Since there are lots of interesting and inexpensive wines by the glass, the bar at Hugo’s turns out to be a surprisingly accessible place to stop in for a drink and some food. The servings are not big, it’s true — but they are not that much smaller than at Bar Lola, where the prices are similar. There were enough of the truffle and parmesan gougeres — which were rendered as a funny little pellet-shaped finger food, both pillowy and a touch creamy — to be a nice snack for two with wine. The two squares of verjus-glazed pork belly — sweet, crispy edged, and impossibly tender — probably had the fat content of most dishes three times its size.
Hugo’s is famous for being unique, and it is — right up to your last bite of warm dark chocolate cake (ubiquitous) with a green coffee foam (rare, bitter, vegetal, and great with the cake). The chance to chat up one of the country’s best chefs while you eat his food is rarer still. The bar menu and the bar’s easy atmosphere make the rare and the unique surprisingly accessible. We should take advantage of it.
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Rich but not bright, Eating by halves, Welcome to the real world, More 
- Rich but not bright
Since Duckfat opened about a year ago, the new venture of Rob Evans and Nancy Pugh has done a hopping lunch business, but many fewer people seem to visit in the evening.
- Eating by halves
It is always hard to know what to make of prestigious awards.
- Welcome to the real world
Unlike most chefs depicted in the movies, they are pleasant and completely unpretentious about food.
- God bless Micucci Grocery
Sometimes newer isn’t better. Keeping tabs on the new markets and gourmet shops is rough, though thrilling when a new one appears.
- Game night
Got game?
- Coping with Internet infamy
Here’s a rule of thumb: if the teenage mouse potatoes who spend their lives on YouTube are laughing at you, chances are you aren’t going to be taken too seriously by the brass at the big investment bank.
- October 31, 2006
Waxing moon in Pisces. VOC 12:31 am to 9:10 am. Great day for coming up with a subtly artistic costume. Or for acting like a complete falling-down drunk and getting credit for a creative costume. This moon could put others in a maudlin mood, and if you want to “recherche les temps perdus” it probably won’t take more than a fun-size Charleston Chew. Pisces, brush your teeth — Venus and Mars want you in the mood for romance.
- Photo op
The more than 200 works on view as part of the Photographic Resource Center's Benefit Auction represent a variety of photographic techniques, approaches, eras, sensibilities, and price tags.
- Song feast
The Gossip is a musical culinary experiment imagined by kids with their fingers in the honey jar. Slideshow: The Gossip and Erase Errata at the Middle East, September 14, 2006
- Second Life P-town: Dick Dock, but no Lance Bass!
Johnny Marathon is trying to attach his dick.
- Full disclosure
Back in 1927, Hermann Hesse in Steppenwolf likened the hidden layers of the human personality to an onion: “made up of a hundred integuments, a texture made up of many threads.”
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Topics:
Restaurant Reviews
, Culture and Lifestyle, Food and Cooking, Foods, More
, Culture and Lifestyle, Food and Cooking, Foods, Chocolate, Ferran Adria, Rob Evans, Nancy Pugh, Thomas Keller, Less
