Voulez-vous Rendez-vous avec moi, ce soir?

Part of the problem is the name. It sounds like the kind of restaurant were Dockers-clad Cambridge dot-commers take their Match-dot-com third dates, hoping their $29.95 membership fee pays off.

My other issue with Rendezvous -- "dishing haute cuisine to Central 'mental' Square since 2005" -- is its fickle menu. Is it French? Is it American? Is Italian? Or even North African? Embracing its previous life as a Burger King, you get it your way at Rendezvous. In this case, it's muddled and mixed.

It's not that the food was bad. My charcuterie plate -- a Kandinsky-esque palette of duck griette, cured pork belly, and chicken liver mousse bedazzled with cornichons and caper berries cut so they resembled the Llyods of London's building -- was a highlight. I had to fend my dining companions away from the griette -- basically a glorified terrine that packed so much duck fat into 15 cubic centimeters that NASA scientists should contact the chef to learn how to optimize its payloads.

Katie's gnocchi with morels, maitake, microscopic black truffles and piave cheese also impressed, if -- and only if -- you got a morel-filled bite. Otherwise, as Katie notes, it was umami overload.

Ada's cheese plate boasted a nice blue goat that had to be quadruple creamed, but Angela's cold octopus salad -- Greek or Sicilian? -- was on the bland side. I didn't notice the fennel, lovage or smoked paprika on the menu, but there was cilantro aplenty.

The entrees also batted around .300. The skate -- cooked on the the bone, if you know what I mean -- was a delicious ode to the Pacific Northwest, combining fiddlehead ferns, hazlenuts, sage, and a little too much brown butter. But its sauteed potatoes were a superfluous sacrifice to the tyrannical triumvirate of meat, starch and vegetables. The shrimp came overcooked and the roast chicken unremarkable, though I admittedly tried only a bite of each, and I urge my dining companions to prove me wrong.

The wine list -- exclusively old world and Californian -- included a number of wines under $30. We tried an excellent $24 Spanish wine, proving that the cheapest plunk on the list may be the one to get -- unless you're on your third Match.com date and looking to close the deal. It was a 2006 Vino Sin Ley made of a grape I had never heard of -- Montestrall. I might order a case, if I can find it. Over dinner we had an unremarkable -- and more expensive -- Cote du Rhone. It had a nice earthiness that complemented the brown butter, err skate, and I bet it would have gone well with the gnocchi, as well. But no one bothered noting the winery or vintage -- 'nuf said.

We split two deserts: a lovely chocolate cake with a dollop of cinnamon whipped cream and, my favorite, an orange-spiked polenta cake topped with rosemary ice cream, strawberry and crunchy, tart rhubarb that reminded you of its kinship to celery. No complaints here.

So Rendezvous wasn't bad, but for $70, it wasn't fantastic, either. When Ada asked for her roast chicken wrapped to-go -- I see it reincarnated as a splendid sandwich -- it came back in a Chinese take out box. Next time I'm at Rendezvous, I'll order the Kung Pao escargot.

Perfume counters

In the past year or two I've become obsessed with perfumes. I've managed to collect quite a few, and the number of fragrances I've sampled is well into the hundreds. Some perfume lovers have had an interest in fragrance since they were young, but I never did, not until I discovered the world of niche perfumery and scents that were unusual, unisex, and often rather natural-smelling. Before that, my only real knowledge of perfume was from the perfume counters at department stores.

The counters flanked department stores like fortresses, creating an obstacle course that required a strategy to cross unscathed. Averting the eyes and walking quickly and determinedly was the best hope, but not always successful. The women waited in crisp polyester suits, faces bronzed to an ocher sheen and lips pinched into lines of fuchsia, crimson, and coral. They looked bored but their eyes were predatory, tracking each customer winding her way around the bulging glass counters toward the escalators. As someone passed, their bodies lifted to attention and swayed forward, bangled arms stretching out to brandish bottles and paper test strips.

“Care to sample the newest fragrance from Gucci?”

They would lift the bottle, with its pale pink or lime-colored juice, and depress a thick spray on the paper, wafting the strip with a practice sweep. They would bestow it on the customer and watch her as she inhaled.

From the paper would emerge a chemical smell of fruit and flowers and sugar—sometimes a little more peach or a little more apple, a bit more freesia or rose, but always managing to be pretty and bland and suffocating all at once.

“Isn't it gorgeous?” they would say, mustering what appeared to be genuine rapture over the scent they had been smelling for days now.

Or, they would be practical. “It's a perfect scent for summer, not too heavy.”

Or simply appeal to consensus. “This is very popular.”

The latest perfume was always what they'd push, as they were directed to. Whether the person wanted something for day or night, something sheer or sinister, a perfume with florals or citrus or wood, they would steer their customers to the newest Gucci or Dior or Chanel as relentlessly as a jetstream.

They were not open to argument. “Oh, but this is very unique. It has lychee!”

