March 11, 2013 Lunch – Taj Mahal; Dinner – Zinc Restaurant
Week tasting menu
Willy and I went to Taj Mahal for lunch around 1:00
p.m. We found a table easily and I had
my usual; beef meat balls, tandoori chicken, dhal (garam beans), and saag
(greens, usually spinach, with cilantro, garlic and chili) covered with riata
(yogurt sauce with onions and potatoes) and fresh onion.
It was great as usual.
Shamez came by and we talked a few minutes. His brother works as the director of fueling
at the Vancouver Airport, so he was very familiar with Vancouver. As Shamez said, “Very rainy”.
I rode a fast ten miles to Montano and back at around 3:30
p.m. and really stretched out my legs in the warming weather and steady 15 mph
wind at my back coming home. I think I
know what Michael Phelps means when he says he just tries to concentrate on
stretching out his body when he swims.
At 5:15 Suzette came home and we drove over to the UNM Art
Museum for the lecture but we got the date wrong, it is March 18, so when I
suggested that it was Restaurant Week, we started googling the restaurants we
thought might be on the list of those sponsoring three course dinners. We looked at Scalo, la Provence, Artichoke,
and Zinc and decided that Zinc had the best offerings, so we drove the five
blocks to Zinc. We checked out Buffalo
Traders and then went next door to Zinc.
The restaurant was relatively crowded for a Monday evening, about half
full. We had our choice of tables and
took a. table between two other couples in the banquette area.
The way Restaurant Week works usually is that each
restaurant that participates, and according to Suzette each participating
restaurant must pay $350.00 to participate offers a select three course tasting
menu for $30.00. In the case of Zinc,
when we were given the Albuquerque Restaurant Week 2013 Tasting Menu we
discovered that “Zinc offers a $30 three course Tasting Menu year round!”
I flipped the page of the Tasting Menu and found that Zinc
also had a wine menu with specials for Restaurant Week.
An oriental couple sitting at the next table seemed to be eating the
Tasting menu, so l said hello and asked if his dish was good when I noticed that the man was eating the
appetizer that I wanted, the clams and mussels in a chorizo broth, and he responded favorably.
When our waiter, Jesse, came to our table to take our drink order,
we said we were ready to order. We discussed with Jesse the wine menu and we decided
that the best option was the Restaurant Week Wine Flight with three half
glasses of wine for $15.50, one of which was a Mt. Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon
that was priced at $8.00 for a ½ glass on the regular wine menu, plus two other wines
that looked fine also, a Gerard Bertrand Cremant de Limoux (France, sparkling)
and a Loius Latour Pouilly Fuissé (France, Chardonnay).
Having decided on the wines, we proceeded to order our three
tasting menu items. I ordered the Beer
Steamed Mussels and Clams and Suzette ordered the Spanish Tapas Board for her
appetizer. We both must have been ready
for some Spanish food.
We had more trouble with the Main Courses, so we looked at
the extensive description of the accompanying vegetables and starches listed
with each item and Suzette ordered the Talus Wind Lamb Strip Loin because she
wanted to try the house made gnocchi and gorgonzola cream and try the Rhone
red-thyme jus.
I was attracted to the Truffled Taleggio Scalloped potatoes
and bordelaise sauce finished with marrow butter served with the Sliced Herb
Crusted Tenderloin of Beef, but I mentioned to Jesse that I did not like a lot
of black pepper.
Dessert was easy. There were only two choices so I ordered
the Deep Dish Chocolate Cream Pie and Suzette ordered the Wild Flower Hone and
Pear Tarte Tartin.
In a few minutes Jesse brought each of us our three glasses
of wine in our flights. We both grabbed
the sparkling Cremant and toasted our brilliance remembering and choosing to
enjoy Restaurant Week. The Cremant was
slightly sweet, I would judge it to be between a Brut and a demi-sec but with
some minerality. I went to the Gerard
Bertrand website and found out that the wine is 70% Chardonnay, 10% Mauzac and
20% Chenin Blanc. It is the Chenin Blanc
that provides the pleasant minerality. Gerard
Bertrand is a large producer located in Narbonne in southern France, near the
Pyrennes Mountains. The Limoux wine
district is in the mountain valley of Aude above Carcassonne. I have tried a number of Gerard Bertrand
wines and find them to be a bit uneven, but the Cremant was delicious and had
elegant fine bubbles and was made in the method traditionnelle.
