Stuff to eat. Mostly around St. Louis.

Spencer 9/30/14 Spencer 9/30/14

Cornbread

After nearly 70 posts criticizing all your favorite restaurants, I've decided its time for me to expand my horizons and add some new content to the site. Welcome to In The Kitchen with Whiskey & Soba. Okay, that's probably not going be what I call this section. I just haven't come up with a great name yet. While I have absolutely no formal cooking training, I have watched a huge amount of Food Network & Cooking Channel, plus I've eaten a lot of food. Once I came up with an idea that chef Josh Galliano said was "cool".

More importantly, both my mom and grandma included me and my siblings when they cooked and made it fun. I still remember the first time I ever cut my finger cooking. I was spending an afternoon with my grandma and she had awesomely allowed 11 year old me to pick my pizza toppings. Being the gourmet kid I was, I opted for hot dogs. I think it was about 5 minutes into slicing the hot dogs before I missed and got my finger. I haven't had a hot dog pizza since.

Since fall is rolling in, I decided that my first cooking posts should be on two of my fall staples: chili and cornbread. We'll focus on cornbread today.

Cornbread

Yield: 1 | Prep: 10 minutes | Active: 25 Min | Total: 35 minutes

INGREDIENTS

1 C AP flour
1 C cornmeal
1/2 C sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1/4 cup melted butter, fatty
1 cup milk

METHOD

Preheat oven to 400 f.

Grease a 8-9” pan.

Mix dry ingredients together, then stir in wet ingredients.

Pour into pan and bake 20-25 minutes. Stick knife in to check for doneness. If batter doesn’t stick, it’s done!

Yum

Spencer 9/18/14 Spencer 9/18/14

Rose's Luxury

Washington, DC

Who would have thought that trying to get a party of 5 into Bon Appetit's Best New Restaurant 2014, which takes no reservations, at 6 pm on a Friday would be difficult? We knew we'd have to be there early for any chance at all. Three of us arrived around 5:30 and were told that we wouldn't be seated until our other two guests arrived. We were also told that there were two other parties waiting for the same table, meaning whoever's party was complete first would get the table. THE RACE WAS ON.

The rest of our party was stuck in the DC Metro, delayed, so we made our way to the upstairs bar at Rose's and waited for the news. It was like sitting in the waiting room at the hospital's ER. The prognosis was not good. Train delay after train delay. Then the call came. "WE ARE ALMOST THERE!"

Incredibly, we were the first full party, so we got the table, which was at the far back of the restaurant. The whole place has an eclectic but homey vibe, and the back portion almost makes you feel like you're sitting outside with its high ceilings, skylights and strung up lights.

I got some kind of tequila cocktail that came in this trippy mushroom glass. The drink was good, but I cannot remember what was in it aside from some jalapeño.

Biscuits. Hot, delicious, buttermilk biscuits. That caviar looking stuff to the side? That's butter topped with burnt onion powder. It didn't taste burnt or even really like onion, but it was delicious spread on these biscuits. All restaurants should consider replacing their white bread with these. Look, the recipe is even online!

Rose's dishes are, for the most part, small. If you're in a big group, you'll be able to order nearly everything on the menu and still have room for dessert. Our first dish was the [symple_highlight color="blue"]bigeye tuna[/symple_highlight] with freshly grated Matsumoto wasabi. Matsumoto, a city Northwest of Tokyo by a few hours, is famous for it's large wasabi farms, so we were getting the real stuff; no green tinted horseradish at Rose's. This was more of a product feature than a cooking display, but when you have these high caliber ingredients, let 'em shine!

The [symple_highlight color="blue"]Mexican grilled corn salad[/symple_highlight] was the first cooked dish we got and it gave us a good idea about what we were in for. It sounds simple--grilled corn, guajillo pepper, lime and cilantro--but it was done absolutely perfectly. Bringing this to a summertime BBQ would win you friends.

Nothing was more inventive or delicious than the [symple_highlight color="blue"]Pork sausage, habanero, and lychee salad[/symple_highlight]. My brother raved about this from his first visit, and since his food opinions are usually close to mine, I believed him. It doesn't look much like a salad though, does it? The waitress told us to mix it up until it looked gross, which I didn't take a picture of, because it looked gross. It looked like a blind person made an ice cream sundae. Taste-wise was a different story. The pork sausage had some crispy bits and a hint of garlic while the coconut sauce had a bit of a kick from the habaneros. There were bits of red onion, basil, cilantro, mint, and peanuts.

