Lisa Reisman Photo
Zinc’s Alex Blifford prepares chicken pad thai meals to go.
Today’s idea for helping a restaurant weather the pandemic, through to-go orders.
“Every restaurant is a theater,” the food critic Ruth Reichl once wrote. “Restaurants free us from mundane reality; that is part of their charm. When you walk through the door, you are entering neutral territory where you are free to be whoever you choose for the duration of the meal.”
So what happens when the show abruptly closes?
“You think out of the box,” said Zinc New Haven executive chef Alex Blifford on a recent morning in the kitchen of the Chapel Street mainstay.
Blifford was resting cubes of tamarind-marinated grilled chicken on a bed of rice noodles, amid a rainbow of snow peas, julienne carrots, and scrambled eggs in an aluminum container.
The need to think differently has never been truer than in the last year, and not just with the Chicken Pad Thai he was preparing for a pick-up order as part of a three-course family meal kit for two that Zinc has been offering since last June.
Take-out and delivery orders will prove crucial to the ability of local restaurants like ZInc to weather the Covid-19 pandemic. Visit Zinc at 964 Chapel St., call in at 203 – 624-0507 or visit the website for more information on placing orders for chicken pad thai family meals or other dishes to go or for delivery.
Zinc on Chapel Street.
To hear owner Donna Curran tell it, it was touch-and-go at times for the well-decorated establishment that the New York Times dubbed “among the most interesting, adventuresome, and satisfying restaurants in Connecticut,” for the daring culinary artistry practiced by its chef Denise Appel.
“We celebrated our 20th anniversary in 2019, and we might as well be a start-up right now,” Curran said, seated at the bar in the long, narrow dining room designed in the style of a Paris bistro. “The last 12 months have been a series of pivots.”
After Gov. Lamont’s March 2020 order to close nonessential businesses, Curran stripped the 25-person staff to a skeleton crew. (“That was painful,” she said.) Throughout last spring, Zinc worked with World Central Kitchen to serve over 1,000 meals to healthcare workers. With federal Paycheck Protection Program funds for small businesses, they upgraded the patio and the dining room, adding plexiglass social dividers to the dining room.
All along, she said, “you can’t say, ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ because tomorrow you might say, ‘That’s not what we can do.’”
One constant since June has been the three-course Family Meal for two, which Blifford packs cold, with instructions for diners to finish preparing at home.
Ingredients of chicken pad thai in aluminum container, to be completed at home.
According to Curran, it represents a natural, and marketable, extension of the shift in favor of home-cooked meals over restaurants during the pandemic: give people dishes from their favorite restaurants they can substitute for home-cooked meals.
“This became the way to preserve the integrity of the food for us,” she said. “We bring it to a certain point, and then the whole idea is that when you take it home and you do your seven to eight minutes prep, you’re going to have a freshly prepared dish.”
As it’s turned out, producing the Family Meals has required just the sort of creative mindset that Blifford, the executive chef, relishes.
“If you’re giving someone something to make, and it ends up taking them a lot of time, they might as well order to-go food, so I had to figure out a way to simplify the meals for ease of preparation and minimal clean-up,” he said, as he labeled containers of Pad Thai with a Sharpie.
“Every time I do one of these menus, I’m always thinking how can I represent the restaurant in the best possible way, and also for all the people who don’t feel safe going out, how do I make them feel that they’re still part of what we’re doing here,” he said, placing portion cups of lobster, peanuts, and nuoc cham, a Vietnamese dipping sauce, with the crisp cabbage.
The inclusion of nuoc cham represents the heady influence of Appel, and her well-known affinity for Vietnamese cuisine, on his evolution as a chef.
Blifford got his start in the restaurant world washing dishes and bussing tables at Chip’s Pub III in Clinton, then did a stint at Zinc when they first opened in 2000. After culinary school and “dinking and dunking around the Shoreline for a while,” he was back, working his way up the ladder from sous chef to chef de cuisine to executive chef.
“The reason I came back is Denise,” he said, lauding her willingness to experiment, as well as her mastery of texture and flavor profiles.
With that, Blifford turned his attention to the dessert course, a blood orange yogurt cake coated with blood orange glaze, with whipped cream topping.