Soon a service person brought our appetizers. Suzette’s tapa board was served on a thick
wooden board. It contained two slices of
grilled rustic bread with garlic oil, two slices of Serrano ham served in the
long thin slices like in Spain, warm olives, two slices of Montalban cheese,
two “Paella” croquettes and a ramekin of lightly cooked diced tomato soffrito
and pimiento flavored spreading sauce that was delicious. Suzette graciously
shared her appetizers with me. I loved
the Serrano ham on buttered a piece of naan that came with my soup appetizer. The paella croquette was very loose and so soft
that it fell apart in my hand as I tried to put some tomato sauce on it and bite
into it which I liked very much with its hint of saffron. Suzette said to try the ham on buttered bread
with the cheese and a bit of the tomato dipping sauce, sort of a Dagwood
sandwich tapa. I did and I loved
it.
The broth of my soup was really the beer and clam and mussel
cooking medium flavored with the spoonful of sautéed chorizo that garnished the
clams and mussels. The chef flipped one
of the clam shells so it made a small bowl and he or she dropped a dollop of
chorizo flakes into the shell and around it in the soup; basic but very
pleasant. We both loved our appetizers
although my soup had some black pepper in it.
Jesse came back in a few minutes and said that the chef said
the beef had black pepper in the herbs it was rolled in and that the chef could
prepare me a separate dish without pepper, if I wanted. I told him that if the herbs were cooked that
I could usually am unaffected by the pepper.
He said the herbs were slow roasted and were fully cooked. I thanked Jesse for his and the kitchen’s
concern and told him to just serve me the regular preparations.
I tried the Pouilly Fuissé with the appetizer. It was lovely also, not much minerality, but
a pleasant un-oaked French Chardonnay.
Soon the Main Courses came and they were lovely and tasty and
perfectly classical in their construction My dish included three slices of
tenderloin rolled in a mixture of herbs and slow cooked to perfect rare
tenderness drizzled with a fabulous Bordelaise sauce with a deep concentrated
demi-glace richness from concentrated stock and mushrooms. Sitting beside the steak was a square of the thinnest
sliced potatoes I have ever seen interspersed with thyme leaves and covered and
baked with tallegio cheese and truffle oil.
Also, there was a mélange of fresh lightly sautéed vegetables, some
miniature. The sauce was so good I asked
for more and Jesse brought a small dish filled with sauce and topped with some
more of the marrow butter. Voila.
I enjoyed it immensely but could not finish
it and do justice to the dessert so I ate half and asked Jesse to box the
remaining half. He soon brought a lovely
box sealed with a Zinc sticker, very elegant.
Suzette’s Main course was just as good as mine. It included slices of lamb loin also slow
cooked to rare drizzled with the most intense Rhone red au jus demi-glace sauce
I have tasted in a long time, plated with house made gnocchi with a light
gorgonzola sauce, probably using milk as the emulsifier and lightly sautéed
vegetables. We decided that the
vegetable cook was into raw food, but we ate all of her dish.
To make a long story shorter, we loved dessert. There is
surely a trained pastry chef on board.
My dessert was ingenious, a take on tradition deep dish Chocolate cream
pie but with two layers on the bottom. Instead
of just the chocolate gelatin, Zinc laid a dark chocolate gelatin base on a crushed
‘nilla wafer crust and then a milk chocolate mousse filling on top of it and
then a layer of white chocolate mousse instead of the meringue. Fabulous.
Suzette’s dessert was a very classical tarte
tartin made with thinly slice pears instead of apples, topped with a house made
cardamom ice cream and laid on a drizzleof caramel sauce (very French!).
The total bill was $91.00.
$30.00 for each tasting three course meal and $15.50 for the flights of
three half glasses of wine. We deemed it
cheaper and better quality of food ingredients and preparation than the
delicious meal we ate t Paco’s on Saturday evening in all respects, except
service at both restaurants was outstanding.
Let’s talk a bit about strategy. And compare Saturday evening’s meal to
tonight’s meal. The interesting
comparison is that the prices and total meal costs for both Zinc and Paco’s
restaurants were almost identical; 3 glasses of wine at each and three entrees and
two desserts at Paco’s versus two tasting menus with two appetizers, two
entrees and two desserts at Zinc and a total bill at Paco’s of $82.50 versus
$91.00 at Zinc. Yet the combination of
quality of ingredients, and technical expertise in preparation and commitment
to classical food combinations and sauces at Zinc equals or exceeds any other
Albuquerque restaurant I have eaten at lately.
Zinc offers a superior food experience in every respect, including
price, and I highly recommend it to any serious food lover. The big difference in my mind is that Paco’s
scores high on the Southwestern funk factor, like use of chili in creative ways
in dishes, while Zinc is arguably the most classically French restaurant in
town. I love Zinc’s devotion to
perfection of classical French cooking techniques and find it rarely; so my
vote goes to Zinc.
In fact, Zinc will stand up well against any good restaurant
in its price range anywhere, including France. I loved it and am ready to go
back and eat the same meal or any other meal cooked by the same kitchen staff,
any time.
As we left Zinc, we walked into a beautiful sunset. A perfect end to our meal.
Bon Appétit
