Did you try Nutella (or Nutella mixed with Peanut Butter) on a rolled up burrito shell, sliced into little rolls?

WSJ
EATING OUT
SEPTEMBER 4, 2009, 7:42 P.M. ET.
True Values in the Hudson Valley
Beso and Le Canard Enchaine offer recession menus worth keeping into the recovery

By RAYMOND SOKOLOV

I got tired of hearing about how three-star Manhattan chefs were deigning to offer recession-hit customers cut-rate dishes in their lounges. So I decided to pass on the truffled hero sandwiches and pheasant sliders that were passing for value meals in New York City’s better eateries and instead drove two hours north to see what down-to-earth restaurateurs in the Hudson Valley were doing to battle hard times.

I stopped at a sophisticated bistro in New Paltz, N.Y., called Beso. And then I returned to Le Canard Enchaine, a French-run shrine to la cuisine française in Kingston, the first capital of New York.

It wouldn’t be quite fair to call Le Canard Enchaine a gastronomic museum, but it is very French, and its chef, Jean-Jacques Carquillat, is a far cry from television’s media-savvy top chefs. For one thing, he is French. And Chef Carquillat has no branch in Las Vegas or Miami, although he does have a second Canard in no-tone Albany. The other night, he was wearing shorts sans apron. With a bill of fare heavy on oldies like onion soup, he’s so far behind the curve that, in a world turned upside down by financial collapse, he’s ahead of it.

Beso
46 Main St.
New Paltz, N.Y.
845-255-1426
http://www.beso-restaurant dot com

Le Canard Enchaine
276 Fair St.
Kingston, N.Y.
845-339-2003
le-canardenchainesrestaurant dot com

Monsieur Carquillat, you see, offers budget-minded customers a prix-fixe menu—but not the fixed-price, $150, 11-course tasting menu that the fine-dining world embraced so firmly some 30 years ago that it’s hard to remember a time when no restaurants had one. Instead, his prix fixe recalls the bargain menu that back in the day many restaurants offered within the a la carte menu. The choices were usually limited to a few of the less-spectacular dishes, but you could pay a cut-rate price for, say, a first course and a main course from that smaller, plainer menu for a still-dandy, all-in, fixed price. And that is just what you can do today at Le Canard.

The $30 prix-fixe menu here is also a kind of early-bird menu, available only 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. It offers a truly splendid Caesar salad or a generous starburst of endive stuffed with walnuts and Roquefort to start, followed by a duck breast or braised lamb shanks, with a glass of house wine thrown in, for about $10 less than you would pay for the same dishes on the regular menu.

Of course, if you insist on ranging freely over the restaurant’s full panoply of dishes, you can order its dark and brooding fricassee of snails and mushrooms, or a crisp, rich double confit of duck legs, for a few bucks more—telling yourself you deserve something special. Indeed, I have always suspected that prix-fixe menus are a wily sort of marketing tool that encourage diners to order more-expensive dishes than they otherwise might have, in order to assert their greater classiness over plebes who hew to the piker’s option. But there it is: Arrive at Le Canard Enchaine at a reasonable hour, order the prix fixe and hold on to $10. A Hamilton saved is a Hamilton earned.

In New Paltz, where the Grateful Dead still visibly lives, Beso has been a game-changing operation. A young couple with impressive food-world résumés brought their Manhattan-honed skills to a former saloon on Main Street in 2005, and suddenly weekenders and food-minded locals didn’t have to drive over the Shawangunk Ridge or across the Hudson River for a fine dinner. The couple, with the Dickensian names Chadwick Greer (chef) and Tammy Ogletree (desserts and front of the house), were initially attracted to the area because of the first-class rock climbing, and because of the network of specialty farm producers. From their first spring days four years ago, they raised the bar for restaurant food in this college town, with dishes such as herb-crusted swordfish in salsa verde and handmade pasta.

Since emerging from kitchen renovations this spring, Mr. Greer has added a recession menu with dishes pegged at a somewhat lower price range than the grander pre-recession menu, which still coexists with the new cut-rate experiment. Beso’s original menu wasn’t a multicourse procession of obligatory small plates; portions were scaled to fit a traditional meal plan of appetizer, main course and dessert. Now, diners are asked to choose from two different menus, but they can pick dishes from either one for the same meal. In other words, the kitchen has really just added a new menu of cheap eats to supplement the pricier choices.

I applaud this gesture toward austerity, for obvious reasons, but also because it has forced Chef Greer to offer a broader set of dishes than before. My all-time favorite on the full-price menu is the honey-chipotle glazed Hereford beef short ribs with sautéed broccoli rabe, homemade cornbread and a sweet-and-pungent honey-chipotle reduction at $28. The full-price menu also features a wood-grilled 10-ounce Hereford strip steak with hand-cut French fries, roasted broccoli and aged balsamic vinegar for the same price. The recession menu offers an 8-ounce version of the same steak for $22—around a 20% price reduction for a 20% reduction in the quantity of meat. The recession menu also offers some demotic items not previously available in the restaurant, barbecue ribs for $17 and a Hereford burger for $13.

As the economy seems to be recovering, I hope Le Canard Enchaine, Beso and others like them won’t abandon their leaner, meaner menus. Beyond the appeal of the lower cost per se, there’s the very attractive freedom of choice in a world unconfined by the tasting-menu straitjacket. And beyond the money part is a more focused, more modest meal for suddenly soberer customers who need cutbacks without downgrades.

Pat, she has lied and has, essentially stolen money from her family. I think you have grounds for ransacking and a severe grounding/taking away of other goodies at home.

I vote NO NO NO

“BTW, my SIL (see above) is about to shit out her next kid in a bathtub birthing pool with husband and 4 yr old son in the pool with her!. Excuse me. I have to go shoot myself now. Or vomit. Or both.”

This blog has existed for 48 months or so. One of the top ten passages ever written here. Even more important that is was written by a medical practioner.

I bet she’s calling the shots on the bond purchases, too.