Health Food Makes Me Sick

Happy Italian

2012-01-27T10:30:00.003-05:00

For years, I have been meaning to eat at tiny, rustic, romantic Il Buco on Bond Street. But the place almost never has a reservation available. So imagine my surprise when I snagged a prime table during the busiest part of the evening, one half of a communal table under shelves of ceramic bowls and hanging copper pots. It might be one of the loveliest dining rooms in New York, with its dim lighting and candles and Tuscan feel. I remembered a trip to a ski chalet in the Valley d' Aosta and bowls of warm polenta. One of the greatest compliments I can pay Il Buco is that it took me back to Italy.

But then, the food. I had limited expectations, but a mackerel crudo blew me away. It was salty and spicy and thick, without even a tinge of the fishiness that mackerel so often imparts. It arrived on a puree of sunchokes. We cleaned the plate. Ditto for a creamy burrata with paper-thin persimmons and a juicy Mangalista pork sausage over toothsome white beans with mushrooms.

Then: a handmade pasta with thick strands of rabbit and parsnips that tasted exactly like my mother's chicken soup, in the best way possible. The noodles came just al dente, the rabbit rich and earthy. I would go back for seconds, but Il Buco's dinner menu changes nightly.

Porchetta did not disappoint, either. Sliced thin and served with a plume of crispy skin, we ate through the tangle of salty Swiss chard and the accompanying beans with as much gusto as the meat itself. The first time I saw porchetta was at an open Tuscan market, where a man sold it sliced directly from the pig and where, in the summer sun, I ate that meat with my hands from a wax paper wrapping. Il Buco was an experiment in recreating my fondest Italian memories.

Finally, the creamiest panna cotta I have ever eaten arrived, decorated with a splash of balsamic vinegar. A grape cake with creme fraiche and almonds tasted of a holiday cake my grandmother used to make. For these things, I would go back again and again.

Il Buco

47 Bond Street, #1

New York, NY 10012

212.533.1932

Terrible Twos

2012-01-19T15:00:00.004-05:00

Well, maybe not terrible. But not great, either. I hit the East Village twice this week, once for a pricey meal at Hearth and once again for a steal at Apiary, even though we splurged on wine. At Hearth, we ordered a massive charcuterie board for a staggering $45, but most of the offal offered was a little too livery for my taste. By the time my delicious quail appetizer arrived--over a vinegary bed of grains--I was almost too full to enjoy it. A spatlese riesling to begin left me wanting more great wine, but a premier cru Burgundy disappointed, as did a dormant 2000 Bordeaux suggested to me by an enthusiastic sommelier. My main course--a selection of meats of which I can only clearly recall a smooth and lovely tongue--was too rich and ineptly composed. I couldn't figure out how to eat it or what to compare it to, besides a hard-up pot au feu. I had wanted the spaghetti and meatballs; next time, I'll go with my gut.

Donuts were average. I left very disappointed and a little broke. Apiary broke my heart a little less. Our seven-course tasting included a bright and clean tranch of hamachi, served with micro greens and hearts of palm. But, like so many of the following courses, it was undersalted. Hake had a perfect crust and came in a creamy pool of razor clams and potatoes and bacon. Papparadelle with rabbit and tomatoes and basil was toothsome and satisfying, even if it defied the season a little (who garnishes with fresh basil in January, anyway?). Sweetbreads, though overcooked, came bathed in a sticky, salty, and sweet sauce and over a fine puree. Duck was perfectly cooked, but the accompanying cabbage had no seasoning whatsoever.

A composed cheese plate offered three cheeses, fruit bread, and a trio of honeys. It was nice, sure, but a little basic for a full course of seven. And the chocolate lava cake was reductive, as was the overwrought and chewy apple puff pastry provided at meal's end.

But Apiary has an enviable wine list, something it has in common with Hearth. Both lists can bring a person closer to Bordeaux with some funk and age than any of New York's other prize places. A 1982 Prieure-Lichine was actually in our price range, believe it or not. And so we escaped tough puff pastry on the back of old Bordeaux. Next time, maybe I'll stick to the bars at both haunts.

