Two meals becometh one

"Oh God", said the voice to my left suddenly. "I must have eaten, like, 200 calories of these things". The owner of the voice was a deathly thin man, hair all akimbo, a pastel silk scarf wrapped delicately around his neck, attempting to stop his fingers from going towards the lavender sugar encrusted Marcona Almonds at the iconoclastic Ubuntu restaurant and yoga studio in the city of Napa. Turning back to my own little tray of the nuts, it occurred to me how compelling delicious food is, no matter how thin we are, or controlled, or used to masochistic diets negotiated under the constant frown of calorie counts and fat percentages. Like a mother who sneaks some spinach into her child's morning smoothie, Ubuntu draws in its northern california crowd with the promise of ascetic, macrobiotic, veggie bliss, but what it delivers is something far more primal - big, uncompromising, flavor.


It wasn't just the almonds. Joining them as a convenient pre-meal snack are chickpea fries, no longer the stodgy cubes of custom, but thin, long, McDonald's like strands of chickpea, crispy with a pleasing interior. But it is in the tapas style main courses that Ubuntu hits its stride. Even in the midst of winter, the artichoke salad with leaves, miso (that is, as opposed to the traditional anchovy) "bagna cauda" and olive marmalade was astonishing, the slight shavings of parmesan a deft salty accent to the sweet sauces and the perfect vegetables. But I save my loudest accolades for the next two dishes we tried - the first, a composition of radishes, grapefruit, the best beet "tartare" I've ever had and "fork-crushed" avocado, (the last especially a subtle surprise rather than just its usual jolt of healthy, natural fat) and then a deeply satisfying bowl of carrot gnochetti, with what the menu called "carrot pulp crumble" adding a little more of what I take to be Ubuntu's sweet signature. Not to mention that I'm usually disappointed by dessert, so much so that I normally don't order it, but Ubuntu's vanilla bean "cheesecake in a jar" with sour cherries (which are nostalgic for my fiancee, as the flavors of her mother's childhood Tehran) was terrific. To the extent I had a complaint, it was about our second dessert, which turned out to be so forgettable that I have forgotten it entirely.

That meal I contrast with our less impressive visit to Zuni Cafe, about which I was more excited. I don't mean to say that Zuni was bad, in any way. My rabbit salad was marvelous, if small. And the famed roasted chicken for two, which takes an hour from ordering to arrive, was extremely good. Really very good, a great chicken only enhanced by its treatment in the wood fire, sitting atop pungent mustard greens and peasant bread half-croutons soaked in oil and lemon, both crunchy and chewy and then tart. But did it change my thoughts about chicken? Should it be thought to be the kind of chicken that makes a career? Not really.

I've grouped together these two meals in these notes because they inspired our first meal back in New York. As I sat at Zuni, it occurred to me that my own much plainer roast chicken, even when I use a mere $9 "all natural" Murray's rather than some ultra-premium breeds, is nearly as good as Zuni Cafe's landmark dish. And it occurred to me that what would go perfectly with it was Ubuntu's artichoke salad, albeit without the still quivering with freshness greens, and jarred artichokes holding the place of those just out of the ground. So I roasted my chicken in the usual way, with a lemon and herbs inside, legs tied together, and plenty of fleur de sel, and made a simple vinaigrette to dress the baby spinach and artichoke. The results are pictured below, and we ate with happy memories of our trip out west.