THE MAIN DISH

Common Restaurant’s in-house Trombone Bakery opens up daily doorway retail 🥐🍰

Pastry chef Chelsea Clarkson and her Trombone Bakery trio were already upstairs, preparing all of the baked goods for Common Restaurant and its other-end-of-Broughton Street sister resto, The Ordinary Pub.

Because Common does not begin Brunch Life each day until eleven a.m., owners Bee and Mike Vaudrin figured that, with a few creative construction modifications, they could create a separate storefront and sell their in-house loaves, pastries, and sweets before opening the restaurant proper.

“They were here, and we never used that door before eleven,” he said, “so we started talking and asked Chelsea, ‘Do you want to open that door and sell some things?’”

This past Monday, Trombone Bakery began the latest phase of its evolution, offering grab-and-go scratch-baked breakfast handhelds and coffee, all from the cyan French-doored vestibule.

Mike Vaudrin said that it is not so much an ‘opening’ as it is another “offering from Common.”

From their upstairs bakery to the little doorway counter, Clarkson and her team are going to get their steps in - or they can install a slide. You know, trombone. (I had to.)

CHEF’S CRAVINGS

LOCAL 11TEN - Jake Rogers & Marco Quiroz

Each week, I ask the folks behind the phenomenal food at our favorite places around Savannah these same simple questions:

When you are not in your restaurant kitchen, where do you go out to eat and what do you order?

Chefs Jake Rogers and Marco Quiroz have been in Daniel Reed Hospitality kitchens for a while now, and on July 2, Rogers took over the executive chef title at Local 11ten and named Quiroz his sous. This week’s Chefs’ Cravings come from the delightful duo who helm what has remained one of the city’s fine-dining standard bearers since it opened in 2007.

JR: I’m more of a lunch person because I’m cooking dinner. My favorite lunch spot is Taqueria El San Suis. I’m a sucker for tacos, and they do it right. They’re super-friendly there, and it’s always consistent. 

MQ: I tend to visit there every so often, too. 

JR: My go-to order is two al pastor tacos and one chicken tacos, everything on them, one of each of the mild salsas, and one of the Mexican Squirt drinks. It’s so fizzy. 

MQ: So refreshing during the summer. 

JR: So refreshing.

MQ: I generally go to E-TANG a lot as well as Bewon over in Pooler, a Korean BBQ spot. Beef bulgogi, usually, or squid bulgogi. I also get kimchi soup, extra extra spicy. I love my spicy. Same at E-TANG. Flaming beef. Sometimes, I’ll get grilled pork intestines.

JR: Crazy.

MQ: Yup. Extra spicy!

JR: I want something that’s fast. In and out in fifteen minutes, and you know you’re satisfied. You go in, you order, boom, it’s pretty much at your table. It’s the same every time. Consistency is so key. 

MQ: You’ll find with some chefs that sometimes we don’t want to cook on our days off, so something quick and simple.

JR: The Laundry Diner is going to be cool. I’m only a few blocks over. I like Clary’s Cafe because it’s just simple diner breakfasts, but you’ve got to fight the crowd.

MQ: The Breakfast Place is pretty good, similar problem. 

JR: I’ll tell you what, I’m a sucker for Culver’s (interviewer high-fives Rogers). I love Culver’s so much. I go there probably more than Taqueria El San Luis. I’m a Double Bacon Deluxe burger, fries, side of cheese sauce, and then the classic Turtle custard.

MQ: For sure, Wing Stop, if I’m being honest. When I’m coming out of work and I don’t have any greasy, carb-loaded fast food, I get wings, fifteen atomic flavor. 

JR: This guy’s crazy.

MQ: I love it. They probably know my name by now. The one on Victory. They do me solid.

And for a special occasion?

MQ: Brochu’s.

JR: Yeah, Brochu’s.  

MQ: Half roasted chicken, and they have a chicken liver dish over there with nice toast.

JR: Special occasion, probably (pauses, not wanting simply to pub the house brand)...I would say Local 11ten. Good offerings executed perfectly, that’s what we bring to the table. Approachable to everyone, timeless cooking, fine dining, but it’s also simple that reaches out to all crowds.

-Neil Gabbey

TRIED, TASTED, TRUE

Vichy carrots 🥕

THE STORY BEHIND THE RECIPE

The poor carrot. Oft resigned to lying on crudité platters and to being tossed into the occasional smoothie, it may prefer those edible ends to sweating out its final hours in a child’s lunch pouch before being tossed into the trash.

It does not have to be this way. While I have always been a fan of a raw carrot and was roundly rebuked for requesting carrot cake for my eighth birthday, I can appreciate that a side of cooked orange root coins may not be gastronomically inspiring.

Nevertheless, the way’s the thing in which to catch the conscience of the stomaching. Preparation is key to a carrot.

On our first scouting trips to Savannah, my wife and I stayed at Joan’s on Jones, the erstwhile rez-de-chaussée rental of Joan Levy, who welcomed our pup and who gave us several reliable restaurant recommendations, one of which was Circa 1875.

For the better part of our years visiting and then living here, the Whitaker Street bona fide brasserie was our favorite spot in town, and my wife’s usual was the Truite de Ruisseau Pôelé, accompanied by perfectly cooked carrots.