I don't know how Aaron Silverman created this crazy 'salad', but bravo, sir. Eating this made me feel like a judge on Chopped.

lychee salad Rose's Luxury washington dc

A trick was pulled in the [symple_highlight color="blue"]Jerk chicken[/symple_highlight]. We each cut ourselves a piece of the chicken, took a spoonful of the pickled mango raita, then a hunk of the green papaya salad. I bit into the chicken, expecting the spice kick normally associated with jerk chicken, but it never came. The skin was crispy and tasted of the Caribbean, and the meat was incredibly tender, but no heat. Then I took a bite of the papaya salad and got punched right in the tongue with heat.

[symple_highlight color="blue"]Marco's gnocchi[/symple_highlight] was the dish I was least impressed with the whole evening. Sorry, Marco! The description said it had favas, mint and chervil in it, but our whole table agreed that this tasted mostly like your run of the mill mashed potatoes. My brother had the gnocchi his first visit and said it was totally different than this in terms of quality, so I'm just going to assume we got an off batch.

Luckily, the [symple_highlight color="blue"]bucatini[/symple_highlight] with Sungold tomato sauce and parmesan made up for the gnocchi on the pasta front. Simple & tasty. Too bad it had pine nuts in it. They're the worst.

I thought the entire "Other Goods" part of the menu was stellar. We got two orders of the [symple_highlight color="blue"]caramelized cauliflower[/symple_highlight] with Greek yogurt and 'some other stuff'. It may not look so impressive, but it was probably the best cauliflower dish I've ever had. Crunchy, creamy and deeply flavorful.

Prettiest dish of the night goes to the [symple_highlight color="blue"]Portuguese Octopus[/symple_highlight] with burnt lemon puree and fresh herbs. It was art on a plate; it was not just visually impressive, but it tasted fantastic, as well. The octopus was charred and tender. Its mild taste was countered by the bright herbs and indescribable burnt lemon. I guess the chefs at Rose's really like to burn things.

Needing a healthy counterpart to the yet-to-be-shown final dish, we ordered the [symple_highlight color="blue"]honey glazed carrots[/symple_highlight] with mascarpone, matzo meal and dill. These were cooked to perfection, then taken up a notch with a typical Rose's touch. Familiar but still exotic.

The final dish. The reason we couldn't order any desserts. [symple_highlight color="blue"]Smoked brisket[/symple_highlight] with white bread, horseradish and slaw. There was nothing tricky about this dish. No hidden surprises, like a white bread puree or horseradish foam. No, the only surprise was how fantastic this simple dish was. St. Louis has its fair share of great BBQ, all of which have smoked briskets, so I wasn't inclined to order this, but my brother assured me it was worth it. To his credit, he was right again. I would describe the brisket as being lightly smoked in taste but almost buttery in texture.

I wasn't expecting to finish such an imaginative meal with a slice of melt in your mouth brisket drizzled with horseradish over white bread. It reminded me of some of the meals I had in Japan where the simplest courses were the best.

Aaron Silverman and his team at Rose's Luxury are doing something special. The long waits and high accolades show that. The meal bounced between haute cuisine (edible flowers, burnt purees) and classic Southern fare (biscuits, brisket) with such ease and coolness that it takes away the pretentiousness one might expect from the restaurant.

I highly recommend you get to Rose's at 5:30 pm one night and dive into whatever's on the menu that night. I can't wait to get back to DC and see what these guys are up to in a year or so.

Rose's Luxury

717 8th Street SE

Washington, DC 20003

202.580.8889

Spencer 6/18/14 Spencer 6/18/14

Niche

Update: Niche has closed.

The last time I took my girlfriend out for a celebratory dinner, we went to JAAN in Singapore, which was ranked #22 in Asia at the time. The dishes were complex, creative, delicious and overall mind blowing. How could I top it? For similar haute cuisine, there were two main options in St. Louis: Sidney Street Cafe or Niche. I opted for Niche with its constantly changing and oft praised menu. If you follow my reviews, you know I am obsessed with Chef Gerard Craft's Pastaria and very much enjoyed Brasserie, so my hopes for Niche were sky high.

Niche's menu is set up in a manner that allows you to pick a la carte, a four-course meal ($65) or the chef's tasting menu ($95). Our waitress, Laura, guided us through the menu like a Sherpa and patiently explained each dish to us. She was great.