Their enthusiasm was persistent but never personal. They remained ciphers with tight smiles and arched brows.

All around them the air was heavy with perfumes, heated by the bright lights of the makeup counters. The scents mixed together into a nondescript scent of femininity—a particular kind of femininity that sought to smooth over its anxiety with glittering powders and lifting creams. This femininity required perfumes that suggested flowers and fruit and candy, that had no dark shadows that could be interpreted as masculine, nothing that smelled of sex or sweat, nothing overtly natural, nothing that would stir souls or evoke memories. The bottles might be given names that suggested pleasure or danger or individuality, but the odor itself always conformed to a certain expected blandness. Perfume like this was meant to be functional, to promise passion but deliver safety.

And the sales associates always waited at the entrances of the department stores as if ushering one onto this narrow path of womanhood, their determined posture a signal that avoiding that journey was as impossible as crossing the sea of counters without a spritz.

Umami Rendezvous

After sitting down at 9 pm in a warm little wooden booth that compared quite favorably with the one at the IHOP in the burbs earlier in the day, the Wind-Up crew took some time with the wine list. Are we supposed to recognize these wines by name? Or is everyone just guessing like we are? We decided on red from Spain, eliminated the more expensive ones, then picked a grape none of us had heard of before, monastrell. (The Web tells me today that it’s also known as mourvèdre.) I don’t have the vocab for describing wine but I really liked this one; it was good to drink on its own and then held its ground against our decadently salty, fatty, earthy, spicy appetizer selections.

For my appetizer, I had umami pillows. I mean potato gnocchi with sauteed morels and maitake, black truffle and piave cheese (not to mention a rich, earthy broth that gets no official billing). I’ve had the gnocchi at Rendezvous several times before; they change it up all the time. After my first bite I was a bit disappointed, but then I figured out I needed to get a bit of everything in each bite. As you can see from the photo, it was quite a homey dish (except for the truffle shavings.) Ewen’s charcuterie plate was beautiful. Capers and cornichons stood up like transmitters, antennae, and skyscrapers on an alien planet admidst islands of fatty meat. A dollop of chicken-liver mousse looked like a Saarinen building and tasted like licking Cheeto dust off your fingers, but sweeter.

Our entrees were on the whole a bit lighter so we picked a Cote du Rhone for the next bottle. It was good for drinking with a meal but didn’t make much of an impression on me. Nor did my shrimp. At previous meals at Rendezvous I’ve had those tiny, tiny sweet shrimp local to New England, covered in chili powder and lime juice. These were larger and also quite sweet but ever so slightly overcooked. That shouldn’t happen at what Gourmet dubs one of the best restaurants in the country. But I loved the bed of black rice below them and ringed with butter that had a hint of spice and a hint of shrimpiness. The nutty arroz negro valenciano has a large amount of anthocyanins and of course there are a lot of nutritional claims about them on the Internet. What’s cool about anthocyanins to me: they’re in berries and blood oranges and experimental organic solar cells. And they stained the inside of my mouth. Angela ftw with the toasted orechiette and meatballs, for sure. (She had a head start on us all though, having outgeeked us by studying the menu and selecting her dishes before we even got there.)

The best thing about dessert, which I hope someone else will describe, were the thin, crunchy slices of macerated rhubarb and the rosemary ice cream plated with the polenta cake. The evening ended on Ewen’s roof amidst the orange-mist-shrouded chimneys of Inman Square with tiny sips of Old Chub. And then I floated off to sleep on an umami pillow...

more Tuscan kale, please

Last night was our Wind-Up group trip to Rendezvous in Central Square. There was a lot going on, so I'll just stick to telling you how good my food was.

For an appetizer I got the salad of chilled octopus, roasted peppers, fennel, lovage, black olive and smoked paprika. The octopus was sliced thin (I like mine chunkier), but was perfectly cooked and not too chewy. I was not a fan of the iceberg lettuce. If you are charging me that much for a small salad, I expect something more than iceberg. The smoked paprika added an assertive spiciness that went perfectly with the Spanish wine we were drinking. This dish made me even more excited for my trip to Madrid that's coming up.

My entré (which came out surprisingly quick) was the braised pork and veal meatballs with toasted orecchiette, tuscan kale and piave cheese.


My only complaint about the dish? Not enough Tuscan kale. (If you haven't noticed, I have a weird obsession with this vegetable.) I have never had toasted pasta before, but it gave a nice crunchy texture to the dish. The meatballs...what can I say? They were close to perfect. Not too heavy, but very moist and flavorful. I could have eaten five more. The salty piave cheese had a strong taste but paired very well with the meat. The broth at the bottom of the bowl might have been a little too garlicky for some, but I looove garlic and felt it brought all the elements together.


As you can see, I enjoyed the meal quite a bit. I had pretty high expectations for Rendezvous, and for the most part, they were met. Maybe we will return in a few months to check out the new seasonal menu.

