Andi’s best bites this week included woodsy fresh pasta
After reading a colleague’s story about outstanding pit barbecue in Avondale, I made a trip out west that was rewarded by a mound of the finest pulled pork I’ve ever tasted.
Closer to home, I fell head over heels for a rustic plate of woodsman’s pasta at a local chain where the creamy dish is made with tube-like gramigna noodles the restaurant prepares in-house. They looked like stretched out macaroni, and tasted like a tromp through the forest.
But the highlight of my week was a duck dish served during a three-course dinner at an iconic Phoenix mansion owned by the Hormel family. They’ve teamed up with a star Phoenix chef to create a futuristic dining experience and menu of revamped French classics. I wasn’t disappointed.
The one thing these meaty dishes have in common is that they were too good not to share. Here are the best things I ate this week.
Pulled pork at Eric’s Family Barbecue
When you get to the front of the line, it’s go time at this West Valley barbecue institution as you come face to face with the pitmaster, who’s pulling slabs of meat from the warmer and weighing cuts. That day’s meat options are written on butcher paper tacked to the wall. Sold by the pound, you can make yourself a sampler platter by ordering smaller portions of each one. When I saw the pulled pork land on a wooden chopping block, I almost skipped the other stuff altogether. Steamier and wetter than other pulled pork I’ve tried, at Eric’s it isn’t particularly fatty and much of the
flavor comes from slow smoking over wild mesquite wood. It’s an uncommon ingredient in Texas barbecue, but one that feels perfectly at home in the Southwest. The sharp smoky flavor isn’t overpowering, but lends the pork depth. On a slice of white bread with a smack of pickled red onions, it’s perfection.
Details: 12345 W. Indian School Road, Avondale. 623-248-0148, ericsfamilybbq.com.
Gramigna Boscaiola at Pomo Pizzeria
The best thing on the menu at Pomo, a local chain of Italian restaurants, isn’t the pizza or the pinsa, an ancient Roman variety of pizza-like flatbread with a light and crispy texture. It’s the boscaiola.
This classic Italian dish is also called woodsman’s pasta. While it varies by region, boscaiola typically features ingredients like mushrooms, which can be foraged from the forest. At Pomo, the pasta is presented in a luscious cream sauce with crumbled sausage and parmigiana cheese. The noodles themselves are the highlight. I love bucatini pasta, but the lesser-known gramigna used at Pomo is even fatter than the fattest bucatini, and better too since it’s made inhouse. Bulbous strands of spinach-flavored flour are shaped into long macaroni that twirl like edible ferns. Gramigna boscaiola may be hard to pronounce, but it’s very easy to enjoy.
Details: 705 N. First St., unit 120, Phoenix. 602-795-2555, pomopizzeria.com. Check website for other locations.
Duck at Christopher’s
By singling out this classic duck dish, I may be doing a disservice to the gastro-futurist experience that is Christopher’s at Wrigley Mansion, which was like dining inside a giant nautilus structure with a retractable roof and panoramic views of the valley. But, putting architecture aside, this superb throwback seemed to embody what chef Christopher Gross is aiming for.
Available on the weeknight classics menu — which is moderately priced at $100 per person and highlights some of the most successful dishes of the chef ’s award-winning career — Duck 2 Ways is a dreamy take on French fowlery. The leg is confited until the skin is sizzlingly crisp and salty, and served alongside a sauteed slice of breast that’s strikingly red in its rareness. Served over a veal consommé sauce that flows into the pink juices like a gentle watercolor sunset, this duck may be a classic that dates back to Christopher’s Bistro menu circa the 1990s, but the plating and presentation sparks just the right amount of whimsy to make it feel as ultra modern as the dining room in which it’s served.
Details: 2501 E. Telawa Trail, Phoenix. 602-522-2344, wrigleymansion.com/christophers.