The Coxhina kicked off the meal with a bang. The coxhina I've had in the past were almost like samosas, but these were bite-sized balls of hot and gooey Brazilian cream cheese and chicken skin on top of a tangy bed of sorrel aioli. If there were such a thing as mozzarella cheese sticks for adults, these would be them. If they served these at Pastaria (which is connected to Niche), I would get them every. single. time.

Following on the theme of tiny fried balls of deliciousness came the Smoked Trout Beignets. While each beignet was tres petite, they packed in a huge amount of flavor. It was almost like the essence of perfectly smoked trout inside, served with a sweet sorghum butter and chives. Cafe du Monde beignets got nothin' on these.

Perhaps the most unusual course of the whole evening was the Tea. Toasted oak tea was poured over a paper thin slice of lemon and a nearly invisible sheet of smoked and rendered pork fat. I have never had anything like this before. If you've ever used a BBQ smoker, then you know that you have to put a water shelf inside to help regulate temperature and to collect some of the drippings. This tea tastes like you imagine that smoker water would taste (if it tasted good). Sort of like drinking a whole wood fired BBQ.

Dia's Cheese Bread & Chartcuterie platter graced our table next. Prosciutto on one side, pickled vegetables on the other. Licorice pickled white asparagus, dill pickled green tomatoes and strawberry pickled fennel: all good, all things I'd never had before. It's funny how each course, no matter how big or small, swayed our conversation. By this point we were making plans to go home and pickle anything we could find. Chocolate milk pickled daikon maybe?! It was like a sketch out of Portlandia.

dias cheese bread Niche Restaurant st.louis

The prosciutto was good, but the dish's namesake was the star. Dia's Cheese Bread was holy shit amazing. I've eaten a lot of cheesy breads in my life, but none have even gotten close to this. It came out warm with crispy bits of cheese on the outside and an interior so gooey, so cheesy, so incredible that I reached nirvana. I don't care if you don't like charcuterie or pickles. Get this dish just for the bread. Give your table neighbors the other stuff. I would be morbidly obese if I worked at Niche, since I would asked be paid in cheese bread. I wish I had taken a picture of the gooeyness, but I was too busy shoving food in my face to take any. Sorry.

Another memorable dish is a Niche standard: the Egg. Oddly enough, JAAN also had an egg as their signature dish. Niche's egg was filled with a lemon maple custard at the bottom, then a layer of sauteed mushrooms, and finally topped by dashi "caviar". It was like a really good version of a Japanese chawanmushi.

My next course was the Asparagus Soup. A bowl was brought to the table with chive blossoms, buckwheat, garlic whipped cream and some sort of sweet jelly, then the soup was poured in on top. Like most of the main dishes, it just made me think of springtime. The soup itself was rich and undoubtedly asparagus, but the random spoonfuls with the crunchy buckwheat or the sweet jelly made it something special.

asparagus soup Niche Restaurant st.louis

My girlfriend went with the Fava Beans. It was the smaller of the two dishes, so I was a gentleman and only tried a small bite of it. The pretty little dish was comprised of fava beans, new potatoes, chives, ricotta creme fraiche, dehydrated potato skins and candied lemons.

Berger Bluff Carrots with quinoa, buttermilk, herbs and carrot-bushi shavings were out next. The carrot-bushi is a take on a Japanese technique. It was smoked and dried, resulting in a little intense stick of carrot goodness. Genius.

By this point we were getting pretty full, but we still had a ways to go...

I got the Chicken Liver layered between thin slices of brioche with crunchy peanuts and strawberry preserves and topped with celery leaves. Undoubtedly the best chicken liver dish I've ever had. This was a childhood favorite revamped for classy adults. My girlfriend went with the Smoked Pork Shoulder. Once again, I only took a small bite of her dish, but it had tender, smokey pork shoulder, brussel sprout leaves, hickory ice cream, popcorn and pecans. She devoured it, so I guess it was pretty good.

Before our final non-dessert dishes came out, we were given another childhood flashback: ice pops. Granted, these were filled with kombucha and 4 Roses Bourbon, so the flavors were a bit more adult than your normal ice pop. Great presentation.

bourbon popsicle Niche Restaurant st.louis

We finished the meal with the Akaushi Ribeye and the Quail. The ribeye came with a ramp puree, fingerling potatoes, onion, chicharrons, and honey. The quail was accompanied by turnips, orange, tarragon yogurt and sourdough. While the ribeye was very good, I would easily pick the quail over it.

Somewhere around this time, I began wishing I had worn sweatpants to dinner. I wasn't sure I could even feel my legs anymore. Still, I wanted more cheese bread.

