LITTLE ROCK — There’s a scene in the Ron Howard movie The Paper where a hard-hitting investigative reporter (Randy Quaid) goes to the bar midway through a news cycle to meet a source. In the David Fincher movie Zodiac, the same kind of reporter (played by Robert Downey Jr.) is, at the heaviest part of the newspaper’s involvement with the Zodiac killer, drinking his lunch at a bar that faces an alley - by movie’s end, he’s shed of the paper and rummied on his houseboat.
A River Runs Through It, Ace in the Hole, The Front Page - all movies in which reporters are chiefly true-crime raconteurs with a loose lip for liquor and drug-resistant to workaday schedules.
In truth, the average newspaperman can’t sell the editors on stories, let alone an audience, and we don’t drink in the middle of the day.
I say, we don’t drink in the middle of theworkday.
This is why we don’t spend a lot of time at the Capital Bar and Grill, my favorite downtown bar for drinking like Dorothy Parker, dining like A.J. Liebling and imagining we’re budgeted for foreign correspondent per diems like Ernest Hemingway, not cub reporter wages - like we are.
A CAPITAL BAR
But, ah, the charm!
The interior of the CBG reflects a kind of federalsymmetry reflected in our own Capitol building (itself an intentional imitation of the U.S. Capitol). The three-sided bar is cornered by square columns with pilasters and friezes. The dining room’s linear rows of tables turn on two right angles. All around, matte black moldings and wainscoting give the room an executive’s aspect, but it’s the single revolving door in the farthest corner from the hotel lobby that adds that touch of atavism and nostalgia a newspaperman can really ap-preciate.
The tabletops are dark granite, the napkins rich black twill and the utensils silver plate, which has that lovely autumn patina and a much lighter heft.
One thing I don’t like? The chairs, a kind of varnished leather weave that feels like squishy rattan and, I’m told by Arkansas Life editor Katherine Whitworth, leaves crosshatch impressions on the lower backs of women’s legs.
The lunch menu is light on the stomach but rich on the tongue. For instance, a popular choice is the soupand-sandwich combo ($9).On a recent break, I tried the pimento grilled cheese ($8 with chips and pickle spear) with a cup of the gumbo. The pimento cheese here is a tart yellow cheddar with ample sweet peppers, and it offers this traditionally simple hot sandwich a delicious kick.
The gumbo ($6 for a cup, $9 for a bowl) is made with roasted duck and andouille sausage, but I wasn’t thrilled with the shredded duck and, in this bowl, absent sausage. The fresh chives on top, though, gave the rich beef roux a crunchy, herbaceous counterpoise.
The house salad ($4 or $7) is a toss of mesclun with goat cheese and pickled beets given a thick trickle of sorghum vinaigrette. It’s sweet, as you’d imagine, and a thoughtful pairing for most of the sandwiches, which are built around heavier meats like roast beef, corned beef and pork.
At dinner Friday, Shea Stewart, Whitworth and I began with drinks and the House Cured and Smoked Meats platter ($20). It includes country pate, blackstrap leg of lamb, dry-cured duck breast, smoked foie gras, and salami. We proclaimed the duck too oily, the lamb too salty, and the pate underwhelming. Then we fought fork and finger for each slice. Not everyone will like the offering, but we must agree that the arrival of this stone cutting block - stacked with these meats, spicy pecans and a houseground whole-grain mustard - feels like a celebration.
LUSH LIFE
A word about the drinks at the Capital. They have bornon dates. Not the day they were made but the year theywere invented. Whitworth’s Southern Comfortable ($12) was born last year. It’s a careful blend of Square One Botanical (vodka), Chartreuse Yellow (liqueur), Berentzen Pear (liqueur), lemon juice and pecan soda.
Pecan soda? “Pecan soda is made from the nectar in which we cook our spiced pecans.”
Her drink arrived at the table in a sweaty julep cup opalescing cool relief.
Stewart had the grilled pork chop with cornbread puree and fried green tomatoes ($19), Whitworth the rice fried catfish with pickled green tomatoes and jalapeno cheddar spoonbread ($15), and I the Kobe ribeye with fried potato croquette and broccoli rabe ($32).
The pork chop was uniformly cooked (no raremiddle), thick and juicy, and while Stewart says it’s his favorite dish here, I thought it had a slightly treated texture, like meats preserved in a salt solution. We all agreed the cornbread puree was a delight.
The rice meal on the catfish is far crunchier than corn, and Whitworth and I praised it, though Stewart noted that the slender fillets weren’t as flaky as he’s accustomed to (they weren’t flaky at all). The pickled green tomato relish and house tartar sauce were a remarkably delicious accouterment.
The Kobe ribeye is so lean that I began this sentence, “The Kobe filet ...” Stewart and I said that, for all the cachet of the Kobe label, this steak would not hold up to a blind taste test against a good local ranch.Despite a commendable fried potato croquette, this dinner, at more than twice that of the catfish, offered the least value.
We finished our food, finished our drinks, and, not quite woebegone from glut - or do I mean guilt? - ordered the croissant bread pudding with vanilla ice cream ($6), and the banana pudding with whipped cream and homemade vanilla wafers ($6). The bread pudding is chewier for the “laminated” stuffing - a croissant begins as flattened dough buttered and rolled over on itself, creating the effect of internal “crust” - and sweetened with chocolate chunks and a sweet bourbon reduction, but I couldn’t stop eating the simple banana pudding. I’d recommend either.
From appetizer and salad to dinner and dessert, the CBG takes care to create one-of-akind, modern fare and present it with flair, but as I say, much of the charm seems born of an earlier time, and so it is with the service as well.
So a final word on the staff at the bar. Not everyone is as charming as JoAnn Sims - you know her if you’ve met her - but they are as attentive as Victorian valets.
“This is one of the few places in town where you feel waited on. I mean, these people are here to serve you,” Stewart said.
Capital Bar and Grill
Address: 111 West Markham
St., Little Rock
Hours: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Sunday through Thursday,
11 a.m. to midnight Friday
and Saturday
Cuisine: American with
Southern and Cajun ac
cent
Credit cards: AE, MC, V, D
Alcoholic beverages: Full
bar
Reservations: No
Wheelchair accessible:
Through hotel lobby
Carryout: Yes
(501) 374-7474
Capitalhotel.com/CBG
Weekend, Pages 31 on 05/31/2012