La dolce VT: It’s all about quality ingredients

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Today’s tip of the toque goes to fellow foodie Sharon Nimtz, who called me out in a recent column for not including Costantino’s deli in my weekly trip through hole-in-the-wall restaurants.

Sharon’s favorite — eggplant Parmesan — is not one of mine, so I’ll leave the superlatives to her on that one.

Me, I’m a soup guy. Having cooked in a couple of restaurants that specialized in the soup-and-sandwich trade, I appreciate the effort that goes into a good pot.

The first, obvious, hallmark of a good soup is the amount of stuff in it … there are few things more deflating than dipping your spoon into a bowl of soup for a first taste and have it come out with only broth.

Not that there’s anything wrong with broth, mind you. You can’t make a good soup without a good stock and there are no shortcuts to a good stock: it takes a big, heavy pot, hours of slow heat and high-quality ingredients. Veggies take sautéing to bring out their latent sugars; fat from meat needs to be browned off; the seasonings you add first thing in the morning to start building the flavors are as important as the last pinch of salt.

It has more of the alchemist than the recipe writer about it.

One chef I used to work with had a flair with vegetarian soups we all envied. His secret turned out to be the herb tea he sipped each morning. He would grind the contents of a tea bag — Lemon Lift or some such fruity concoction, not black tea — between palm and thumb, then add it to the first batch of hot oil with aromatic veggies like onions and garlic. It added a depth and complexity, and the crushed tea leaves would disappear into the 3-gallon pot as just another ingredient.

Started in the early hours, long before the customers arrive, soup making is hot and potentially painful work: 5 gallons of cream stock at full boil is nothing to play around.

Done right, and customers won’t notice if they get a spoonful of nothing but broth; done wrong, and nothing will completely disguise a thin stock.

That’s the joy of Costantino’s downtown Center Street location. It is literally a hole in the wall, maybe 6 feet across, stuffed with a small display case for salads and sandwiches and half a dozen pots of soup. There’s a cooler for soft drinks and just enough room for a customer with a cup of soup in a brown bag to squeeze past the ones serving themselves from the row of steam kettles along one wall. The adjacent walkway to Center Street Alley is wider.

The soups are all good. A typical list, off the top of my head, might include a seafood chowder, chicken noodle, tomato basil, sausage pomodoro, cream of asparagus and the standby, pasta e fagioli — pasta and bean. The local accent has turned the name into something like “pastafazhool,” but pronunciation is less of an issue with self-serve than in a sit-down place with a menu.

Costantino’s version is a hearty vegetable soup with beans, with a little pot of noodles on the side so they don’t get soggy. Like I said, the soups are strictly self-serve, in your choice of three sizes. Get there before they run out and there’s a small, varying selection of sandwiches, wraps and salads. Unless you’re particularly hungry, a medium soup with an extra slice of bread is a good-sized lunch; soup and a half-sandwich or salad will fill you up.

The main location, on Terrill Street, up the hill and just across Route 4, is the opposite in terms of space.

There are a couple of tables stranded in the middle of the room, with a counter at the back for ordering, alongside a few shelves of imported Italian foodstuffs and a wine rack. Picture a 600-square-foot Costco with a big deli section and you’re not far wrong.

There’s a much bigger sandwich menu here — including Sharon’s favorite, the eggplant parm. Owner Danny Costantino said he’s not sure why it’s so good. “It’s how my grandmother did it,” he said. “It’s simple.”

Simple is a good adjective for what works here. The sandwiches aren’t special except for the quality of the plain stick loaf and the variety of meats — there’s a choice of salamis, for instance (the Genoa is very, very good). A portobello, artichoke, red pimiento and caper salad, tossed in a simple vinaigrette, stands out because of the quality of the ingredients, not because of any extra flourishes.

As far as the storefront’s somewhat work-in-progress feel, Costantino said the main reason he even has tables is that state licensing procedures make it easier to operate as a restaurant, and besides, he’s moving things around, so you never know how it will look the next time you visit.

“I’m constantly changing stuff,” he said. “I just got a new gelato table.” The gelato comes from Boston, in six flavors “that I can change around,” says Costantino.

And the deli/restaurant on Terrill has the same great soups as downtown. When I mention that the sausage pomodoro — spicy Italian sausage, mushrooms and chunks of tomato in a tomato broth — would go great on a pizza, Costantino first mentions how they make their own sausage, then that he in fact sometimes drains off the last of the broth and makes pizza out of the rest of the soup for himself. He’s even putting the occasional slice on the menu, just for a change.

“I’m playing with it,” he says. “As long as you have good quality ingredients …”