Our dessert duo were the Green Strawberry and the Rhubarb. The Green Strawberry was our favorite of the two, mostly because it seemed lighter and we had just eaten like 30 other courses. Green strawberry sorbet rested on a light olive oil cake and goat cheese panna cotta, topped with almonds and fresh strawberries. The rhubarb was a normandy tart, stewed rhubarb, Angelica cream, pistachio meringue and pistachio ice cream.

green strawberry Niche Restaurant st.louis

The meal was as memorable as any I've had. The food was impeccable and the service was outstanding. Nothing impresses me more than when a kitchen creates unique and flavorful dishes out of the simplest ingredients, and that's where Niche shines the most. My girlfriend and I also loved that while Niche is certainly a very nice, the feeling inside the restaurant was relaxed and lively. It wasn't nearly silent (like JAAN) and the staff don't talk to you like they're Bruce Wayne's butler.

Niche easily joins Sidney Street Cafe and The Libertine as my St. Louis trifecta of fine food. It's perfect for a romantic evening or a small group dinner. The menu changes almost daily, but the cheese bread is always on there. You must get it.

Niche

7734 Forsyth Blvd

Clayton, MO 63105

314.773.7755

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Spencer 5/15/14 Spencer 5/15/14

The Ubud Hanging Gardens Hotel

When you think of Bali, what do you think of? I think of the beautiful beaches, the 5-star resorts, the ancient temples. I think of the disorder of the Denpasar airport, the shittier beaches covered in drunk assholes, the poverty you have to drive through to get to your resort. The incredible foods and foliage. The beautiful paintings and carvings. Bali is a complex animal that I both love and hate.

I've yet to travel through Bali's huge new airport, but if it's run anything like the previous one, it's a mad house full of stores selling typical tourist crap--sir, would you like a carved wooden penis?--with no food options. I hope it's not. The old Denpasar airport was hot and crowded with chairs you had to share with roaches.

I would break down Bali's main tourist areas into four parts:

Seminyak: Nice resorts and small houses in town. Good restaurants nearby, as well as some shopping. My recommendation for where to stay if you're visiting. The W Hotel is awesome. Pretty close to...
Kuta: Kuta is the party zone and home to an army of drunk Australians.
Nusa Dua: Bali's original tourist area, away from everything else. Lots of resorts all right next to each other in a blocked off area. The most touristy area for sure. Staying here doesn't feel much different than staying in Florida, Hawaii, etc. I don't recommend it.
Ubud: A few hours inland is Ubud, my favorite place in Bali. You're in the jungle surrounded by ancient villages and temples, as well as some of the best artisans in all of Bali.

We started our trip in Ubud. Wanting to making sure that the trip was as memorable as possible, we decided to throw down and stay at the Ubud Hanging Gardens. The people of Bali are so friendly. I can't think of a single place I've gone where everyone was nicer. Our driver from the hotel was no exception, even with his limited English. After two and half hours, we arrived at our hotel, which felt a lot like arriving at Jurassic Park. Strangers in a strange land, surrounded by an overwhelming jungle full of dinosaurs (okay, maybe not that part). The Hanging Gardens are famous for how romantic they are with their hillside villas and private pools. Knowing this, I made sure to remark in my reservation that I was traveling with my brother and that we would need two separate beds. We may be from Missouri, but we're not that Missouri.

"Hello Mr. and...Mr...Pernikoff," the check-in woman said a bit quizzically. She was probably looking through her notes to see if we were there for a romantic couples trip or otherwise. Then we were told that the twin bed villa we requested wasn't actually available at the moment. Great. Nothing like spending 3 days cuddled up in bed with my brother.

In an amazing twist, they apologetically told us we'd be staying in largest option, the family villa. Well, okay then! We were taken down the little hillside tram (funicular) to our "room". Now I know what it feels like to be P.Diddy. We had a two story villa overlooking the valley below. The upstairs had a huge master bedroom with windows looking out over our pool, a gigantic bathroom, a huge deck and a private pool. The downstairs had another deck, twin beds and a separate large bath. Not too shabby for one unemployed college kid and his awesome older brother.

Our time at the resort was incredible, even with the heavy rainshowers we had to endure. The food was spectacular, the staff were delightful and I didn't have to cuddle with my brother (but I did it anyway).

The only negative thing that happened was a humongous spider decided to hang out just outside our shower window, making every shower a horrifying experience.