by Libbette Mahady

What is a foodie? I consider myself a foodie (or at least aspire to be one, as my budget and experiences grow), but defining exactly what a foodie is gives me pause to think. Certainly, a foodie enjoys eating. But don’t most people? (Although, on that note, I was on the train the other day and I heard some teenager saying “I hate eating. If I didn’t have to eat, I wouldn’t. Most food tastes like crap, and just makes you feel full. Except Hot Pockets. Those taste pretty good.” Most people listening may have just thought the kid was a bit of an idiot. I thought he was some alien freak, and instantly dismissed him as the plebby-est of all the plebes.) That aside, it seems that I will be writing some foodie-related articles for YMB. Some of these will be restaurant reviews, some will be ingredient or technique focused. I do not profess to being an expert – just someone who enjoys food – reading about it, shopping for it, cooking it, and of course, eating it!

I wanted to go to Casa Mono ever since I heard it was opening – I like Mario Batali’s TV show, and his restaurants, but Italian food has never been my “thing”, so the idea of Batali doing Spanish food really appealed to me. Having heard that certain holidays/ event days are the best days to get seats at hard-to-book restaurants, we decided to go out to eat at Casa Mono on July 4th. I called at about 5pm, and was told that we could come in at 5:30. So we did, and it was indeed quiet, as compared with our one previous visit. It’s not a big restaurant, but it conveys a sense of openness through its large windows. Dark wood fittings and colored tile floors add some festivity. When we arrived we were offered a choice of tables, which is always nice. We sat against a window, with a wall of wine to our side, in relative privacy.

Casa Mono serves its food tapas-style – meaning you choose several small plates, rather than one main entrée dish. The intention with tapas is that you share, which is good news, because all the dishes are so interesting that missing out would be quite upsetting. Having been to Casa Mono once before, and being advised that five plates was a good number for two people to share, we decided to order four dishes from the main menu, and one vegetable dish. The menu is divided into two columns – lighter, fried and seafood dishes on one side, and heavier and meat dishes on the other. This was lost on me the first time we ate at Casa Mono, even though I did notice that they brought the food in two separate “courses”. This allows you to tailor your wine to suit, which is always a good thing.

One very cool thing about Batali’s restaurants is that they offer their wines by the quartino. The term refers to a quarter of a litre, or 250 millilitres – one third of a standard bottle of wine. Thus, a quartino is enough for two small glasses of wine. Why is this so exciting? How is it better than wines by the glass? Well, you generally cannot share wine by the glass, for starters. And by-the-glass wine lists are usually a “token” representation of what’s available, at best. In short, wine by the glass is usually treated with a lack of respect and forethought. This is not the case with Batali and his quartinos – the quartino list is usually immense, and if you get a good waiter, they will deviate from the list to pour you a quartino of something they think you will like. The other advantage (and this is a big one) means that you can, as I touched on above, drink wines that suit every course. Thus, we chose our food then asked our waiter to choose wines that would suit. This is a trick I frequently employ, particularly when faced with an unfamiliar wine list – and all I know of Spanish wines is Rioja and Tempranillo. Not much to go on.

We wanted to order some different things than what we had eaten the last time (highlights from the last visit were pumpkin and goat cheese croquettes, and duck). The first two dishes to arrive were baccala (salt cod) croquettes, and razor clams with lemon. I looooove fish cakes, so the baccala croquettes were a no-brainer for me. Soft and fluffy inside, crunchy and tasty outside. Unfortunately, there were only three of the 2-inch long croquettes on the plate – what a tease. The razor clams were tasty but not as enjoyable. I’d never had razor clams before, but I found them to be somewhat chewy and gritty. I’m inclined to think that this is just what razor clams are like, but it’s possible the restaurant had a slip-up with its ingredients. To go with this first “course”, our waiter brought us a very light white wine. Unfortunately, his strong accent and my poor memory mean I have no recollection of what the wine was called – I just know it was in a thin green bottle with a bright yellow and green label. Helpful, huh? Anyway, in describing the wine, the waiter told us it was one he had just recently tried himself and liked, and was “acidic and had almost a mineral quality,” with a slight fizz, even though it was not technically a sparkling wine. Oooh, yummy. In an unprecedented move, I finished my glass first and then stole some of Rajan’s. It was light and delicious, and met very well with the seafood. In a move I thought was very cute, our waiter hovered, watching nervously, to make sure we liked the wine he chose for us.

When the waiter cleared our plates from the first round, I told him I wanted him to now choose a wine for our second course – which included pork and octopus, and asparagus. I told him we’d like a “‘bigger’ white or a light red”. He wisely chose a white with some fruity honey and herbaceous notes – strong enough to stand up to our asparagus (which is known as the hardest food to pair with wine – something to do with the sulfur, I think -- the same reason it makes your pee smell bad). The octopus and fava beans were very good – light but with substance, and the baby octopus had just the right amount of charring. The beans were sitting in a tasty olive-oil based sauce. Our asparagus with lemon aioli (garlic mayonnaise) was as good as you would expect – it’s kind of a hard thing to mess up, short of seriously overcooking it. The highlight for me (a lover of all things porcine) was the pork with grilled melon (honeydew and cantaloupe) and pickled watermelon rind. Wow. In addition to having a thing for pork, I have a thing for fruit with savory and meat dishes. In this case, the fruit itself was grilled, adding a smoky flavor, as well as an extra depth of sweetness (as the grilled flesh caramelized). The watermelon pickle could have easily been mistaken for a garnish, but it was so much more than that. A thin strip of the white part of the watermelon added a vinegary depth which contrasted well with the light-pink flesh (pork is never done “well” at Batali’s restaurants, which is okay if you know where your pigs are coming from, as they do) and the sweet fruit. A few bites contained something extra sour – maybe sumac? We cleaned our plates, and when the waiter came to clear them away he joked “Was there something wrong with your food? Should I send it back to the kitchen?”

We sought his advice again when it came to dessert – he recommended a type of crème brulee with manchego cheese formed around bay (laurel) leaves and deep fried. This sounded interesting, so we decided to give it a go. I also instructed him to choose an appropriate dessert wine (by this point, I think he was enjoying the challenge of finding something that suited, and further with pleasing us when we liked his choices – the mark of a waiter who is not just their because it’s a job, but rather because they truly enjoy the restaurant and the food). This dessert was great – a simple pleasure in life is cracking the top of a crème brulee – this one cracked appropriately, and the crème underneath, while rich and satisfying, was not cloyingly sweet or overly creamy as this dessert can sometimes be. Similarly, the pale amber wine he chose for us was sweet enough for the dessert, but did not taste like sugar syrup. (I really wish I could remember the names of these wines.) The real highlight was the leaves – you had to grip the stem, put the leaf in your mouth, and scrape off the cheese with your teeth, leaving the inedible bay leaf on the plate, while the fresh green flavor lingered on the cheese. A dessert that seemed like it would be too much – creamy, cheesy, sugary, fried – was in fact perfectly balanced. We ordered coffees to finish and wandered away happily, after leaving a big tip for our excellent waiter.