We had salads next, most notably a plate of warm artichoke hearts, shaved parmesan and field greens dressed in truffle oil that played nicely with the nutty taste of the 'chokes, the hard sourness of the cheese and the slightly bitter fresh-cut-lawn flavor of the greens but quickly became overpowering. With each successive bite, it seemed that a dark, woody, oily fog was growing around our table. It smelled like fresh rain in a thick forest and what the earth's armpits would smell like if the earth had armpits.
We survived the salad, though, and moved on to our entrees: a plate of massive fresh-water Thai prawns in an emulsion of white wine, white vinegar, garlic, oil and (you guessed it) even more butter. Each crustacean was roughly the size of something that would attack Cleveland in a Saturday-afternoon monster movie. That was followed by a castrated version of chicken picatta that had the strange effect of leaving us feeling incomplete after each bite. The egg batter was soft and silky, the chicken supple and sweetened by the lemon-heavy sauce, and the capers added a sharp, salty tang to the mix. But just when you expected the tastes to go further, they stopped. Something was missing: The flavor was all top-note, all high, singing melody, with no bass line to keep it in check. It was the boy band of the chicken-picatta universe.
Mark Manger
Chef and tell: Frank Bonanno ups the ante, and the
flavors, at Luca D'Italia.
Location Info
Details
711 Grant
Street
303-832-6600
Hour
s: 5-10 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday
Prosciutto di San Daniele:
$7
Meatballs: $7
Octopus:
$8
Bresaola: $8
Lobster fra
diavola: $11
Carbonara:
$7
Wild boar pappardelle:
$8
Potato gnocchi:
$10
Prawns: $23
Chicken
piccata: $17
Rabbit, three
ways: $18
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And then the rabbit entered the picture, and the flavors got deep. Very deep.
The truffle is some powerful line-cook hoodoo, the uranium of the culinary world. Like atomic energy, once its power is harnessed, it must be used with monkish discretion -- rarely, delicately and never without a damn good reason. Luca's kitchen had a damn good reason for using truffles: I'd ordered the rabbit, three ways, off the entree menu, and nothing goes with rabbit quite the way truffle does. It gives life back to the lowly lapin, lends the mellow flavor of bunny a deep and earthy context, and can put such a kick in a dish that you might still be tasting it two or three days later. And here the kitchen used the truffle with all necessary discretion, adding it with a light hand to the tiny confit foreleg and big, tender, juicy back thigh; using it to jack up the slivers of cremini, shiitake and porcini mushroom mixed into the small pile of braised and shredded rabbit meat in the center of the plate; blending the truffle oil into the reduced braising liquid that made the rabbit gravy, then leaving the thin, sweet, fanned slices of grilled loin mercifully untouched.
The rabbit was excellent in all of its three ways, the true star of the table. I got my mom to try some, too, and though she took only a dainty, reluctant nibble of her third new thing of the night, she did it. Game over, and good for her. I kept eating it, though, and I would pay for my excesses later. As I said, the effect of truffle is cumulative. It builds until you reach a point where all you can taste and all you can smell is the musky perfume. Like durian fruit, it gets into your hair and clothes. It works its way into your pores. It hangs with you like Superglue.
Lying here on the floor, surrounded by the stink of voracious consumption, I accept that I've had more truffle in one night than any human should consume in a year, maybe a lifetime, and have crammed myself to the larynx with more heavy, wonderful Italian food than can possibly be healthy. The room is heaving a little. I'm finding it difficult to take deep breaths, and I wonder if I may yet become the first-ever victim of terminal, truffle-induced narcosis.
In this line of work, I have many friends. There's Pepto and there's Pepcid; there's Advil for the hangovers and Tums for my tummy. At times, there's been Compazine. Antibiotics. Imodium and ipecac syrup. But my best friend of all is a little bag of ting ting jaheginger bonbons that I picked up at the Japanese grocery. For times like this -- times when I have exceeded my gross physical volume by dangerous levels and indulged too fervently in what would, in smaller doses, be considered a very good thing -- the ginger candies are the only things that get me through the night. They settle the stomach marvelously, can cut through nearly any aftertaste, and while they're not going to do anything about the smell of truffles and rabbit and bloat still lingering around me, at least my breath will be sweet when my wife finds me dead in the morning.
But you know what? I don't regret a bite. This world is full of fence-sitters, middle-of-the-roaders, abstentious temperate fellows for whom a little is always enough, and I will not go down as one of their number. I say everything in excess. I say moderation is for pussies and Mormons. You can never really have too much of a good thing.
And I think Bonanno and I are on the same page with that.
