Dish of the Week: Bread

Bread is often an afterthought, even though for most it starts off a meal. How many times have you walked into a restaurant to be served another rock hard piece of ciabatta with a pat of hard, cold butter? This is something Tim Carman points to in his sneak preview of a baguette roundup in Young & Hungry.

We’ll be nice and not rain on Tim’s parade by listing all the criteria for classical (French) baguettes. But we will say that much of it has to do with optimizing flavor through leavening and browning of the crust. Even so there’s a huge variety of opinions about what makes good bread. I know that I have a soft spot for the squishy, preservative-laden Wonder bread and the now and again desire to cut off my crusts.

Some of the best baguettes in the area are to be had at Robert Wiedmaier’s Butcher Block, where they bake the baguettes in-house several times a day. For other types of bread, Vidalia has the best mix of cornbread and those ultra-buttery curled up rolls. Or go with a less traditional interpretation with the lavash at Proof, which comes out with a mixture of Greek yogurt, herbs and olive oil.

Where around town are some of your favorite bread baskets?