Hearth

403 East 12th Street

New York, NY 10009

646.602.1300

60 Third Avenue

New York, NY 10003

212.254.0888

Brooklyn Rustic

2011-12-16T09:15:00.003-05:00

These places are opening all over now: local, sustainable, rustic, small. The restaurant is tiny and equipped to handle minimal crowds. We lucked out in scoring a three top right when we came in.

Cocktails are delicious, if a little too small. A tart, red drink tasted like sour cherries or currants, or a mix of the two.

A crispy kale salad was filled with crunch and salt and sweet (and a noticeable tang of fish sauce), but was, regrettably, overdressed and beginning to wilt. A cauliflower soup was thick and rich and bettered by candy sweet Nantucket bay scallops.

Veal sweetbreads a la meuniere was my favorite dish of the night, perfectly cooked and crispy outside with a grenobloise and crunchy romaine lettuce on the side, along with a caesar-y dressing. Pici with mushrooms and pea shoots brought me back to Tuscany and I could have used a bigger plate. But linguine with crab, though fine in its execution, didn't bring much to the table.

Desserts were kind of a failure. A fennel panna cotta was overrun by lemon rind that provided too much texture in a grainy, gross kind of way. A pear clafouti was overcooked and beaten to death by cinnamon cream. Next time, I'll go for the standard chocolate caramel tart.

Battersby

255 Smith Street

Brooklyn, NY

718.852.8321

Daniel

2011-12-16T08:55:00.004-05:00

The dining room is large for a four-star, with a raised platform around the perimeter featuring Grecian columns. A cocktail at the bar came with a round ice cube filled with flower petals. Nice touch.

We were VIP-ed.

A six-course tasting menu was actually twelve, since my companion and I each chose one of the two options. A duck liver terrine with marcona almonds, apple confit, and a glazed date was a perfect example of foie done well. A mosaic of duck and parsnip with poached quince and Champagne grapes was an equally well-conceived match. The dishes came with a Prum Kabinett Riesling from the Mosel.

Then: a trio of tuna (tartare with caviar, cured with compressed celery, en confit with anchovy dressing and a small puck of white anchovy); a delicious cured fluke with shiso and beets and an edamame coulis that was too difficult to eat. With it, we drank a Gruner Veltliner from Domaine Wachau.

A sea scallop, crusted in Buddha's hand and pine nuts meshed well with the accompanying celery mousseline. Artichoke and squid ink raviolini--neither a favorite ingredient of mine--surprised me with their character, delicacy, and depth. The wine pairing, a white Chateneuf-du-Pape from Chateau Monpertuis, was a small failure in pairings, overriding the delicacy of the food.

A white truffle course! Tiny pasta pockets stuffed with porcini mushrooms in a cream sauce with a quarter ounce of truffles shaved on top. We drank an impressive 1993 Heredia white Rioja.

Bacon wrapped swordfish was next, with spaghetti squash and cipollini onions. It wasn't my favorite; I felt a poached monkfish tail with toasted cashews worked better. A single vineyard Copain Pinot Noir from Sonoma was a lovely pairing.

Four Story Hill Farm squab may have been my favorite dish, cooked medium rare and served with a crisp top skin and sunchokes. With it, we enjoyed a pretty little Barolo from Sperino Lessona.

Our main courses underwhelmed me. A duo of beef (short rib and tenderloin) with chanterelles and cauliflower was ordinary. A veal plate of cheeks, sweetbreads, and tenderloin disappointed me entirely; the sweetbreads were woefully overcooked. But we drank with these my favorite wine of the evening, Chave "Offerus" Cornas from the Rhone.

Four desserts were next: apple, pineapple, chocolate, and coffee. They were fine, but better were the Chateau Pajzos Tokaji and Rivesaltes that we drank with them. Petit fours included chocolates and warm madelines. And then the night was over.

It was an impressive spread and, in some ways, more manageable than dinner at per se. Alcohol portions were too big, and I had to get out of my own way a few times. My memory is not as clear as it should have been. Alas.

Daniel

60 East 65th Street

New York, NY 10065

212.288.0033

Chinese Two Ways

2011-12-14T08:07:00.004-05:00

It started on Sunday night with a trip to Chinatown's Peking Duck House. This venerable duck spot is always crowded, never has reservations available, and allows patrons to bring their own wine (Riesling and Burgundy for us). Really, there is only one thing that you must get here: Peking duck (duh!).

