Cashion's Eat Place

When I was in eighth grade at St. Charles Catholic school, we dutifully studied the 10 commandments, the three types of columns (Corinthian, Ionian, and Doric), and the three types of love in Greek: eros, philia, and agape. Not until I got older, and have experiences like dining at locales Cashion's Eat Place, did I realize that love that didn't involve me and Jonathan from New Kids on the Block was worth thinking about.

However, to begin, tonight, true to lush form (but see photo below, not the one above that I borrowed), I got to the restaurant a bit earlier than my friends to read over a cocktail. Tonight's was a St. Germain cocktail with champagne not from Champagne (Blanquette de Limoux), St. Germain (an elderflower liquor but also a beautiful church in Paris) and a simple syrup.

I asked my bartender, George, where all the pictures on the walls were from and realized he was in fact George, the owner (who was Greek), and the photos were family photos of his and his business partner. On the back wall was a wedding portrait of his 97-year-old grandmother that looked just like the wedding photo my Yiayia has. He also framed a beautiful picture of couples sitting around a dinner table, just like the one my mom displays of my grandparents at an AHEPA convention. Over one cocktail and looking at someone else's family photos, I was reminded of the shared importance of eros, philia, and agape.

Cashion's is diner-reminiscent with these photos, the warm service, and the anachronistically classy touches (the huge planter on the bar, for example). But its menu exposes a much more sophisticated restaurant, that proudly displays Hellenistic influences in its goat, tzatziki, olive oils, and photo of a fustanella-ed grandfather.

My new friend George explained that his grandfather had to ride the bus in it. I'm belaboring the point but Greeks' love of family makes their food taste exponentially better. The most prominent photo of my grandfather at our church is him in his fustanella too. He was a handsome devil.

We started with the olive oil sampler (I made some crack about it gladdening our hearts), featuring those from California, Chile, and Italy. The bread was admirably crunchy on the exterior and giving on the interior, allowing for solid sampling. Especially when combined, Mediterranean style, with a hearty Italian red.

Next, I had the veal sweetbreads. It tasted regional: undulating curvy spinach leaves (Catalan apparently) with pine nuts and raisins, served with fried sweetbreads. I loved it.

More palatably, we shared the sweet potato corn cake, infused with house cured rockfish, with a salad of cabbage, lime, cilantro, and a tomatillo salsa. It was impressive universally.

Three plates in, I ordered another appetizer for an entree, the wild mushrooms with crispy prosciutto, atop polenta and adorned with a Tuscan liver sauce. If the culinary traditions of Italy and Savannah, Georgia had a child, this dish would be it.

I think Greeks and their friends know love exceptionally thoroughly: the eros part seems to be frequently covered thoroughly though recklessly (see: Helen of Troy), but philia, the relationship women have when they celebrate each others' successes, acknowledge each others' faults, and encourage each other to find good food and men is clearly complemented by Greek-influenced restaurants. And while discussing vicissitudes of agape, we admired our chef's own, which reciprocally and blindly loved their diners enough to craft creative dishes we enjoyed.

Like goat, for example.

And Pacific halibut fillet with polenta, bok choy, shallots, and a jumbo lump crab cream.

Our desire for dessert could have been described as carnal lust; less judgmentally, it could be described as the philian love for pastry chefs. We each ordered one: Sarah had the profiteroles with caramel. Dotti had the chocolate pound cake with coffee ice cream.

I had a "cookies and confections" plate with a ginger snap (clockwise from 2 o'clock), a chocolate cookie, shortbread, peanut brittle, a pecan sandie, a piece of paximathia (I'll insist it wasn't biscotti), and pate des fruits in the middle. The paximathia got dipped in the red wine, Italian cookie-dunking style.

Greeks love love. They love to love and they love to eat, which makes blogging here easily nexus-able. Yiayia always tells me "ta matia sou tessera," or "have four eyes," a.k.a. have eyes in the back of your head. Tonight I needed two Greek stomachs to savor it all.