So simple, so satisfying

Sometimes, it’s easy to predict the dishes that will achieve cult status on restaurant menus. They can be flashy, engineered around ingredients that have themselves achieved cult status — marrow bones, foie gras, kale — and often double as critic bait, those plates that seem purposefully designed as order- me magnets for restaurant critics. Then there are the dishes that come in under the radar, composed of humble ingredients or made with under- appreciated techniques, and operate more like a restaurant’s secret handshake. This is what the polenta at Union, Bruce Kalman’s restaurant in Pasadena, has become for locals. It’s a simple bowl of polenta made with corn ground at Grist & Toll, a nearby mill and f lour shop, and a satisfyingly large amount of milk, cream, butter and cheese. Kalman tops his polenta with sautéed wild mushrooms, to which he’s added some herbs, garlic, wine and sherry vinegar; at the restaurant, he’ll also add a bit of truffle butter. It is a comforting dish, a good prelude to Kalman’s vast plate of porchetta, say, or good to order if you wander in after a movie for an ad hoc dinner at the counter, where everyone always seems to order the stuff, as if it’s a neighborhood prerequisite. And maybe it is.