Pisco has visited Palace Kitchen numerous times, and it’s a reliable, solid experience. It’s especially good late at night, when the bar is packed with people and you can feel the energy buzzing in the air. Say what you want about the food, but there are precious few places in the Emerald City where you can find a broad range of folks eating and drinking with gusto past midnight.
Today was a friend’s birthday so three of us headed out for an early dinner after roaming around downtown. Pisco can’t remember the last time he ate before dark (last spring?) but given the menacing cloud cover, wind, and intermittent rain, it might as well have been night.
The menu looked good and we ordered a few small plates to start. The goat cheese fondue was a winner, though it’s hard to imagine anything that would not taste insanely delicious after being dredged though melted goat cheese. The cheese plate was excellent too, with the schloss cheese going quite well with the accompanying oatmeal crackers.
I remember seeing the description for the Carbonara dish – something about fresh homemade noodles, chanterelle mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, and an olive oil-based sauce. I asked our server if there was any pancetta in it, and he said no – it was essentially a vegetarian version. “You could, of course, order some bacon on the side, and many of our customers do that,” he added. Pisco makes a quite decent carbonara at home, so in the interest of exploring another version, he took leave of his senses and ordered the dish.
Let’s review the essential components of a carbonara dish: pasta, eggs, cheese, cured meat (guanciale or pancetta), and black pepper. Its likely origin (rather, the story I like best) is that it was eaten by the “carbonari” (coal miners) in Italy who could only take long-lasting supplies with them to the mines. It’s a hearty dish, and when its powerful flavors come together in the right combination, it is heavenly. Unfortunately, what came out was so far from what I expected that I immediately disliked it. Vegetarian carbonara? An oxymoron. There were no cured meats on the plate, and if they had used black pepper it could not be detected. Instead, there were a handful of chanterelles scattered around the plate, and leaves of escarole mixed with the fresh pasta. In retrospect I can’t imagine a more effete version of this classic. Escarole? Please.
It was not completely without merit – the house-made noodles were delicious. Light and fresh, cooked al dente, they were the only redeeming feature.
I think if this dish was marketed as something other than pasta carbonara, it would be quite good. I can imagine quite a large number of people who would like something similar to this. But for the love of all things Italian, please don’t call it carbonara! Somewhere in Emilia-Romagna, an old cook named Luigi is turning over in his grave.
And while I’m ranting about authenticity – please serve the limoncello ice cold. It’s quite good, a bit less potent than other versions I’ve had lately, but it needs to be chilled to get the right effect.
I love the Palace Kitchen, and I’ll be back soon, but I won’t be ordering the carbonara.
October 1, 2007 at 10:08 pm |
No mention of the h-o-t server? Another reason to go back, even if the carbonara is not.