon, egg and onion. He prepared the tartare quite expertly and Mr. Henry consumed it quite completely.

Restored and content Mr. Henry opened his Herald Tribune. On page one a bold headline cried “Mad Cow Disease Discovered in British Beef.”

This kind of shock takes some time to get over. Impelled by recent reviews of Mr. Henry’s new neighborhood bistro, The West Branch, however, with particular mention of the duck confit salad, the pulled pork panino, and the steak tartare, last Wednesday he strode through its old-time portals on a bold mission to vanquish the perfidious tartare.

Without thinking it through, Mr. Henry automatically ordered a glass of pinot noir which was a tad fruity and absolutely the wrong accompaniment to steak tartare. After the first bite he ordered a cold glass of sauvignon blanc.

White wine with steak? Perfection. Perfect as well, was The West Branch’s tartare recipe that used shallots, not onion, plenty of Dijon mustard, and if the Henry nose is not mistaken, a touch of white wine vinegar.

Save your pinot noir for baked salmon. Vive le vin blanc.

Charles Darwin often said that “no one could be a good observer unless he was an active theorizer.”

Accordingly, Mr. Henry has been theorizing. Why do so many New Yorkers spend so much money going out to eat?

Americans as a whole do not save. We know there is entirely too much waste in our budgets, but should so much of our budget go to our waists?

The Obama nation, if it comes to pass today, is going to have to cinch it in, brothers and sisters, because the reckoning is near, the reckoning of monthly accounts, that is.

As raincoaster so aptly points out, habitués of restaurants very often don’t have the wherewithal to support such a lifestyle. Night after night, careening towards insolvency, impelled by some hidden Darwinian urge, they push through the portals of fancy eateries.

Are these self-destructive people somehow advancing an agenda, raising their status, or perpetuating the species in ways we cannot see?

Even to observe this calamitous feeding behavior requires a larger dispensable income than Mr. Henry’s own, and requires, as well, an elastic schedule. If you walk the noble hound Pepper no later than 7:00 a.m. every morning, how can you have lingered until midnight in a downtown restaurant? Each night before bed he must also allow enough time to wrestle Mrs. Henry away from the endless presidential election TV extravaganza or whatever news machine that will now takes its place.

Mr. Henry’s theory is that people are searching for knowledge, the same reason Eve ate the apple when in truth she wasn’t particularly hungry. It is curiosity, a desire for hipness, and a struggle for dominance over the pack.

The best restaurants inform the imagination while seducing the palate, a marriage of skilled work and artistic flair. Most restaurants, however, offer only a casual fling – a flirty sauce, sweet and sour, less interesting than ketchup, or else an utterly inappropriate one-night stand like sushi with tabasco.

If you really want to taste the pleasures of life, if you really want to get to know someone new, get together and cook.

Doper moved out. For 25 years he sat slumped in the same sunken upholstered chair watching TV, smoking joints and eating take-out. On sunny days he crept out onto the fire escape and talked on the telephone, prattling in a harsh outerborough accent.

At home, Doper never wore clothes.

Hearing the call of the Age of Aquarius, he was a naturalist who went back to the land, which for him meant the Upper West Side between 72nd Street and 96th Street.

During the quarter century he shared the backyard airspace with this hirsute old hippie, Mr. Henry never learned his real name.

Mr. Henry spoke directly to him only once. On a bright and cheerful morning Mr. Henry stepped out onto his tiny porch and was assaulted by the sight of natural man scratching his furry self.

“Couldn’t you put something on?” Mr. Henry asked rhetorically. Doper did not speak. Furrowing his giant uni-brow, he shrank back inside the dark apartment.

Doper did not go to work in any conventional sense. Once in a while he was spotted rifling corner trash cans for books and knicknacks that he displayed for sale on the sidewalk in front of Artie’s Delicatessen on Broadway and 83rd Street. Until ten years ago, every six months or so his aged parents came to straighten up his grotty apartment.

Perhaps because Doper always traveled by bicycle, he managed to maintain an enviably sleek physique despite being in his middle 60’s. Did he subsist exclusively on marijuana, Chinese take-out, and paper bags of birdseed? Will we soon be seeing The Doper Diet at Barnes & Noble?

Perhaps he simply couldn’t stand the yuppification of Broadway.

At the corner of 77th Street a new restaurant is about to open, The West Branch, an offshoot of Tom Valenti’s Ouest which for years has been the only place in this neighborhood to get a really fine restaurant meal.

The West Branch will provide room service to the sleekly renovated hotel On the Ave.

What’s more, next to The West Branch will be a new Fatty Crab, an uptown offshoot of the downtown place famous for Singaporean street food and for not accepting reservations.