Soup dumplings were a misstep, with a flavorless filling and an over boiled dumpling wrapper. Chinese broccoli--closely resembling broccoli rabe--in oyster sauce was good enough, fulfilling the need for something green. But the real star was the duck, carved away from our table and brought back in clean, lacquered slices. It was fatty and chewy and crispy and arrived with a julienne of cucumber and scallions, along with thin pancakes and hoisin sauce. We ate the whole duck.

Later in the week, I had a dumpling craving that required satisfaction and so found myself at the recently renovated (but still dirt cheap) Nom Wah Tea Parlor on Doyers Street, where a truly overabundant meal set me back twenty-five smackers--and where I should have shown restraint and ordered less. House special dumplings, pork and shrimp, came in a crisp, pan seared package. Shrimp and pea shoot numbers were in a thinner, gooier rice paper wrapper, equally delicious. Vegetable dumplings were the size of hacky sacks. Shrimp filling wrapped in bacon came deep fried and impossibly crunchy. Rice rolls--one with vegetables and one with beef--surprised us with their incredible texture and depth. A pork bun the size of two adult fists gave way to chunks of real, toothsome pork. And turnip cakes with Chinese sausage and dried shrimp were crisp outside and soft inside, a welcome departure from that old stand-by, scallion pancakes. I never even made it to the fried crab claw, which came with shell intact (a minor turnoff, to be honest). The evening's only real disappointment was a plate of "sweet and sour" spare ribs, more closely resembling a withered, soggy tonkatsu.

But for dumplings, well, it's worth the trip.

Peking Duck House

28 Mott Street

New York, NY 10013

212.227.1810

Nom Wah Tea Parlor

13 Doyers Street

New York, NY 10013

212.962.6047

Corton

2011-12-08T14:27:00.003-05:00

Surprisingly, Paul Liedbrandt's highly recognized TriBeCa haunt was nearly dead on a recent--though rainy--Wednesday night. The dining room is spare anyway, in varied shades of white, so the emptiness feels even more obvious when the place isn't full.

Corton strives to be a four-star restaurant, but sometimes it misses its mark. Service is scattered and servers don't know the answer to obvious questions (like where their proteins come from, for instance). Utensils were often ill-suited for the task at hand (and I had to use my butter knife to scoop the sauce from one small bowl, left spoonless). My wine glass was near empty until a sommelier deigned notice. A series of amuse bouche--pastry filled with Sauce Mornay; a warm croquette; an egg custard with black truffle gelee that needed salt; a weirdly smoked quail egg; and a successful albacore tuna skewer with charred lime--underscored the ambition of the evening, even if they didn't all work.

Our first course of a puck of foie gras wrapped in beet, was dainty and beautiful, but not the best I've ever had. A course of monkfish was admirable cooked and sparely plated, with an accompanying warm oyster laced in foam and a lentil and onion soup.

A Wagyu beef course was a painting in black: a circle of beef crusted in black toasted brioche; a black oval of sunchoke; black truffle sauce on the plate; a square of short rib in more brioche; charred sweet onion; and a side of potato with a melting sauce inside.

Next: a gorgeous sesame custard with concord grape sorbet that surprised me in its elegance and restraint. Caramelized sesame on top offered the necessary crunch. Finally, an apple composition arrived, puff pastry filled with apples and a side of white coffee ice cream. It might not last forever in my dessert memory, but it was nice while it lasted, as was the parade of final notes: pate de fruits; chocolates; and macarons. I held court with a perfect glass of 1982 Coteaux du Layon.

The food is good, if a little too conceptual for its ilk. We'll see if it grows or shrinks with age.

Corton

239 West Broadway

New York, NY 10013

212.219.2777

Rose Water

2011-11-17T09:01:00.002-05:00

It has inhabited a space on the corner of Park Slope's Sixth Avenue for over a decade and so, on a rainy autumn Tuesday, I finally went. The room is intimate and spare, bolstered by a lovely little protected patio that, in summer, provides plein air seating. I started with a surprisingly deep dry sherry--to find a restaurant that even serves a dry sherry as an apertif is a minor victory--and followed with a half bottle of Willamette Valley pinot noir. Half bottles! Sherry! Such sophistication does not exist in my own home borough. (And both, by the way, should be de rigeur in today's changing restaurant climate.)

