Stuff to eat. Mostly around St. Louis.

Spencer 5/11/15 Spencer 5/11/15

Dinner Lab: Anthos

The last time I saw Russ Bodner was in mid 2003 when he graduated from my high school, headed off to study accounting at Indiana University. Imagine my surprise when, in early 2014, Russ and I reconnected and I found out that he was some big fancy chef down in Alabama. We started talking fairly often about all things food related, one of which was his fondness of pop-up restaurants. Eager to try his food and an avid fan of Dinner Lab, I put Russ in contact with some of the Dinner Lab crew and voila: I present Russ Bodner's Anthos - Greek Interpretations from a Lost Restaurant. The evening's meal took place at the midtown Urban Chestnut, which is probably my favorite out of all the venue's they've used so far. The size was right, the beer barrels all around created an industrial atmosphere, and it was connected to a bar for post-dinner drinking.

Russ' career has taken him from NYC (Anthos) to Alabama (Springhouse, Kowaliga) to Colorado (Aspen Mountain Club) and now, possibly, back to St. Louis.

How did you pick the name for your dinner?

The very first restaurant that I worked at was Anthos, and I loved the food that we were doing. Unfortunately, they've since closed. I've taken some of my favorite items we did there and put my own spin on them for this dinner.

Did you have a favorite Mediterranean dish or restaurant in St. Louis? We don't have too many here...

I didn't have a favorite in St. Louis growing up. It was all in the kitchen at Anthos. They were doing "new-age Aegean", something that I found fascinating and unique.

How'd you pick the five dishes for this menu? I'm sure you have an arsenal of dishes at your disposal.

I knew that when I did a dinner in St. Louis, I wanted a fish-centric menu. I played around with doing a Southern progressive line up, but the Mediterranean won out this time!

On his way up to St. Louis from Alabama, Russ stopped by some of the farms he used to frequent during his Springhouse/Kowaliga days to get some fresh seasonal ingredients, including fresh lima beans, corn, baby Vidalia onions, and okra.

You come to St. Louis every few years and eat like a horse - where were you most excited about trying this trip?

I was most excited to check out Publico. It's in my old neighborhood.

What are some standout dishes you've had in town?

My absolute favorite dish I ever had in St. Louis was a carrot dish at Niche when it was on Sidney Street. I also loved the pig tails at The Libertine and the lamb heart at Publico.

I know you're looking to open a restaurant here. Do you have a concept in mind?

I have a few ideas in my head, but I will keep them close to the chest for the time being. I would love to do something that is different and not in St. Louis.

What are your favorite and least favorite ingredients to work with?

The tomato - for both. When the heirloom tomatoes are in season, I don't think there's anything better. But during the off season, there's almost nothing worse.

What's the most memorable meal you've had as a diner?

I'm not sure if this counts, but a few years ago, I was at an event in Virginia at Border Springs Farm. Craig Diehl and Bob Cook from Charleston were in charge of doing the dinner that night. Craig boned out a whole lamb, rolled it and slowly roasted it on a spit. He also slowly smoked and then grilled a skin-on pork belly. Both of the meats were so incredible, I can't even remember what the vegetables were!

If there is one dish of yours that would define your career so far, what would it be?

As far as a dish that got the most recognition, it would certainly be the catfish tacos I made when I opened Kowaliga Restaurant in Alabama.

Each course had an Urban Chestnut beer pairing. My favorite was the pairing of their Russian Imperial Stout Thrale's with dessert. The beer has a sour cherry and coffee taste, but man, it was a heavy, heavy beer. I'm not man enough to take down an entire bottle myself. Koval provided the house cocktail, a powerful gin and maraschino mix that would have rendered me useless if I had more than one.

Koval Cocktail at Russ Bodner's Dinner Lab

Russ' first course was a lightly seared tuna with a sweet and intense fennel pollen crust. Celery leaves, radishes, Thassos olives - an oil cured olive from Thassos with this amazing ripe olive flavor, and dehydrated feta were sprinkled around the dish, along with a bit of orange and orange vinaigrette. The flavors were distinctly Greek, but unlike anything I can remember having before.

Seared Tuna Plates at Russ Bodner's Dinner Lab

Russ is doing the same menu at Dinner Lab Houston; this dish was so good, I thought about going down to get it again. Then I weighed this dish versus having to actually be in Houston and decided it wasn't worth it.

His second course - and the most popular entree of the evening - were Sheep's Milk Ricotta Dumplings. I'm not sure anything about this dish was Mediterranean aside from the little pillowy dumplings, but it was outrageously good. Give me a Southern American + Greek restaurant! Russ cooked the crawfish in a crawfish stock with the lima beans and corn, then topped it with tobacco onions.

The result reminded me of something my grandma would have cooked when we were younger. Fresh, hearty, probably more unhealthy than it looks. I would happily, joyously pay for this at a restaurant.

This was the controversial dish of the evening, as octopus tends to be. Due to issues with the oven, some of the smoked octopus was undercooked, resulting in a chewy bite of seafood. I guess I was lucky, because my piece was tender. The octopus' smoked flavored was complimented by pickled shallots and mushrooms and subdued by coriander yogurt.

Lamb shoulders were donated from Border Springs Farm in Virginia, then slow roasted until it was time to serve. Like everyone worthy of your trust, I love nothing more than the taste of slow cooked, smoked meat. Seeing these lambs come out of the oven, I contemplated taking one and leaving, tearing it apart and eating it handful by handful like they serve it at Kapnos in D.C.

What you can't see in the pictures is the bulgar trahana, which tastes like grits and bulgar made a baby. The bulgar is cooked with dairy, resulting in a creamier texture and milder flavor. The red sauce you see at the bottom is a homemade harissa, also incredibly tasty. I will be going all Zero Dark Thirty on Russ to get that recipe. Grilled okra and baby vidalias rounded it off. If forced to pick 3 dishes from the meal to eat again, it'd easily be the tuna, dumplings, and the tsoureki shortcake with basil ice cream. Sweet desserts do about as much for me as monogamy does for Don Draper. They're wasted on me. This, however, was not. The tsoureki has mahlab, a spice made from cherry pits, giving it an almondy, nutty hint. On top of that was a thin layer of the piney, sappy mastic oil, then sweetened yogurt, strawberries, and finally, the basil ice cream.

The ice cream was on the same level (or maybe even higher...) than Anne Croy's basil gelato at Pastaria. You could tell looking around the room that this dessert was a home run. People stopped talking and just focused on eating as much as the could as quickly as they could, then trying to figure out who around them wasn't going to finish theirs.

Russ' Dinner Lab gave St. Louisans food that they can't find here otherwise. His love of Greek cooking combined with years in the South have left him with a unique voice in the culinary world. I hope he decides to make St. Louis his home once again - he'd have my business.

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