HG/BSK will have the happy experience of family Christmas this year at the Providence home of Gifted Daughter Lesley R. and husband, Profesore/Dottore/ Ufficiale Massimo R. HG will whine and wheedle as HG tries to persuade the family to dine at Lucky Garden, a Chinese restaurant in North Providence. It’s a shlep but well worth it because Lucky Garden, located in a rather bleak neighborhood, is one of the best Chinese restaurants in the United States. The menu is quite daring offering some tripe dishes, chicken feet, sea cucumber and other esoterica. However, the restaurant pleases our large family group with mainstream delicacies like whole steamed flounder, Chinese greens with garlic, dumplings, congee, etc. Looking forward to dining there has caused HG to muse on memorable food HG has consumed in unlikely locales. There was a shack on the Rhode Island bike bath between Providence and Bristol that lives in HG’s memory (the shack, alas, disappeared a few years ago). HG would set off on a bike jaunt to work off some of Lesley R’s generous cuisine. But, at a midway point, appetite would conquer and HG would pause at the shack for an enormous bowl of linguini con vongole. Clams, garlic, good olive oil, clam broth, red pepper, al dente pasta—all perfectly balanced and beyond abundant. Returned from the bike ride pounds heavier. Another unlikely place for superb dining is Big Timber, Montana. The restaurant in the old Grand Hotel serves a rack of lamb that is incomparable. Natural, hormone free meat cooked perfectly and served with grace. And, you can drink great wine with the rack. Very imaginative and well priced wine list. It was here that HG/BSK were introduced to the robust wines of Walla Walla, Washington. An HG/BSK family legend concerns a meal the duo and young SJ and Lesley R. consumed many years ago in Phoenix. A Friday night and every restaurant in town was jammed with waiting times up to two hours. Famished from hours of swimming and tennis under the Arizona sun, the family stopped at a very unpromising Chinese restaurant, the Golden Pagoda. A sad menu of chow mein and other horrors. HG summoned the manager and said: “We are from New York. We love real Chinese food. Forget the menu. Just cook us a meal you would enjoy eating with your family.” Magic words. The meal that followed was extraordinary. Lives in our collective memories.