Though we last visited Circa more than a year ago, which is another story altogether, I have done my level best at home to replicate those carrots, a preparation that has everything to do with their fork-tender doneness and a subtly sweet glaze.

History has it that Carottes à la Vichy were originally cooked in the region’s eponymous mineral water, and some derivative recipes call for mineral or sparkling water or even tap water with a dash of baking soda. Tant pis: just use tap. Keep it simple.

Like many of the Triple T dishes, recipes abound online for Vichy-style carrots, but I have not wandered far from the one in Sainsbury’s Magazine (www.sainsburysmagazine.co.uk), which has five ingredients and two steps. Eschew the call for Chantenays, though a rainbow assortment of carrots would be even more attractive.

Because they look nicer and make for heartier portions, I cut my carrots on a thick bias, between an inch and a half and two inches long, halving the ends closest to the top.

For a pound of peeled and cut carrots, I up the water to a full cup and occasionally drizzle in a teaspoon of honey when it comes to a boil.

When you remove the lid after the first 10 minutes, you may think that you have done something wrong because the glaze will not be glazy, but that is what happens during the next 10 to 15 minutes as the rest of the water evaporates. 

Keep the sautée pan uncovered and periodically move the carrots around as the liquid thickens, and every so often, use a fork or knife tip to test for doneness. Any real resistance simply means that the carrots are underdone and need a few more minutes. Overcooked mushiness means that you have made French-inspired baby food.

I had recently used up most of the parsley in my little herb garden, so I cut a hank of chives to sprinkle on the slightly sticky finished product, plus some lemon zest and juice from half of that same lemon.

The glaze and the diced herbs are the only real panache of what still might look like a “simple” finished product, but authentique Carottes à la Vichy are the real deal and elevate our familiar orange friends to their culinary best.

When the cooler weather returns, I will dedicate two more Triple Ts to the cheesy carrot casserole recipe that was a Thanksgiving tradition in my wife’s family and to carrot-cashew purée, another EatingWell winner.

-Neil Gabbey

THE RECIPE

HARD GOODS

WET GOODS

DO THIS

BEEN THERE. ATE THAT.

Coffee Deli ☕️ 🥯

When we were house hunting, the proximity of Habersham Village to neighborhoods between it and Victory Drive was a selling point. If memory serves, after we closed on our bungalow in Ardsley Park, we ate dinner at 5 Spot and then sat in our car as a young couple signed on the dotted line to buy our bungalow back in Baltimore.

In the last decade, though, the convenient plaza that sits roughly a mile from our front door has been an alimentary afterthought. We fill our prescriptions at Walgreens. Vintage Barbers 912’s Shanna is the best. Every so often, we pick up a bottle of red at Habersham Beverage or duck into Red & White for some Smoke Rise BBQ. 

For years, my wife has spent plenty of time at coffee·deli for meetings, which seems to be the café’s raison d’etre for the Ardsley Park, Ardmore, Gould Estates, Lamara Park, and Olin Heights residents.

Many years ago, I wrote about Savannah’s scone scene and scoffed at coffee·deli’s rendition. Until this past Saturday, I had not been inside in a solid year, and I could not recall the last time I had eaten any food there. 

I was not missing anything.

We had some errands to do after Fulham held on to down Leicester City, 2-1, and figured that a quick bite in Habersham Village would work. Neighbor friends had mentioned the Southern Tomato. Sounded great. Some sustenance to split before braving Target and Home Depot.

To the eatery’s genuine credit, the relatively recent renovation made what was already a welcoming neighborhood café even brighter and lighter with oodles of seating both inside and out. 

After we placed our order and took a booth near the front window, I peered around and noted that none of the other dozen-odd guests had any food on their respective tables, only drinks. Huh.

My name was soon called, and I walked up to the counter. Before we ordered, I wondered why the sandwich was only seven dollars. When I saw what was on the plate, I knew. I must have had a sip of iced tea in my mouth and had to hold back a spit-take: three biscuit-sized rounds of crustless from-a-bag white bread next to a plastic ramekin of cavatappi pasta salad.

It looked like a child had made it or that it had been made for a child.

In fairness, the tomato slices were fresh and ripe, though very thin, and the Johnny’s secret seasoning mixed into the mayo made for tasty little bites.

The classic Southern tomato sandwich is deliciously simple: white bread, tomatoes, mayonnaise, and salt. I suppose that this iteration was meant to be a trio of circular finger sandwiches, but I could not help but compare them to others I had previously been served, not to mention the photos posted on coffee·deli’s website. 

I wanted that one.

So as not to cast comestible aspersions on one order, I bought one of the grab-n-go chicken biscuits ($4.25), a new batch of which had just been placed in the self-serve case. The house-made biscuit was tasty. I could be mistaken, but the perfunctory piece of chicken appeared to be a prebreaded, prefrozen breast cut in half and then fried to order.

In name and nature, this is a deli and not a bakery, so I would not expect breads other than biscuits to be made in-house. That being written, when we go out, I always hope to be served something better than I can make myself for five times the cost.

Luckily, the bike ride to the places that have opened north of Victory in the last five years is shorter than heading to the ones that remain open south of Columbus.

-Neil Gabbey