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ENTERTAINMENT
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| 1905: An offering you can’t refuse |
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| Dubby Bhagat |
Kathmandu :
1905. Spring Street, New
York City. Italian-American Chef Gennaro Lombardi opens the
first Italian-American restaurant in North America.
2005.
Kantipath, Kathmandu Shobha Raimajhi celebrates 100 years of
the building her restaurant 1905 is housed in.
It’s an old
Rana palace made romantic with a lake, walkways and Rana rooms
with leaded ceilings and a feel of Venice. 1905 (the
restaurant) in 2006 gets an Italian-American Chef Vincent
Ginocchio to create a complex and delicious menu culled form
his culinary studies in Vermont and from his stint in Nevada
City, California working under Chef Roberto, a Mexican maestro
with a Dutch Guru.
Vincent came to Kathmandu with the
Nepali owner (Krishna) of a restaurant in the same city called
Didi Bhai all of which he recalls with Italianesque hand
gestures and an accent straight out of Brooklyn. “I want to
start a dinner club and I am going to plant a herb garden. And
tonight I am going to give you a surprise menu,” said Vincent
as Prakash Khadga served
the Crab cakes with white bean
salad and Bok Choy dressing. It was East-West fusion as the
Crab cakes flavoured with celery bell pepper and mayonnaise
mixed with the coolness of the Bok Choy Pacific Rim dressing,
while the Beans salad with a rich and reduced Ragout went wild
on our palates.
“Chef Roberto mixed Asian and European
cuisine and taught me more in the time I spent with him than
in all the previous years studying cooking. His presentations
were
inspired by Nouvelle Cuisine but his portions are
larger and he has a fondness for combining Asian elements into
his food,” said Vincent.
The Pork rack atop creamy polenta
finished with a rosemary glaze was a perfectly balanced almost
South-East Asian sweet-savoury creation. The Polenta followed
the classic American food writer Rombauer recipe which says,
“Just as our greatest artitectural surprise in Italy was to
find St Francis’ first church a log cabin, so were we amazed
to discover that even more delicious and interesting things
are done with Cornmeal in Italy than in our deep
South.”
Vincent’s Polenta added a creamy after taste to the
pork. “I listen to old Italian-American music sung by people
like Dean Martin while I cook. It makes it fun,” said Vincent
as the Seared Scallops atop a citrus cous cous salad served in
a pool of Ginger broth was placed before us.
And it tasted
as good as it looked with the cous cous bound together with
citrus that would have pleased Father Clement Rodier who
developed the Clementine — a hybrid of the tangerine and
Seville oranges in 1902. The ginger added a tartness and the
scallops were crisp and then soft...
Crisp and soft was the
Sesame seed coated Bekti fish with Wasabi mash and Asian cole
slaw. It was a dish of dreams. The fish had a gorgeous crust,
the Wasabi mashed potatoes hit a sharp note and the Asian cole
slaw was Vincent’s version of the Asian cuchumber normally
made with onions, cucumbers with a lemon dressing. Vincent
made it with cabbage that was al dente which made it slightly
resistant to the bite.
We wound up with a Chocolate mousse
that came in small pieces and surely contained all the rich
and righteous ingredients like cream, eggs, coffee powder,
cocoa powder and chocolate. It was rich satisfying and as
Italian-American as Vincent.
Geese screeched in the lake
and Louis Prima was singing Buona Sera it’s time to say good
night..., which we did reluctantly making promises to go back
to 1905 several times in 2006. For surprises, call 4225272,
4215068.
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