“You come out to dinner with your friends, and you’re having a conversation and you’re having drinks and talking about life, but when the dinner you’re eating becomes the conversation you’re having, that’s pretty special, and knowing how to make that kind of dinner is an education you can’t buy.”
Ingredients of Vietnamese cabbage salad in aluminum container.
It was a simple and satisfying preparation. Simple for the clear and concise instructions. Satisfying, because of the discovery of a new ingredient — nuoc cham may well become a condiment of choice — as well as a sense of breezy confidence, armed as I was with the exact measurements of a tried-and-true recipe prepared by a master chef.
Vietnamese cabbage salad, prepared at home.
Then my dinner companion (my mother) and I settled down to dinner. True to Blifford’s words, I found myself savoring the intricate combinations of fresh cilantro, peanuts, and lobster in the cabbage salad, identifying one or another ingredient, before giving up and allowing myself to be seduced.
The Chicken Pad Thai was the highlight, the chicken, fragrant with tamarind, mingling with the sweet zing of the Sriracha and the fresh tartness of the lime, each balancing the rice noodles and feathery scrambled eggs.
The dish rendered us silent.
Blood orange yogurt cake.
Until the blood orange yogurt cake, that is. It was at once light and rich, thanks to the bright taste of the citrus and the tang of the yogurt.
“Otherworldly,” my mother said.
On reporting to Curran my high marks on the meal, I asked if Family Meals will remain a part of Zinc once it fully reopens.
She couldn’t say.
“We’ve had several real hits, but I also think people are starved to get back into restaurants,” Curran said. “The experience, the interaction, the conviviality — it’s such an important part of people’s lives.”
Previous coverage of recommended take-out orders to help local businesses survive the pandemic:
• Today’s Special: Haci’s Napoletana Pie
• Today’s Special: Fred & Patty’s Brie On Baguette
• Today’s Special: Nieda’s Moist Falafel
• Today’s Special: Qulen’s Vegan “Wings”
• Today’s Special: Aaron’s Peruvian Rice Bowl
• Today’s Special: Singh Bros.’ Chana Kulcha
• Today’s Special: Grandma’s Chicken Soup
• Today’s Special: Woody’s Steak & Shrimp
• Today’s Special: Shilmat’s Yemisir Sambusa
• Today’s Special: Arjun’s Vegetarian Manchurian
• Today’s Special: Mohammed’s Bhel Poori
• Today’s Special: Francesco’s Tortelli
• Today’s Special: Seikichi’s Sushi
• Today’s Special: Ketkeo’s Khao Poon
• Today’s Special: Mike Fox’s French Toast
• Today’s Special: Zhang’s Squirrel Fish Dish
• Today’s Special: Jessica’s Gumbo
• Today’s Special: Kenny Kim’s Vegan Ramen
• Today’s Special: Ernesto’s Venezuelan Arepa
• Today’s Special: Corey’s “Prison Reformer” Frank
• Today’s Special: Bryan’s Butter Chicken Pie
• Today’s Special: Jared’s Super Supreme Baked Potato
• Today’s Special: Craig’s Breakfast Reuben
• Today’s Special: Sunny’s Mackerel Sashimi
• Today’s Special: Jamshed’s Lemon Chicken
• Today’s Special: Dave’s Navratan Curry
• Today’s Special: Nicole’s Oxtail
• Today’s Special: Brisket Kansa-Lina Fries
• Today’s Special: Sandra’s Bourbon-Glazed Salmon
• Today’s Special: Alba’s Beet Salad With Goat Cheese Panna Cotta
We have taken out family meals twice and have been really pleased. I treated myself to Zinc on special ocassions pre-pandemic because although I consider myself a decent home cook I will never be able to produce food at their professional level. Amazingly they have been able to preserve that in the context of takeout. This really is a cut above and it's relatively affordable-$60 dinner for two. Last time I went to Modern I dropped nearly $50. So if you are tired of standard takeout and willing to spend a few more bucks for exceptional food- I highly recommend it. Also the portions are generous and if you are not big eaters (as we are not) you will get two meals out of it.