In the world of super ingredients, The Truffle wears the crown. For the more common black truffle, prices weigh in around $380 per pound, but the white version of this fabulous fungi will set you back $1,000 for the same amount. Many attempts have been made to cultivate the little lady, but none have worked. The only way to procure a truffle is to have a trained truffle-searching animal, be it a pig or more recently a dog, find the mushroom in loose soil. Needless to say, it’s an important part of haute cuisine. Tom Ford even made a perfume that features aromatics that smell of truffle. If you serve us Horse Rectum with a Truffled Trash Juice reduction, we’ll have seconds.
Now since that dish doesn’t exist, we’re on a hunt for the best use of truffles in the city limits. Pictured above is a tasty treat from Tria called the Truffled Egg Toast. The little black bits of truffle-y love swimming throughout the egg provides just the right amount of sweet pungency that announces its arrival to the whole room.Â
We will continue our search for the Perfect Truffled Dish, but we need your help. Tell us where you go to get truffled. After some serious research, we’ll have a Chef to crown as Truffle Master. The foodie community and your palate demand it.
Tria Washington West, 12th and Spruce Sts. (215) 629-9200
the Royal Tavern’s truffle popcorn. pretty much always a good idea.
the setas a la plancha at. I know they are mushrooms already, but they are deliciously dressed with truffle oil. awesome. huge fan of tria’s truffle egg toast too!
the truffle dijonnaise for the fried at pub and kitchen’s pretty nice.
Not gonna lie to you, but I’m pretty certain the bits of black are just black pepper, and all the truffle essence on that toast comes from truffle oil.
Which brings up another great point. The use of truffle essence, which is not actually oils from the mushroom, but olive oil with synthetic esthers.
So the hunt continues. But we will check with Tria in the hopes there’s some legit truffle going on in there.
Tinto’s truffled chestnut soup, with duck & mushroom hash and pistachio is amazing. It’s worth checking it out during Tinto’s lunch special, previously noted in here on phoodie.
Vetri’s sweet onion crepe with white truffle fonduta is totally decadent.
Last summer Osteria served a pizza called the “stracchianona” (sp?) with sweet corn, green onions and truffles that was outrageous. I hope it’s back on the menu this year. In the meantime, they seem to have a spring version of that pizza on their menu: the “barbabietole” with beets, castelmagno, black truffle and tarragon.
melograno has a truffled papperdelle that i like
regarding the purchase of black truffles & truffle related products, claudios in the Italian Mkt sells a good selection including a truffle pate, tuffled scented oils, tuffled mozzarella and during the winter season has the black gold! I’ve heard di bruno’s gets them as well but shop at claudios. i’ve also found the summer black truffles at iovine in reading terminal but i question how they’ve been stored.
happy hunting.
@Jim: that soup haunts my dreams. So gooood.
Truffled honey with good cheese is a pretty nice, cheap way to satisfy the truffle jones.
it’s just truffle oil. there isn’t even any trace of truffle in the stuff. the tria thing is oil and black pepper. there is very little actual truffle on any menu. you would think phoodie knows a little more about phood.
@ John: so true. DiBruno sells little jars of truffle honey for around $5. A little bit goes a long way. It’s great with aged manchego.
Yes, we established earlier it’s White Truffle Essence. Which is why there is a hunt for the legit fungus. We were really hoping for the best in the Tria case, as black truffle skin can mingle with it’s oil because it’s less overpowering than the white.
More folks than just Marc Vetri and Jose are using truffles out there, and we need to find the reals. Thanks to those people pointing us in the direction of good use of truffle (be it essence, oils, or the Real McCoy), but it appears as though truffle hunting season is coming to a close, and assface season is just beginning. And we didn’t even need a pig or a dog to find one.
Flatt !!!!
Mon ami, you sure stirred up a hornets nest.
My thoughts, Dan (post#4) and Bob (post #10) hit the nail on the head.
The only person discussed here that actually uses truffle is Vetri.
Most preparations like truffle popcorn, truffle fries are garbage, there is 0% truffle in it.
As some have noted, truffle oil has no truffle which makes truffle honey just as useless.
The problem with these kinds of discussions is that strong opinions such as Bob’s get lost in the message. While it is probably a bad idea to try to dictate taste in general, at the end of the day accuracy is important and if people are out there raving about truffle experiences based on truffle oil, it would be like saying “Italy is a scenic amazing country with brilliant food, I have never actually been there but I have had several meals in south Philly”.
Yes it’s absurd but we should educate rather than disparage.
Delusion would probably be too strong but it is rather shocking just how large the number of people who assume that truffle oil is a truffle product and rave about things that would be otherwise delicious absent of the truffle oil.
The real rule of thumb is that if there is no waiter grating truffles at your table, there are no truffles in the dish.
Even the black specks are simply truffle peelings that have been mostly cooked till they are tasteless to produce truffle juice which is actually quite good.
Putting actual truffles on popcorn or french fries is like washing your car with an Hermes scarf.
Shola,
Thanks for the chime. And yes, facts are of the utmost importance here, and that’s why we made sure that after Dan had mentioned the fact that it was only essence, we followed up with Tria.
Stir a hornets nest? Nah, we here at Phoodie hate brash responses since we only do things with the utmost tact and respect. ‘narf.
So, Jose’s dishes are not truffle-riffic? And the above mentioned Claudio’s Truffle Pate? That’s a killer.
Funny you mention Italy, for that might have been the last time I had legit truffles. San Miniato 8 years ago. I guess it’s up to you to open a Truffle Restaurant.
shola shames all
i figured we weren’t being too literal about truffle vs. faux (yet occasionally tasty) truffle-esque things. Real truffle is far too rare (and expensive) for it to be a regular thing on a menu at a place that doesn’t charge a LOT.
my true “real truffle” stories are both indelibly marked in my mind. The first was the waiter shaving what seemed like hundreds of dollars worth of white truffle onto a pasta dish at Per Se (holy crap was that mind-blowing). The second is much sweeter–my girlfriend got a truffle shipped from France for me for Hanukah. Real truffle omeletes are the most decadently amazing breakfast i’ve ever made. And truffle robiola pasta from vetri’s cookbook = me very happy.
to follow up–truffle loses it’s intense flavor so quickly that any pre-prepared food w/truffle in it is probably better (certainly more economical) if it doesn’t use actual truffle. Even after storing my truffle as best as humanly possible, it was noticeably less intense a just a day or two later.
one last one–shola…what happened to the blog? you said it’d be back but i can’t find it!
Black truffles can be had at Iovine’s in Reading Terminal right now for $18 a pop. Who will be the first to try and report back whether they taste as a truffle should?
Morimoto used to do an annual White Truffle Omakase that was $300 bucks a head. I wonder if the recession will kill this year’s dinner.
Jose Garces has got the most creative and tasty truffled dishes in the city!
Lacroix will shave truffles onto any plate you order for some ungodly additional amount- I think it was $50?
@Jim. I have a picture of that soup on my nightstand. Care to come see it sometime?
Any word on all of those supposed truffle dishes people said they’d investigate, e.g. tria and iovine’s?
@Christine how’s about we put on some food network and break out the bacon lube (http://www.baconsaltblog.com/2009/04/our-newest-product.html)