We shared two appetizers, a by-the-book but competent pork belly, served with a cabbage and apple slaw and a fried triangular pasta--trenne--with a duck ragu. The pasta had the crisp consistency of good French fries, nothing to complain about (fried pasta is kind of an inspired idea, by the way). Next, a chicken with crispy skin but a little too little breast moisture; thick cut duck cooked a perfect medium rare; and a side of completely addictive fried Brussels sprouts served with an equally hedonistic mayonnaise. Why eat Brussels sprouts any other way?

Dessert did not disappoint; apple slices arrived in a thick, crisp batter and with cream cheese ice-cream and caramel. Perhaps it wasn't the most original meal out there, but there's a reason Rose Water has overcome the New York test of time.

Rose Water

787 Union Street

Brooklyn, NY 11215

718.783.3800

The Next Momofuku

2011-11-03T08:25:00.003-04:00

Ok, not really, but it does seem like Asian small plates with a Korean bent are all the rage. Danji, a minimalist space with 30 something seats in midtown west, fits in just fine. Aside from the wait, which wasn't nearly as long as that over at RedFarm, service was pleasant enough. I started with a beverage of watermelon-infused tequila and a background heat I couldn't identify. On one side of their menu, Danji offers traditional Korean fare; flip the sheet and arrive at a group of selections entitled "modern." Both sides do the country justice.

A riff on steak tartare, complete with a jardinere of daikon radish and perfect cubes of fatty meat, comes with the requisite quail egg yolk. It doesn't disappoint. Neither does a salad of chewy whelks, arugula, and red onion, paired with a tangle of buckwheat noodles, all cold. A trio of kimchis--Napa cabbage, daikon, cucumber--though tasty, left me wanting more. No, really. It just wasn't enough food.

That was the theme as a whole, actually. Bulgogi sliders, so rich they actually dripped fat, came in a tiny duo. I could have crushed five more. Crispy, spicy chicken wings came five to a plate. But bacon paella (a bit of a misfire, actually) with a fried hen egg was enough for two people and then some. Too much fat in the skillet prevented the rice from assuming the caramelization endemic to a good paella.

Still, the food is worth the hunger pains. And anyway, you can always order more.

Danji

346 West 52nd Street

New York, NY 10019

212.586.2880

Spanish 101

2011-10-26T10:09:00.004-04:00

Walking into Tertulia in the west village, I see an old, familiar face: Frank Bruni. The former Times critic who had once haunted me in New York restaurants sits one table away from me in Seamus Mullen's newest haunt, across from the unsurprisingly rotund Michael White. Let the party begin.

Tertulia is billed as a play on an old Spanish cider bar, but diners will be just as happy drinking cold and clean manzanilla sherry, or room temperature, nutty oloroso as they will be drinking funky, geuze-style cider. The food is equally appealing. A selection of cured meats did not include the old standby Jamon Serrano (you have to order that separately), but it did include a funky an unctuous selection of cuts from different parts of the pig, some lean and some fatty. Pan con tomate was just as toothsome and satisfying as it is in Barcelona. Croquetas seep with a warm bechamel of ham and quince paste.

The restaurant has only been open for lunch a few days and counts among its lunch time specials sandwiches of all competing kinds. We ate a mushroom and goat cheese version, with pine nuts and spicy pickles and a side of house made potato chips. Rice cooked on the plancha is the perfect combination of creamy risotto and crunchy socarrat, filled with tender snails, ribbons of oyster mushroom, and shards of Spanish ham.

Because the plates are small, you might feel inclined to keep eating; we did. As our closing number, we chose a plate of fried piquillo peppers--some mild and some debilitatingly hot--as well as two open faced toasts topped with a creamy crab salad. The crab is the perfect antidote to the intermittent spice of those salty little peppers. Verdict: get there if you can.

