{"id":12861,"date":"2017-04-27T17:55:01","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T21:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=12861"},"modified":"2017-05-04T10:03:57","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T14:03:57","slug":"dinner-is-the-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/dinner-is-the-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Dinner Is The Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 2017 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

The newest old trend is putting the circus back in \u2018bread and circus.\u2019<\/span><\/h3>\n

By Colin W. Sargent<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"May-17-After-Dark-Flambe\"A <\/span>group of friends was talking about food trends when the discussion turned to food as theater. You know those mid-century showy presentations: open kitchens, tableside prep with gu\u00e9ridons and portable gas jets, salads tossed with \u2018ginormous\u2019 utensils, juggled cocktail shakers, and, most flamboyantly, flamb\u00e9<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWait, what? Nobody\u2019s doing that around here anymore.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She was right in the sense that flamb\u00e9 was snuffed out decades ago. But didn\u2019t flambe\u2019s box-office bombing set the stage for its comeback?<\/span><\/p>\n

Now that the Recession is receding and comfort food has become a little too comforting (read tame), people are looking for an excuse to dress up that isn\u2019t just your second-best-friend\u2019s mother\u2019s college roommate\u2019s niece\u2019s wedding. <\/span><\/p>\n

With the closure of Barnum and Bailey, bringing the show back to the dining room may be just the ticket. Turns out, restaurateurs are<\/em> beginning to step up to the plate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSpotted\u2013the Baked Alaska making a comeback in Toronto restaurants.\u201d Or check out newsposto.com:\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cBaked Alaska [is] a retro dessert that\u2019s making a comeback.\u201d It\u2019s the surprise of the summer. Suddenly, everybody knew Baked Alaska before it was hot. \u201cIt is said to have been inspired by America\u2019s purchase of Alaska in 1867,\u201d newsposto opines. \u201cNow nostalgia for this thermodynamically challenging pudding is making it popular again.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

I remember as a young Naval Officer, you weren\u2019t allowed to go out from a dining in until the Baked Alaska had sung.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so it goes now in Maine.<\/span><\/p>\n

Keeper of the Flame<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe serve Baked Alaska,\u201d says Hugo Aguirre<\/strong>, who\u2019s been at the White Barn Inn Relais and Bistro<\/strong> since July. \u201cEspecially on holidays. A lot of people come here for the classic dining experience. When they come, they do like to enjoy the presentation. They want to linger. They like to be entertained.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a special occasion here every night, with flamb\u00e9 part of the pyrotechnics.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe also have two versions of the Bananas Foster,\u201d both well lit. \u201cOne is for the White Barn Bistro, our less formal restaurant. It\u2019s the classic Bananas Foster presentation. We take butter and sugar and saut\u00e9 it and burn banana liqueur and rum and flamb\u00e9 it. This is all tableside. It\u2019s a conversation starter. It\u2019s very popular. People love to take pictures, love to take video. Everyone is aware of it in the bistro.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a lot to be said for a private flame. In the fine dining part of the White Barn Inn, \u201cWe have a banana souffl\u00e9 wrapped inside a cr\u00eape.\u201d Here, it\u2019s less showy but no less romantic. It\u2019s another tableside experience, \u201cpresented with two bananas that have been br\u00fbl\u00e9ed. Finally, Myers Rum is lit and poured (while still flaming) onto the plate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond the fire, what\u2019s the trick to flamb\u00e9? \u201cPeople will never stop loving flamb\u00e9 if you do it right. It\u2019s done right, I would say, if you keep it classic\u2013not necessarily classy but classic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Aguirre agrees flamb\u00e9 went dark over the last decade, but he considers the disappearance the exception, not the rule. \u201cA lot of things \u2018went away\u2019 after the crisis in 2008.\u201d Once the shadow of the stock-market plunge started directing the market, \u201cEfficiency in cost was the biggest driver in our industry.\u201d Not the greatest news for romantic diners. \u201cFine dining with tableside presentation took such a massive hit that it almost disappeared for a while. It\u2019s something I love to do, just as I love salt-crusted whole fish served at tableside, where you debone for the guests.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Do your classic presentations include the famous 1980s show-stopper, Chateaubriand for two with baby vegetables? <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe do that too, actually,\u201d Aguirre says. \u201cWe have Chateaubriand on our bistro menu. We carve it for tableside, cooked to perfection\u2013asparagus, mushrooms, a red wine jus. During the Recession, people were disinclined to order it because it seemed too extravagant. But many diners are rediscovering it as a wonderful way to celebrate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith Chateaubriand, where you use the best filet of tenderloin, it\u2019s an expensive item that you don\u2019t get so much profit from. But what you do deliver is value.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Really, what\u2019s a memory worth?<\/span><\/p>\n

