QUICK BITES
Small plates are au courant. Restaurateurs have embraced the term. Eaters have embraced the idea.

At Alinea in Chicago, the most courant of au courant eateries, dinner is a 20-odd-course progression of small plates, many of which are eaten by hand, in one or two lusty bites. As in briny croquettes of smoked steelhead roe. And exploding bonbons of black truffle and parmesan. And cinnamon-apple foie gras petits fours.

But one- or two-bite servings are not merely trendy. They have antecedents in other cultures, other places. Think of tapas, the bar snacks of Barcelona. Or chicheti, the skewered tastes of Venice. Or dim sum, the cart-delivered bites of Chinese cookery and culture.

Small plates owe a debt to American street food, too. To the grab-and-go fare dished by taco trucks, step-side sandwich vans, barbecue joints, snack shacks, and hot dog stands. Accordingly, you’ll find a riff on county fair cotton candy in the roster in the following pages. And a kissin’ cousin to the hot dog. And a not-so-smallish sandwich that calls to mind the sort of wax-paper-wrapped meal that you fish from a bag and eat on the fly.

So dig in. 2008 promises great things in small packages
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

SAVORY

1. Poutine
SALT HOUSE
San Francisco

The Quebecois are crazy for this stuff. So are their snowbird kin down in Florida. Think mashed potatoes and gravy. But with texture. And with cheese.

The texture comes when you sub fried potatoes for mashed potatoes. The cheesy savor comes from curds, the solids formed when milk coagulates. Those same solids that, following pressing and aging, become, say, cheddar.

Salt House is the second San Francisco restaurant from chef Mitchell Rosenthal and front-of-the-house man Doug Washington. Their first endeavor, Town Hall, won a citywide reputation for honest food, leveraging Gulf South culinary roots and a genuine and seemingly effortless élan.

Same deal here. But less Gulf South and more world bistro.

Salt House is a long and simple space. High ceilings. Groovy music. A short and simple menu. Oysters with bacon and leeks. Lamb sausage with chickpeas.

And poutine, which Rosenthal interprets as a quiver of hand-cut fries, doused with short-rib gravy, tossed with cheddar — or maybe gorgonzola.
545 Mission St.
415.543.8900
salthousesf.com

2. Chili Half-Smoke
BEN'S CHILI BOWL
Washington, D.C.

Best as I can determine, a half-smoke, the specialty of Ben’s Chili Bowl — a U Street Corridor diner with snazzy red vinyl seats, a boomerang counter, and an old-school R&B jukebox — is an encased meat product that has been smoked less than a traditional sausage, but more than a hot dog. As in halfway. Half-smoked.

Think of a coarse-ground hot dog with a hickory kick just shy of those Little Smokies breakfast sausages popular in the 1970s. The Ali family, owner of Ben’s, has been making them since 1958. They’re expert at griddle-cooking their half-smokes. And they stir up a cumin-spiked chili that teases but does not torment.

Service is quick enough that you might consider a detour on your way to the airport — or a half-smoke appetizer on your way to dinner.
1213 U St., NW
202.667.0909
benschilibowl.com

3. Campechana Extra
GOODE COMPANY
SEAFOOD 1
Houston

Alison Cook, restaurant critic for the Houston Chronicle, insisted. I resisted. She told me that Jim Goode is a genius at weaving together the Mexican, Cajun, and Gulf Coast strands of Texas cooking. Said he does it best of all at his seafood place, a tongue-in-cheek fishing camp. She recommended the catfish in salsa verde and the campechana. I had initially avoided Goode Company because it’s a multiple location operation. I figured that spelled a chain. I figured that spelled boring.

But I bellied up to the counter at this reimagined roadhouse and followed Alison’s lead. The charcoal-grilled catfish was sweet and meaty and — thanks to the blanket of green sauce — bright as Galveston Bay on an August afternoon.

But their campechana extra, a riff on the traditional Mexican cocktail of tomato, onion, cilantro, lime, and seafood, may be the best darn thing I ate all year. Served in a fluted sundae glass ringed by freshly fried tortilla chips, it’s chunked with all manner of goodness — sweet lumps of crab, creamy hunks of avocado, and crisp crescents of shrimp.

One more thing: The serving size is so generous that it challenges the small plate, quick bite conceit. But in this one case, that’s okay.
2621 Westpark Dr.
713.523.7154
goodecompany.com

4.Smoked Shrimp
CALUMET FISHERIES
Chicago

You’ll want to book a cab. Because it’s a long haul from the Loop. Set in an industrial district alongside the Calumet River, this block building is within sight of the bridge that Jake and Elwood jumped in The Blues Brothers.

But never mind the Hollywood tie-ins. Calumet Fisheries smokes a mean mess of shrimp. That’s right, shrimp. Not salmon. Not sable. Not mackerel. Shrimp. As in arcs of pink flesh that emerge from the smokehouse firm and kissed — just barely — with the scent of smoldering oak and cherry woods.

Opened in 1948 by brothers-in-law Sid Kotlick and Len Toll, Calumet should be on the National Register of Historic Artisans. Or at least someone should start such a register and then elect Calumet as the inaugural member.
3259 East 95th St.
773.933.9855

5.Tomato Pie
GAETA"S ITALIAN BAKERY
Philadelphia

Forget cheese. Sure, some makers of this Philadelphia specialty sprinkle a bit of pecorino romano on their pies. But they’re in the minority. And all the cheese does is get in the way. The focus here is tomato sauce and bread. Think focaccia slicked with tomato gravy and you’re there.