As much as I enjoyed my dinner, it doesn't come close to my favorite meal ever, which was at a small cafe in Paris. It consisted of fresh baguettes, warm and melty camembert cheese, perfect scallops in a white wine butter sauce, and creme brulee. This summer I am going to Italy and Madrid, and you better believe I'll be blogging about all the amazing food I encounter there.

The Wind-Up Gets Ensorcelled

Frank Bruni, the food critic for the New York Times, becomes downright rhapsodic when describing a dish he likes. Why I love reading about restaurants I will never go to, and listening to descriptions of farmers' markets in cities thousands of miles away, is an issue to be probed at another time. For now, we will dwell on Bruni's 6/25/08 rhapsody in pork. His review of two wine bars in NYC has a handful of gems that rival my previous number one favorite Bruni turn of phrase ("like a bright white archipelago on an emerald sea, dabs of house-made ricotta").

This week, Bruni declares himself "ensorcelled"* by the pigs from a Virginia farm (in particular, the blade steaks carved from them). "The arugula blunts the meat’s punch, while Parmesan in the salad brings saltiness to the brawl." Bruni, sir, we are only in paragraph 3, and you have outdone yourself.

I love this stuff, but obviously it's pretty ridiculous. Food writing can seem like so much self-indulgent bullshit. But think how open his senses must be to the experience of the meal (or to the thesaurus?) to be able to write things like that. For all the times the wind-up has said, "I'd like to do some food writing..." (and some have even said they'd like to work at a food magazine), how many of us have tried it? So I had the idea to get a few of the wind-up bloggaz to a fancy restaurant to try this out. And coincidentally, Angela is badly in need of a tuscan kale fix. So tonight at Rendezvous in Central Square in Cambridge, we will open our senses to the food, delve into the thesauri, put up some posts, and see if we can even come close to Mr. Bruni. Look for the posts tomorrow, or after we recover.

*ensorcelled: enchanted, fascinated. under the spell of a sorceror.

Blogger Beware

Before you sign on to free WiFi at your hotel or anywhere else, you should really read the user agreement. I didn’t use the internet at my hotel earlier in the week because the user agreement was pretty much insane and about one step away from requesting your signature in blood plus yr immortl soul.

If you’re staying at the Hilton or a hotel owned by them, such as a Hampton Inn, they claim all rights to everything you transmit “irrevocably in perpetuity in any location throughout the universe.” This isn’t just information about what sites you go to and what you buy. They claim copyright to any e-mail, blog, etc. that passes through their proprietary ether. And by clicking “agree” before you go online at their hotels, you are even agreeing that such materials you’re generating are original and that you have the rights to them in the first place. What does that mean? As far as I can tell, this also means that you are agreeing that you have the rights to hand over to them the copyright on any e-mails etc. coming into your inbox. I skimmed this thing a bit and thought there is just no way in hell I can agree to that. I don’t know if it would hold up in court but the way this is written, it seems to mean that if I submitted a story to my editor over their network, the magazine doesn’t own it, Hilton does.

This agreement is pretty amazing, not only in its implications but in its language. Orwell would just go to town on this thing. Throughout the document, the call the WiFi access “the Service.” A distinction is made between “information” and “the Information.” Ah, I am so happy I never thought I wanted to go to law school like so many of my high school and college classmates.

This thing goes on and on and on and on and on, buthere is the tiniest little taste of the Hilton/Hampton Inn user agreement (italics mine):

“Also, when you submit information (including the Information) to us in your use of the Service, you thereby (i) represent and warrant that such information is complete, truthful, and accurate, that you own all rights in such information, that the information, if applicable, is entirely your own original, unpublished work, is not based in whole or in part upon any pre-existing work or work of any other person, does not violate or infringe in any way any copyright, trademark, trade name, service mark or any other statutory, common law or other proprietary or personal right or interest, is not abusive, obscene, profane, sexually explicit, threatening or illegal, and you agree to indemnify, defend and hold the Indemnified Parties (as defined below) harmless from and against any such claim and relinquish, release and assign to us all rights in and title to such information, (ii) acknowledge that you (and not the Indemnified Parties) are solely liable for any damage resulting from infringement of copyrights, proprietary rights, or any other harm arising from their submission and our subsequent use of the information, and (iii) automatically grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, publish, distribute and such information (in whole or in part, in any media now known or used or heretofore known or used at any time, and in perpetuity), although you acknowledge that we have no obligation whatsoever to use, reproduce, publish, distribute or display the information. Further, we reserve the right to monitor and review transmissions, use any information related to such use to ensure that our policies are followed and otherwise as a necessary incident to the provision of the Service or to protect our rights and property. We may also monitor and review stored transmissions without restriction and you hereby acknowledge and consent to such monitoring. You further acknowledge that passwords are known to us.”

Eliot Reads Prufrock to Portishead