Fore Street <\/strong>offers a peppermint Baked Alaska from its bag of tricks. It\u2019s most likely to appear in the summer, virtually without warning, a surprise. For a place already famous for its open-grill fire, it\u2019s no big deal. \u201cWe just br\u00fbl\u00e9e the marshmallow.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Could I also order the rum baba flaming?\u00a0 <\/span><\/em>The busy staffer hangs up before I could hear the answer.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Harraseeket Inn<\/strong> in Freeport had Bananas Foster on the menu last spring. According to the restaurant staffer we spoke to, we\u2019ll have to wait for summer to see if there\u2019s a second act. <\/span><\/p>\n

Torch Song<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just food that\u2019s being re-ignited, my fellow raconteurs. Flaming cocktails are lighting up the Hunt + Alpine Club<\/strong>. And at Crooners & Cocktails<\/strong> on 90 Exchange Street, \u201cwe have the Dean Martin Flame of Love,\u201d says Rachael Joyce<\/strong>, general manager and bartender. \u201cIt\u2019s a Stoli martini: three ounces of Stoli chilled with a \u2019chino cherry rinse and finished with a flamed orange peel. A simple, clean cocktail. We do the flaming right here at the bar. If a customer asks, we\u2019ll do it tableside!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

But there\u2019s got to be a morning after. Following your long night\u2019s journey into day, there returns everyone\u2019s excuse for drinking at noon, brunch. Established 120 years ago, brunch is on fire, too. [Some people say the whole juice-based cocktail thing, viz., thick Bloody Marys, mimosas, and cosmopolitans, originated with brunch. See the Washington Post\u2019s<\/em> story \u201cHow brunch became the most delicious\u2013and divisive\u2013meal in America.\u201d]<\/span><\/p>\n

Crooners & Cocktails combines the two trends of returning brunch and returning flamb\u00e9 every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. \u201cOn our brunch menu we have Bananas Foster Waffles<\/em>,\u201d Joyce says. Watch the blue flame flap above the melted butter, brown sugar, rum, cinnamon, and ice-cream with the jazzy history of New Orleans. Yes, please. Ring-a-ding-ding.<\/span><\/p>\n

Original Sin<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So after decades in the dark, our appetite for tableside theater and all things flamb\u00e9 is being re-ignited. Recognition of this appeared in Bon App\u00e9tit Magazine<\/em> as early as 2014, when senior editor Julia Kramer dug out a 1978 story \u201cLet\u2019s Flamb\u00e9 a Lobster!\u201d from her archives and whimsically posted it. The internet was lit on fire. <\/span><\/p>\n

We were sitting at Table 11 in the Grill Room<\/strong>, where the experience to the open flame is perfectly framed, watching the chef deftly turn meat in the dramatic flames, and wondered, \u201cCan Cherries Jubilee, Cr\u00eapes Suzette, Harbor Lights, and Steak Diane be on the horizon?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Restaurateurs are recognizing and seizing on our need to dawdle over our meals. We will no longer be satisfied standing in front of a food truck and eating only with our hands. We want to see our food be prepared, and we want to wait for it. And that\u2019s what\u2019s what.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 2017
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