The Braised and the Brew-tiful

Its such a lovely title for a post that I wish I could take credit for it. Its actually the name of a “Zagat Presents” event I went to a few weeks ago at Tabla. It was an all-out 4 course meal dedicated to braised foods paired with some fantastic artisanal beers. The dinner was taking place in their upstairs formal dining room where most of the food served is Indian-inspired menu with French style preparations. This was actually my first time in the upstairs area. I have usually eaten in the downstairs Bread Bar where the menu is a bit closer to traditional Indian food, but still a few big leaps away from it such that you can’t really call it “real Indian food”.

When we were seated we were all given a packet of information containing the menu, a detailed description of the beer it is paired with, and a page full of helpful hints on braising from the executive chef, Floyd Cardoz. At the beginning of each course they poured a glass of beer and brought out the head of the beverage selection for the restaurant to talk a little bit about the beer and why they paired it with the dish. Then the chef came out to talk about the dish and the reasons he had for combining the various elements and techniques together to produce the dish. He also answered any questions we had about how he cooked the dish including specific temperatures that he braised the dish at and for how long. We started off with a salad, then progressed to a seafood dish, meat dish, and dessert. Here is the breakdown..

Salad of Bacon Braised Fennel w/ fingerling potatoes, watercress, meyer lemon, and hot smoked halibut
Beer: Allagash White (Portland, Maine)

Slow Braised Wild Striped Bass w/ baby root vegetables and a sun dried ginger broth
Beer: Dogfish Head - Red & White (Milton, Delaware)

Sweet Spiced Braised Oxtails w/ Poha Pilaf & Peanuts
Weyerbacher - Fireside Ale (Easton, Pennsylvania)

Braised Pineapple w/ an orange polenta fritter and ice cream of Brooklyn hops
Lindemans - Pomme Lambic (Vlezenbeek, Belgium)

In terms of the food it was all very interesting in their own unique ways and the dishes all had good balance to them. Additionally, the drink pairings were very well thought out. It is always impressive to me when a restaurant actually goes out of their way to have well planned drink pairings that make sense. It is equally as disappointing to me when they make a big fuss about having suggested pairings and totally bombing them. Old Vine Cafe was a great example of good drink pairings and Momofuku Ko was unfortunately a great example of bad drink pairings (especially at an $85 supplement). Anyhow, back to the main point of this post…

The freshness of the fennel was well complimented by the smokiness of the bacon and hot smoked halibut. While the meyer lemon and spices helped bridge the dish with the beer which was a Belgian styled white beer made with a generous portion of wheat and a blend of spices. The striped bass was braised/poached at a very low temperature for under 30 minutes just until cooked through. The Red & White it was paired with is another Belgian styled beer that is brewed with coriander and orange peel and then fermented with pinot noir juice. It results in a very unique tasting beer that has the subtle taste & nuances of a red wine while maintaining the freshness of a white ale. The oxtails were amazingly rich and delicious. The slow, long braising really works its charm on a piece of meat like oxtail. It was paired with a dark ale made with 10% smoked malt to give it a bit of crisp bitterness and a touch of smokiness. I have had a few other smoked beers before and what I really liked about this one was that it was a bit more subtle and not overwhelmingly smokey. The last dish was very unique… The combination of the bitter ice cream of hops with the sweet pineapple & orange polenta was again another great exercise of balance. I would never recommend the ice cream on its own (unless you are a real hophead), but with the sweetness of the other dishes it worked quite nicely. The beer was appropriate since apple is probably the lighter styles of the available lambic fruit beers, but I am wondering if a different fruit would have worked better. It was probably the weakest pairing, but I was already under the influence of 3 beers by this point (the last two being 10% & 7.5% ABV) so I was happy to drink something deliciously sweet and palate cleansing after the smoked ale.

My favorite dish of the night was probably the dessert. As in previous posts, I am once a again a sucker for unique flavor combinations in desserts. Recent examples are the olive oil gelato at Otto and the baked apples in chedder pastry at Artisanal. I also love polenta so seeing it in dessert flavored with orange was very welcomed.

My favorite beer was definitely the Red & White by Dogfish Head. While the Allagash White was a wonderfully complex white ale that competes with those made in Belgium, the complexity and multitude of flavors offered by the Red & White were outstanding. It was so smooth I was shocked to learn that it was 10% alcohol and it has definitely become of my favorite beers. Now if I could only buy it somewhere…

If they were doing this same thing again, I would recommend going to it. Unfortunately, as far as I know, this was a one time deal. I don’t know how many of these dishes and beers are available on the regular menu upstairs in the formal dining room (where this dinner was) or downstairs in the Bread Bar. I would imagine you should be able to get something similar to the dishes served the night of the event upstairs, but it might not be exactly the same thing.

Tabla
11 Madison Ave (at 25th Street)
New York, NY 10010
(212) 889-0667