| Bistro tucked away in furniture store
Domicile, the organic bistro/ furniture and design store, is unique – there's only one other restaurant I know of which is hidden in the back of a furniture store, and it's in New Orleans. The apparent incongruity of Domicile (715 - 11 Ave. S.W., phone 262-9780) appeals to me, though, and I'm relieved the bistro has reopened in the capable hands of owners Maddy Kelly and Mike Frey.
Maddy and Mike have created a casual, urbane environment for a quiet lunch. The bistro is at the southern end of the high-ceilinged warehouse-style room, and it flows naturally from the arrangements of contemporary furniture – it's as though you've been invited to dinner at the house of your cool friend, who happens to have had their place photographed for Dwell. It's the small touches, though, that make sitting down at Domicile immediately calming – the cool plexiglass placemats, the heavy cutlery, a linen napkin, decent glassware and the city's best espresso cups.
The bistro is organic, meaning that the ingredients (to the extent possible) are from suppliers who do not use pesticides, hormones or other creepy stuff, and to that end there's a vegetarian slant to the menu.
The roasted vegetable sandwich, for example, was much more than the usual soggy, tasteless, lettuce, tomato and eggplant thing. Instead, it had roasted beets, zucchini, onions, yams and red peppers, with mustard and romano cheese, on a high-quality baguette. This, with a crisp spinach salad with roasted garlic dressing, was $9. The grilled Portobello mushrooms were even better value, including two mushrooms with grilled polenta and the same spinach salad for $9. The dish was presented on a square plate, the Portobellos forming a lean-to against the polenta – not only was it appetizing, it looked appetizing.
We started with an excellent grilled marinated calamari ($6), which was infused with sumac, chipotle and lemon, cut into julienne and then quickly grilled. The squid were tender and the lemon contrasted beautifully with the heat of the peppers. It was garnished with marinated carrot and shredded feta – inspired choices, as the carrot provided a blast of colour, and the feta some pleasing sourness.
The flourless chocolate cake ($6) we had for dessert was rich and cloying, made even more so by the buckwheat honey dressing. The addition of the buckwheat showed me that the cook has put some thought into the selections and decided that, rather than the usual blackberry compote, why not go totally over the top with something as intense and sweet as buckwheat honey? Bring it on.
Domicile is only open for lunch during the week, and from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. They're also beginning a Jazz Brunch series on occasional Sundays.
AND A COUPLE OF TIPS
Going to Costco requires resolve so you're not tempted to buy skids of stuff you don't want. Who needs 48 pounds of Nabob Tradition? But it does have one great thing worth going for: Sinai 48 Kosher beef sausage. With some mustard, wow is this stuff good.
The Cookbook Co. Cooks has Best Food Writing 2001 in stock, and this book has some great essays in it. "Today's Special" by David Sedaris is one of the funniest things I have ever read. To wit: "Soho is not a macaroni salad kind of place. This is where the world's brightest young talents come to braise caramelized racks of corn-fed songbirds or offer up their famous knuckle of flash-seared crappie served with a collar of chided ginger and cornered by a tribe of kiln-roasted Chilean toadstools, teased with a warm spray of clarified musk oil.". |