Sara Roahen, a recent transplant from New Orleans, introduced me to the joys of tomato pie. She said it was great “driving around” food. So that’s what we did. We drove around, reaching into a box of pizza squares shellacked with a brick-red sauce. Our first stop was Iannelli’s Brick Oven Bakery on East Passyunk. I was smitten on first bite, but Sara wondered if we could do better. So we called Gaeta’s and began scribbling directions to the North Philly walk-up on the lid of the pizza box.

The crust at Gaeta’s was crisper. The sauce was more acidic, more herbaceous. The place was just as honest, just as lacking in frills. On the way home, we plotted a detour to Cacia’s, another gold-standard tomato-pie bakery. Our intent was strong, but our appetites flagged as we ate square after square of Gaeta’s best.
7616 Castor Ave.
215.745.2262

6. Brown Barbecue Tray
LEXINGTON BARBECUE
Lexington, North Carolina

The drive from Charlotte to this roadside temple of western-style North Carolina barbecue takes an hour and change. And the payoff is huge. More specifically, the payoff is a small cardboard tray heaped with goodness.

At left is coleslaw dressed with vinegary barbecue sauce. At right are small, chopped bites of cordovan-colored shoulder meat, the stuff locals call “brown.” On the side is a jumble of crescent-shaped hush puppies.

The interplay of the three is key. Here’s how to best take advantage: Take a seat at the counter. That’s proprietor Rick Monk, son of the founder, Wayne, working the order window. Now dig a plastic fork into the center and spear a few chunks of meat. Taste smoke and salt. Follow that with a bite of cool coleslaw, a palate cleanser of sorts. And then another bite of ’cue. And, about the time you’re wishing for a slice of white bread, reach for a hush puppy, which tastes sweeter than you expect — that is until you douse it with the Monk family’s vinegary homemade hot sauce. The tray is, for some, more than a small bite, but it’s a quick serve and eat — and you just might be tempted to order a little extra.
10 US Hwy. 29-70 South
336.249.9814

7. Tuna Salad Sandwich
UNION SQUARE CAFE
New York City

The tuna burger conjures the culinary vibe of 1985. And so do the bright, market-bounty murals that adorn the walls of this perennially popular restaurant, the first in Danny Meyer’s family of New York businesses. The tuna salad sandwich with bacon comes straight out of the same era. But somehow it’s eternal.

Served on sourdough white, alongside a serving of hand-cut potato chips perfumed with garlic, the first bite of a tuna salad sandwich as imagined by chef Michael Romano calls to mind a small-town soda fountain treat. It’s simple like that. Unassuming.

But with a second bite, complexity comes to the fore. Maybe mint. Certainly fennel. Arugula. A balance of sweet and spicy and, yes, fishy. Order a glass of Sancerre from the deep roster of wines and this take on the tuna salad standard even tastes grown-up.
21 E. 16th St.
212.243.4020
unionsquarecafe.com

SWEET

8. Boiled Peanut Cotton Candy
MCCRADY'S
Charleston, South Carolina

The glass is tulip-shaped. An amber liquid sloshes within. Atop, looking like a wig that once belonged to Don King, is a pouf of house-made cotton candy. This is how a meal begins at McCrady’s, the 18th-century brick-walled downtown restaurant where George Washington once supped.

The liquid is a consommé of foie gras. It tastes briny. And rich as can be. But it’s the cotton candy that astonishes. The science behind it, according to chef Sean Brock, is complicated. Something about boiling peanuts, pulverizing them, and spinning them into a cloud.

Never mind how he does it. The taste is ethereal. And, counterintuitively, earthy. As the cotton candy dissolves on your tongue, you taste the loam in which those peanuts grew. And you forget all about the consommé.
2 Unity Alley
843.577.0025
mccradysrestaurant.com

9. Morning Bun
TARTINE BAKERY
San Francisco

I taste butter. And cinnamon. And orange. I take a pull on my cappuccino, then another bite of morning bun. And another. Residents of San Francisco like to argue about who bakes the city’s best. Their opinions are impassioned. DeLessio has its advocates. Acme Bread does, too.

Yes, debates about sourdough loaves are more vocal and vociferous. But informed eaters of morning buns care. And they disagree.

I’ve only sampled two of the three contenders. But I can’t imagine a bun that tastes better than the ones baked by Liz Prueitt and crew at Tartine. At its core, her morning bun is just a twist of brioche. But eaten within the tight confines of this bursting-at-the-seams street-corner space, as sunlight knifes through morning fog, it’s a ticket to bliss that lasts three bites, maybe four.
600 Guerrero St.
415.487.2600
tartinebakery.com

10. Soft-Serve Vanilla Ice Cream With Olive Oil
STAR PROVISIONS
Atlanta

With a downward pull on a lever, soft-serve ice cream uncoils from a refrigerated machine. If it weren’t brand-new, if it weren’t a vision of well-scrubbed stainless steel, the machine would resemble the sort of device by which Dairy Queen has long dispensed its products.

Of course, the drizzle of artisanal olive oil sets it apart. As does the sprinkle of sea salt. This is ice cream reimagined. Ice cream glorified. Ice cream that straddles, somehow, the gap between super sweet and almost savory. It tastes deep. And profound.

You’ll find the magical machine at the rear of the bakery in Star Provisions, the gourmet-goods store that functions as a kind of anteroom to chef Anne Quatrano’s elegant temple of local tastes, Bacchanalia. Under the same roof is what may be the region’s best cheese cave. And a salumi curing room, too. But I tend to make a beeline past the bakery cases, toward the ice cream machine.
1198 Howell Mill Rd.
404.365.0410
starprovisions.com

John T. Edge is the food columnist for US Airways Magazine. He is the author of several food books and works as the director of the Southern Foodways Alliance in Oxford, Mississippi. He also serves as the culinary curator for the weekend edition of NPR’s All Things Considered.