Heyoooo!
I’m actually writing this on Friday; I just ate a sandwich and went for a 40 minute walk in the sun, so I apologize if zzzzzzzzzzz…
Happy Monday everybody! Palumbo here with another edition of The Move. Today is a round-up of foods I ate around Motown.
One of the things I enjoy most about this newsletter is that most of you don’t live in Detroit, and yet you read this anyway. I see you. I constantly read about the food in Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh, Austin, Houston, Portland, New Orleans, D.C.—the list goes on. I do that because it’s enlightening. I love to read about faraway restaurants and regional delicacies here and abroad; I always feel more connected after doing so.
That said, I’ve got some fun trips planned this Summer and Fall: Los Angeles, Monterey, Nashville, New York, Greece (Athens, Crete, Rhodes), and Istanbul, Turkey are all on the list. If there’s something you’d like me to eat/review in these places, let me know!
But today is about Detroit, a place you probably don’t live. Maybe you just want to read about pasta, or a rule-breaking sandwich, or the intricacies of Middle Eastern garlic sauce. I won’t question why you’re here anymore; I’m just glad you are.
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The Creamy Snapper Crudo and Tangy Sweet Pea Agnolotti at Forest in Birmingham
You know what I love about Detroit’s food scene? It’s loaded with great restaurants, but not so many that you can afford to be be fickle. There’s not a billion new spots opening up every month, so you get to know these places intimately. Enter Forest, a restaurant you’ll feel comfortable calling home.
The food at Forest is simple, yet refined in such a way that it sneaks up behind you and stealthily breaks your neck. The chefs here are assassins. You’ll find yourself wondering, “Wait, have I had a better baked Alaska? A better crudo?” This self-described “contemporary continental restaurant with an Italian twist” sharpens and tempers whatever it sets out to create.
I want to write about everything I ate at Forest—the virtuous, well-seared pork chop with buttery morels and asparagus, the aforementioned baked Alaska with stiff chocolate cake, frozen mousse (semifreddo), and meringue, the fucking pitch perfect bolognese—but, alas, the menu seems to be getting an overhaul soon, and reporting on all of it might be for naught.
However, it must be said that the snapper crudo ($19) is perhaps of the most satisfying crudo I’ve ever had. Crudo can often feel too one note—a bit too lovely and a bit too acidic. Bad crudo reads like watery ceviche with a drizzle of olive oil. Forest’s, though, is spectacularly composed and creamy. It includes thin chunks of snapper, sweetly sour pops of compressed green apple, fresh chive, and the most velvety avocado puree you can imagine. Each bite bursts with brightness and rich avocado flavor. I couldn’t get enough of it. This crudo is almost spreadable, like you could take a butter knife and swipe it across a tortilla. I’ll be thinking about it for a while. If it leaves Forest’s menu, I’m going to be quite sad.
Let it be known that Detroit has great pasta.
All of the pasta at Forest is made in-house and by human hands. No pasta machines. While I loved the salty, oceanic flavor of the spaghetti chitarra with crab ($26 for a half order) and the meaty, traditional, Bologna-style bolognese ($18), it was the sweet pea agnolotti that left the biggest impression. These little serrated pockets are perfectly al dente (read: firm and not slippery.) They accommodate mashed sweet peas and Pecorino, and come served with a piquant sauce made from juiced red peppers, sautéed red peppers, and butter. The sauce is astounding in its simplicity. The sweet and tangy red pepper juice finished with butter is rich and vinegary. These days, I want more bite to my pasta, and the agnolotti at Forest brings it.
Oh, and I love it when two separate restaurants connect through their food. The home fries with aioli ($12) remind me exactly of the Big Fries at the since deceased Eszett in Los Angeles. These are thick, creamy, crispy, augmented steak fries. In short: They’re fucking huge, dude, and they’re delicious. Eszett was one of my favorite restaurants in Los Angeles, and eating the home fries at Forest endeared me completely.
I believe that Talia, the chef, said that 70% of the menu at Forest is changing in two weeks. Whether or not some of this stuff remains, it doesn’t matter. Talia and Nick Janutol are damn talented, as is the rest of the Forest staff. If you live in Detroit, you should be visiting this restaurant 4 times a year. Also, fuck it, here’s a pic of the baked Alaska. It ruled.
Forest
735 Forest Ave.
Birmingham, MI 48009
Huddle’s Perfect Soft Serve Custard
Huddle is a little soft-serve window spot located among a row of houses which have been repurposed to be food & drink spaces. Keep in mind that this is soft serve custard, and not just soft serve. SSC is creamier due to higher fat content and egg yolks, while straight up soft serve is more saccharine. In short, this ain’t a cone from McDonald’s, pal.
I got a classic, All-American vanilla cone with sprinkles. Many people associate vanilla flavor with being boring. It must be said that these people are insolent children. Just because I like vanilla ice cream doesn’t mean that I don’t also eat spicy, funky, fucked up foods. Yeah, I enjoy a good Necco wafer and the occasional butterscotch candy, but I also ate something called blood chicken in Portugal with a ship captain. I’m not fucking Mormon.
