In the 1980s, as restaurant critic for the third largest newspaper in North America, I visited France with my wife, Carol.
Me, documenting dishes and wines at dinner
Upon arriving in Lyons, we had lunch at an intimate restaurant called Chez Lea, where the chicken, napped with a raspberry beurre blanc, was possibly the best chicken dish we'd ever had; it was so ethereal, in fact, that we made reservations upon finishing lunch, at 3 pm, to return again at 8 pm, the very same evening, to order the very same menu again.
We returned five hours later, sat down to eat the identical three-course meal but not one of the dishes was as good as it had been at lunch.
Throughout our parallel careers in food (Carol is an extremely meticulous food editor) we have, on occasion, tried to repeat certain restaurant dining experiences, but alas, the second time is just never as good as the first time. We must be slow learners as we keep trying.
Last week we were in Rome, trying to repeat certain food experiences, which we’d had last fall in top-tier restaurants, and not one of them pulled its weight in consistency.
The worst experience was at Dal Bolognese, a Bologna-style restaurant where we dined twice last year. In fact, dinners here had been so memorable that they became the inspiration for a Bolognese birthday dinner, which Carol asked Nash Cognetti, exec chef at Tra Vigne, in St. Helena, to recreate in January.
Some of Fall’s best ingredients in the Italian kitchen
These too.
We returned to Dal Bolognese last week for dinner, hoping to re-experience our memorable meal moments. Our expectations were way out of line.
The tortellini in brodo, Carol's favorite dish in the world, was insipid. "Uninspired" is a nice way of saying "it had no taste.
The broth, which should have kvelled of rich, slow-cooked, country chicken, was totally under-salted, and lacked any chicken-flavor.
In fact, the broth had the taste and texture of -- how do you say this in Italian? -- acqua. The hand-made tortellini were dense, leathery, undercooked, and had as much flavor as the wool tassels on a Scottish bagpiper's sporran.
For the next course, we split an order of tagliatelle with a Bolognese sauce. The house signature dish. The version last week was less than stellar and nothing as we remembered it. The pasta was undercooked, even for home-made pasta; it tasted of raw, uncooked flour. The meat sauce was over-salted, even before one added grated Parmesan cheese.
But the worst was yet to come.
Salsa verde and Cremona-style mustard.
We ordered the 30 Euro ($40) plate of bollito misto, a normally delicious melange of boiled meats and fowl, served with what should have been an outstanding salsa verde and a racy Cremona mustard (candied fruits in a zippy, sweet syrup, tweaked with a hot mustard finish).
Just before our bollito misto was served, the lights in the restaurant went out. And stayed out for the duration of our dinner.
One eerily glowing emergency light glowed across the entire dining room, casting a ghostly white shadow across tables, but little of this light reached ours.
I would not have been surprised if Patrick Swayze, from the movie Ghost, and from his own deathly afterlife, brought us the bill. The place had that kind of ghoulish pall.
The restaurant’s bollito misto when the lights are on.
In the dark shadows, it was impossible to discern what we were eating. Certainly not from sight. But alas, also not from taste; all the boiled meats -- tongue, beef, chicken -- tasted the same and pretty much had the same texture.
The meal ending took another twist; as the kitchen was dark, the chef couldn't prepare anything else, so we couldn't order dessert.
Here’s one other thing they couldn’t prepare: the bill. They couldn't get the VISA machine to work, as all equipment and phone lines, were dead.
I suggested that they write down my credit card number and put the charge through the next day. They said they couldn't do this.
Instead, the host suggested we return the next day to pay, incurring another $30 round-trip taxi charge – on us.
What should have been a Happy Face meal, turned out to be a scary face meal.
At this point, the waiter came over to our table and said in a friendly, and understanding way, "Don't worry. You don't have to pay. Ees not your problemo." My kind of waiter.
It turns out that Thomas Wolfe was right, particularly in the vernacular of restaurants; you really can't go home again. I think we’ve finally learned.
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