Instantly 77th and Broadway, a corner where store after store has foundered, is becoming a destination location for people with appetite and cash.

The Doper moves on.

All week Londoners have been enjoying an unusual spell of sunny weather. Could this be the explanation why low-cut blouses and scanty dresses dominate feminine fashion? Not since he walked the beach of Nice at age 17, a peak experience of his late boyhood, has Mr. Henry seen so very much of so very many bosoms.

Like great white naval vessels riding the high seas, bouncing breasts command the London concourse. Rule Britannia!

In every cafe, pub, and restaurant he visited this week, the waitress chose her outfit for a stage audition. Mistress Quickly, a tavern wench, or the village strumpet are juicy parts, to be sure, confident to bring advancement. These actresses really can fill the role.

Lately when Mr. Henry thinks of scones with clotted cream, visions of Devonshire dairy maids pop up. The word “pudding” now animates Mr. Henry’s imagination towards sweets not available on the menu.

Bottoms are nearly as uncovered as tops. Rare English sunshine illuminates scanty pants beneath gauzy skirts. It’s a little bit much, really. Or rather, it’s a little bit too little.

Mr. Henry likes the female form. He adores the female form. The unengaged parts of his brain think of little else but the female form. In his considered opinion, there is nothing like a dame. But he finds himself distracted by seeing so much female nakedness in this traditionally prudish country. Bombarded by pale-skinned and dark-skinned beauties, how can he be expected to absorb the subtleties of English Gothic architecture? Concentration flags. Mental acuity goes mushy. His train of thought follows the wrong signal switch and then he wonders why he bothered to trudge all this way just to abuse his feet on medieval paving stones.

When a man is tired of London breasts, is he tired of life?

Seeking revival in traditional pub foods – bangers and mash, fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, ploughman’s lunch – time and again Mr. Henry found the menu listing duck breast salad or felafel instead. The English pub has gone gastro.

On nearly every menu now there is a vegetarian selection indicated by (v). This represents a genuine revolution in English cooking. Results are mixed, but in two cases so far the felafel has been first-rate – freshly prepared, brightly seasoned, and crisply fried. Salads have been excellent.

The steak and ale pie Mr. Henry snagged at the Wellington on The Strand lived up to tradition. Judging by the crust’s sturdy exterior and soggy interior, it could have been made in the 18th century. It was timelessness itself.

The week’s most exciting taste without doubt were the Alphonso mangoes from India, pale orange with the creamiest, most aromatic flesh, available for only a few weeks each year. Mr. Henry bought them at the Saturday farmer’s market on Portobello Road. They are the food of Shangri-La.

Twice in one week Mr. Henry has eaten chocolate on meat. Is this a new national trend, a millennial generation mania? If so, why hasn’t anyone informed Mr. Henry about this before? He is supposed to be in the forefront of food fashion, not outside waiting behind the ropes.

At Columbus Circle, the AOL Time Warner Center is a bizarre amalgam of the authentic and the ersatz. The towers are handsome enough, if twin towers are what captivate your urban fantasies. Personally, Mr. Henry finds them deeply, doubly uninspiring. The interior is an essay in wasted space. Vast hollow chambers wind slowly round a half circle. Upstairs the celebrated Allen Room with its view down Central Park South is flanked by an awkward trapezoidal foyer larger than the performance hall itself.

Per Se (menu pris fixe, $275) and Masa, arguably the two best restaurants in the country, share a common hallway entrance from what looks like an upscale shopping mall, a decor suggesting Dallas or Short Hills. However, on a rainy Wednesday evening last week a veteran New York bum borrowed this entrance as a staging area to clean his soaked and blackened feet. Ah! New York City! Where wretchedness and superabundance reside side by side.

Down one flight at Cafe Gray, Mr. Henry could not resist ordering the loin of pork with braised shoulder and braised belly because they were finished with “chocolate stout” – a very light, subtly aromatic, slightly bitter chocolate ale. It was a remarkably appropriate complement to pork’s mild flavors.

Last night at Mary and Michael’s house, the worldly and curvaceous Donna, fresh from a day of rock-climbing, cooked an imaginative short ribs with tagliatelle topped NOT by Parmesan cheese but by finely grated bitter chocolate, a recipe borrowed from Giada Di Laurentiis.

Lighter and less insistent than Parmesan, the bitter chocolate awakened taste buds not otherwise aroused by the sweet round flavors of slowly braised short ribs. It was a success made more exciting by being so unexpected.

Will chocolate hamburgers be the next new thing? Let’s see….ketchup and bitter chocolate together, isn’t that almost a salsa molé?