Sometimes you just want pure richness; the unadulterated texture of milk and eggs. If anything, that makes me more of a deviant. Nobody should have to watch a man with a mustache eat an ice cream cone, though, so I promptly faced a wall away from the children.
Also, Huddle makes floats with Vernor’s ginger ale, AKA a Boston Cooler. I wrote about them last Summer, and you can read more about them here.
Huddle
8130 Kercheval Ave.
Detroit, MI 48214
La Pecora Nera’s Italian-American hoagie and Ruben submarine sandwich
I’m in the middle of ranking the best Italian sandwiches in Detroit for Hour magazine, a story set to run in their October issue. Man, what a dream—I love being a little sandwich detective, holding up a magnifying glass to a piece of spicy ham.
Located downtown, La Pecora Nera (The Black Sheep), makes good on its namesake. They’re mavericks with their sandwiches, and it shows.
Take the Italiano ($14) which features genoa salami, fire roasted ham, turkey breast, mortadella, capicola, provolone, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and house Italian dressing. Turkey and pickles are rather unusual to see on an Italian hoagie, but dammit they work. The turkey offers some clean, lean meat to combat all the richness, and the pickles provide needed tang. Turkey and pickles but also mortadella and oregano—this sandwich truly is Italian and American. It’s not a traditional Italian sandwich by any stretch, but then again, you’re dining at The Black Sheep. Get your authenticity fix elsewhere.
I love the tangy, oily, herby Italian dressing, which doesn’t read too sweet like some other spots. Carlos Parisi added whole mozzarella and hot giardiniera to our sub, which was a great move and I recommend the same. My only criticism with this sandwich (and every other sandwich in Detroit) is that I wish it used grated sharp provolone instead of the standard stuff. A missed opportunity for more flavor.
Zack’s Rueben ($13.50) came chef recommended and didn’t disappoint. I reckon that I enjoyed this one even more than the Italiano. The rueben is rye-less, and features Sy Ginsberg corned beef, mayo based red cabbage slaw, pickles, mozzarella, and homemade thousand island. This thing fucking rocked. The flavors were meaty, rich, and tangy as hell. This didn’t feel like a Rueben sandwich so much as it did a Rueben submarine. Like many of the sandwiches at La Pecora Nera, it’s its own thing. Is a Rueben a Rueben without rye? Who cares?
La Pecora Nera
1514 Washington Blvd.
Detroit, MI 48226
The Top Tier Toum at Cedarland
As I dined at Cedarland in Dearborn, I realized that I’m very critical of Middle Eastern garlic sauce, AKA toum.
Yemen Cafe’s felt too harsh, an unfortunate effect which I believe to be the result of not removing the garlic’s germ. Al Ameer’s toum felt like it somehow needed garlic, and perhaps also too fluffy. Cedarland’s, however, was exceptional. It’s garlicky and tart, but intensely rich and fatty, too. Balanced, pleasant, pungent—this toum is everything it needs to be. I had no notes.
My Metro Detroit Updated Toum Rankings:
Cedarland
Bucharest Grill
Al Ameer
Yemen Cafe
Cedarland’s sandwiches are cheap, but somewhat lacking. I love the raw red onions included with their beef kebab ($5.50), and the chicken shawarma ($4.99) was tasty enough. The shawarma specifically was grilled and seared like good shawarma should be, making the pita crispy and somewhat flaky. Both wraps felt a bit dry, however. Cedarland’s yellow lentil soup, which is free if you sit down, is fantastic. Peppery and nourishing in only the way well-spiced lentils can be.
Good toum can save just about anything, and Cedarland’s is tops for me in Detroit so far. That toum is so well-crafted that I’m convinced the menu has some sneaky hits somewhere. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of their sandwiches, I’m thinking that the spinach and meat pie, kafta, grape leaves, fried kibbeh, raw kibbeh, and tabbouleh are worth investigating.
Bonus: Mango Drink with Basil Seeds
Strangely, Cedarland also sells this mango & basil seed drink, which doesn’t appear to be Middle Eastern at all. It tastes Southeast Asian and boba-adjacent, but it’s made by this Mediterranean food distribution company, Cedar Garden, which is based in Michigan.
Regardless of its aesthetic or where it comes from, this drink makes a delicious pairing to Middle Eastern sandwiches, and the type of food & drink fusion I love. Also, as of early June, this is the first week that Cedarland has carried the drink. Cass, the owner/manager, said he simply tried it and loved it. I told him I would bring him some tarkhun sometime (a Turkish, tarragon soda I had in Los Angeles). Both are flavorful, herby, sodas you need to put in your Summer rotation.
Cedarland
13007 Warren Ave.
Dearborn, MI 48126
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I should be back this Thursday with another newsletter.
I adore garlic but just cannot get into toum. Too one note. Maybe I haven't had a good one?