The Celeb Nabe

What’s for dinner? I’m hungry after an afternoon of infosnacking. If only I had a cook who while I had been surfing the world’s problems, was pondering mine. If only I had a wife, the generic housekeeper whose job it was to construct delicious meals daily. Now housekeepers are ogling YouTube. So I am left alone to solve the most pressing issue of the day. Is it to be the lamb curry growing penicillin in the fridge or poached egg on spinach which my inner dieter cries out for. Forget it, I’ll go out.

Nothing fancy mind you, but food as comfortable as the proverbial old shoe. A nabe in other words, a place where locals gather companionably to eat simply at no great cost, and where you can bring your own bottle of wine.  Easier said than found in midtown, my neck of the woods. Instead I have to pull on my Uggs and trek to the fashionable lower West Side to find Niagara Street Café.

I love NSC right away, It’s cozy, a cottage really,no more than 32 seats, warm with flickering votive lights, a great welcome from owner/sommelier Anton Potvin, and a $20 corkage fee. The BYOB drill is that you take an expensive bottle which would cost you double if it was available at a restaurant where wine usually carries a 100% markup. Or you unearth a treasure from your cellar if you have one. Alternatively, you just take along a special wine you’ve been dying to share.

The Oenophile has been nursing a Chateau La Vielle Cure 2003 for just such an occasion and Mr. Potvin offers to decant it right away. He’s already busy decanting, we see over the rim of our glasses, big burgundys from the renowned cellars of Rush’s Geddy Lee and lawyer Clayton Ruby. I should add that the NSC’s wine list isn’t to be sniffed at, our aperitif is a delicately-oaked Chalk Hill Chardonnay ($12 a glass).

One look at the menu and those who worship at the alter of St. Alice Waters and her organic dogma will fall on their knees. Chef Michael Caballe has constructed an imaginative menu made from local and seasonal ingredients. Not a green vegetable in sight! I feel as if I’m participating in one of those remembrance-of-past-deprivation TV shows where volunteers suffer authentic 19th century life. I remember laughing my head off when a Californian family had a great time building their spiffy log cabin out West, but deprived of such mod cons as makeup they grew tetchy then low and finally took to crime – smuggling in lipstick. They were shunned by their fellow pioneers. Will the day come when those of us who yearn for the fresh snap of an out-of-season green bean have to go underground and sneak home illict veg in brown paper bags to avoid heckling by our green neighbours?

First courses range between $8 and $9. Tripe is always in season, and I can’t resist the deep fried tripe with marinated onions and spicy tomato sauce. It’s like eating crunchy confetti. Courage, mon brave, I want to say to the chef. I know, I know the inner lining of a cow’s third stomach is not at first gonna wow Torontonians, but exposure to the mature pleasures of ropey tripe in a rich stew might change their minds. The Ontario beet is the root du jour – I think the city is sinking under beets. Beet Carpaccio is not as the name suggests, raw, but lightly poached slices served with house-made goat cheese, wild arugula and hazelnuts, and it is predictably delicious. I think it’s impossible to mistreat beet.  The only disappointment is the rather muddy mixture of swiss chard and duck confit in a tart with manchego (sheep’s cheese).

The second courses ($18-19) confirm the chef as a promising texture meister and frugal gourmet. It’s good to see lamb neck on a menu, not as goodlooking as the pricey glamour cuts, but so much tastier. Here it is braised with crispy parsnip and rutubaga gratin. Meltingly tender and stuffed Cornish hen is matched with nutty pearl couscous and slippery braised bitter endive. Crunchy red onion petals swirl around a grilled hanger steak (toughish) and creamy celery root puree and a surprise -  a grilled slice of veal tongue, another great innards’ texture, slick and thick.

Our Bordeaux, a Billie Holliday of a wine, plummy with the metallic aftertaste of selfpity, goes swell with this earthy food. Tempting desserts include something crackly  called Meringata  and a rice pudding, yes!, and honeyed fromage blanc. The cappuccino is the best the Oenophile ever tasted, and he must rush to the bartender to ask where to buy the coffee beans. It isn’t the coffee, I bossily insist, it’s the coffeemaker. I see out of the corner of my eye that the bartender is nodding. Only Italians can bring forth crema from the espresso machine. Only Italians have the coffee gene.

The bartender’s name is Joe. But he’ll always be Giuseppe to me.

I leave wondering how NSC could be cloned a couple of blocks from my home.

Niagara Street Café, 169 Niagara, at Wellington West, 416-703-4222). Dinner for two including wine, taxes, tips $100 Dinner Wed, Thurs, Sun 6-10 pm. Fri/Sat 6-10,30pm. Sunday brunch 10.30 am. BYOB corkage $20. Wheelchair access limited by two doorsteps.