rapini watch

I love rapini.

I first learned of the vegetable as a south suburban kid, reading an interview with Steve Vai in Guitar Player magazine. I've since come to dislike everything he stands for musically, but his taste in veggies is unimpeachable. Discussing his creative evolution, Steve turned to a culinary metaphor. While he found rapini disgusting as a child, as an adult, he discovered its rapturous power. As a food lover, this is the ur-text; that which used to disgust me may be eventually revealed as sublime ...

Anyway, thanks to the popularity of hyper-bitter beers, amari, or god knows what, rapini is everywhere these days. Since it seems to appear mostly as a "special" on local menus, I thought it might be fun for fellow bitter greens lovers to track its various appearances in a dedicated thread.

Classic places:

Jimmy's Place makes a classic rapini and beans:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/114677 (great pre-LTH thread)

Bertucci's Corner (please don't tell me they've closed) makes a wonderful rapini and sausage:
http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=126216

Recent appearances:

12/02/10: Acre featured "broccoli rape" in its monkfish stew ... (their typo, not mine (!) ... can't figure out how to attach the image of the menu)

Avec is on a rapini kick (as it often is). Last week, they featured a flatbread with duck egg, duck gizzards, and rapini. It was simple, but glorious. This week, the egg yolk has been replaced with manchego and the flatbread converted into a calzone. Phenomenal.

This week, Revolution Brewing featured an excellent pizza special with fresh mozzarella, rapini and about a half pound of house cured pancetta strips. I've been unimpressed with RevBrew's pizzas (ok, their food generally) in the past, but this was a memorable pizza -- nice char on the crust, not too soggy at the center, and well-balanced despite the aggressive flavors at play (including a welcome chili kick in the sauce).

Any other recent rapini sightings?

Two off the map, but since you asked for any sightings: the Quadrangle Club is currently offering a pork shoulder, polenta, and rapini with gremolata which is a step up from their normal fare.

Trattoria 225 in Oak Park has a recurring special of wood-ovened pork tenderloin and rapini in a lot of olive oil and garlic; simple and very tasty. They kicked the pizzas up in price way beyond reason so I've only been there once this year.

Rapini is often available at Freddy's in Cicero. Sometimes with large sausages on top.
A bitter greens tangent; I once bought italian beef from Bari's (maybe 12 years ago) and there was a good amount of escarole in with the beef, a surprise to say the least, but a pleasant one.

A couple months ago I poked my head into the somewhat new Pizzeria Brandi, just east of the Velvet Lounge on Cermak. What caught my eye was a hand-written sign on the counter advertising pork & rapini sandwiches. I could hardly contain my excitement. They were out of pork that day so I settled for a sandwich of sausage and greens.



My hopes were raised by a forkful of the rapini—cooked to tenderness but not mushy, nicely garlicky with a good hit of red pepper. Unfortunately the sausage and especially the bread were not equal to the greens. A week later I returned for a pork sandwich and was disappointed by the undercooked, gristly meat. It's a shame, as I had hopes for Brandi based on that first taste of rapini.

Pizzeria Brandi
67 E Cermak Rd
Chicago
312-794-5900
http://www.brandipizza.com/

Rapini is currently being used in a calzone at Avec -- the other ingredients have been changing weekly, from duck gizzards to calabrian peppers. Anyway, it is delicious and highly recommended.

We had some that was slightly oversalted (on the first go round- )
@ Publican Restaurant- served with the ever ready Pignoli and Raisin combo
(theirs called for "pickled raisins") with the Rapini hailing from The Nichols farm in Marengo Illinois.
On a side note- did anyone ever comment on how TASTY their "farm chicken" is?
I highly recommend it!- OH, and be sure to ask for "Kim" as your server there- she ROCKS!

Agostino's homemade sausage with rapini over pasta is my vote.

A few weeks ago, Spacca Napoli had a pizza with Guanciale and Rapini. I didn't enjoy it much on the pizza, so I pulled it off, added a little salt and olive oil and finished it off. It was particularly strong rapini and overwhelmed the guanciale, so I just made it a pork pizza with a side of greens kinda dinner.

vickyp wrote:A few weeks ago, Spacca Napoli had a pizza with Guanciale and Rapini. I didn't enjoy it much on the pizza, so I pulled it off, added a little salt and olive oil and finished it off. It was particularly strong rapini and overwhelmed the guanciale, so I just made it a pork pizza with a side of greens kinda dinner.

They must not have boiled the rapini first. You have to boil it for a few minutes to take out the strong bitterness.

Boil it? Take out the bitterness? Dear god, no!

Down on Taylor street, rapini and "rapini" are in full bloom. While waiting for Davanti Enoteca, we decided to grab a drink or two at Two Aces. We weren't planning on ordering food, but were intrigued by the biker bar meets snout to tail vibe of the menu. While wanting to save room, we still couldn't pass up the beer battered rapini.

Sadly, it was a bit of a disappointment. The heavy (though tasty) batter just masked the flavor of the rapini entirely. A lighter batter might work, I'm not sure. But it was strange to taste utterly neutralized rapini.

Things were worse at Davanti. We were generally impressed with our meal, especially the sea urchin linguine which favorably compared with a glorious version we had in Cala Golone, Sardinia. And that's sayin' a lot, folks.

But, Davanti does that thing where they list the entree in Eyetalian and then also in English. A pizza with sausage was listed in Eyetalian as accompanied by "rapini.' But the English "translation" listed it as "broccolini." Huh? So we ask the server, is it rapini or broccolini. "They're the same thing." "No, no, no, and I really mean no, they are not."

Server was polite despite me being a bit of a snob about it, so she went and inquired. "Oops, yeah, it's broccolini, not rapini."

Having already ordered the damn thing, we decided to just get it. Totally flavorless rapini-resembling mush. So sad. My guess is that the bitterness was too much for the scene there. But who knows.

Davanti Enoteca
1359 West Taylor Street
Chicago, IL 60607
(312) 226-5550

Prix Fixe in Lincoln Square has terrific sauteed rapini as part of its current three-course seasonal set menu.

Prix Fixe
4835 North Western Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60625
(773) 681-0651

Publican's menu changes too fast to keep up, but the rapini they were serving with the suckling pig last weekend was remarkably bitter and wonderful (and that's been my favorite Publican pig presentation to date, with the big polenta gnocchi striding past Terragusto's version).

Amazing chitarra pasta at the Bristol tonight with a rapini pesto. From what I was told, it's sort of a deconstructed pesto, as they blanch the rapini, then blend it with roasted garlic and toasted pine nuts. Finished with top notch olive oil, lemon zest and pecorino.

Super toothsome noodles ... simple but utterly perfect execution -- at once bright and yet deep and hearty at the same time. One of the best pasta dishes I've had in a very long time.

I'm always (can't help it) "that guy" when it comes to pestering servers -- in this case, the bartender, who was totally slammed -- about the processes and components of favorite dishes. I want to try to make it at home! I know it's annoying; no server should be expected to know how to cook each dish; regardless, few have the time to do so even if they cared. So I don't expect people to drop what they're doing to run into the kitchen to answer my overly detailed questions about a dish. Yet Dave did just that.

It's the kind of service that makes a patron feel special and not like the overly needy know-it-all that he/she probably is. In other words, service that's inspiring, humbling and awesome.