Tertulia

359 6th Avenue

New York, NY 10014

646.559.9909

Modern Chinese

2011-10-24T10:27:00.003-04:00

I can forgive the unacceptable wait at Redfarm last night, only because the dumplings were so damned good. The drinks, even for a Chinese restaurant, were a little too sweet--watermelon rum punch that tasted more like a Jolly Rancher; a shiso cucumber martini with too much simple syrup--and by the time our food came we were famished. But still, small plates were an inescapable success. Shrimp and pea shoot dumplings in a thin, steamed skin tasted more of fresh peas than anything else. I mean that as a compliment.

Soup dumplings rivaled those of Joe's Shanghai, whopping, steaming, and filled with pork and broth. Shumai shooters, over a hot orange soup, tasted mushroomy and rich. Smoked cucumbers with sesame seeds almost tasted of meat, they were so rich. A Katz's pastrami egg roll, served with spicy deli mustard, was a Jewish fantasy--Chinese and butcher shop wrapped up into one, hotdoggy treat. A special of pork wrapped around rice, negimaki style, came with stewed and sweet tomatoes and concord grapes. Crispy beef with lotus root and sliced onions was salty and sweet and impossibly crisp, like the best version of General Tso's you've ever had. The only small plate failure came in the form of crisp crab and pork dumplings. They looked good enough, small battered pucks with mayonnaise eyes added on by a playful kitchen. But they maintained their shape from an internally intact crab shell and the pieces of pork were large chunks of fatty belly. We could have passed on the whole thing, even the curry broth dipping sauce.

As for entrees, by the time they came we were ready to throw in the towel. A selection of sauteed mushrooms with baby bok choy was light, delicate, and lovely. A richer platter of lamb and asparagus won my vote for best in show. Fried rice included corn and bean sprouts and snow peas and goji berries, but I had no room left once it arrived. Desserts were throwaways--a lackluster jelly roll with "creme fraiche" whipped cream that tasted only of regular cream; a poached pear over out-of-season fruits. Save room for extra dumplings, instead.

Redfarm

529 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

212.792.9700

per se

2011-10-18T10:29:00.003-04:00

It is everything you expect, and more.

Canapes of salmon coronets, onion-infused cream cheese, and gougeres filled with Sauce Mornay.

A hollowed egg with custard and black truffles.

Keller's famous oysters and pearls: tapioca, Island Creek oysters, white sturgeon caviar.

Bread service: two types of butter, five types of salt, pretzel bread, miniature San Francisco sour dough loaves.

Garnet yams wrapped in something crispy and served with compressed apples.

Torchon of foie gras, quince poached in wine, micro mache, a never-ending arrival of warm brioche.

Long Island striped bass wrapped in swiss chard, a perfect pommes puree.

A slightly overcooked (my one gripe) kanburi with tiny carrots, cucumbers, and a pickle emulsion.

Butter poached lobster with equally buttery pumpkin porridge, butternut squash, tart cranberries.

Four Story Hill Farm rabbit, salsify, soft farmer's cheese.

Elysian Farms' lamb--one piece, bone-in--with bitter and sweet endive, navel oranges, and lamb jus.

A cheese course served with tomato marmalade, cornichon, roasted eggplant.

Huckleberry sorbet with Swiss meringue and red wine granite.

S'mores deconstructed and served with peanut butter mousse, pucks of marshmallow, and caramel ice cream.

Bitter orange and chocolate composition with quenelles of ice cream, chocolate mousse truffles, and bergamot as far as the eye can see.

A purple cow of vanilla genoise, concord grape soda, and grape sherbet.

Beignets with coffee semi-fredo.

Chocolates--Arnold Palmer, curry, balsamic vinegar, chocolate mousse, tamarind-pineapple, and so many others that I have since forgotten them.

A tiered box of fudge, caramels, and truffles.

Buttered popcorn ice cream bonbons.

Mocha brownies to bring home.

It was near perfect. Get there if you can.

per se

10 Columbus Circle

New York, NY 10019

212.823.9335

The King of Fish

2011-10-14T06:15:00.004-04:00

If I had any sincere doubt about whether or not Le Bernadin deserved four stars--or about whether or not Eric Ripert remained the confirmed king of the sea--I doubt no longer. Last night's four course dinner (ten people, two grand, thank you very much) blew all us little fishies out of the water. It is an occasion restaurant, as marked by the fact that we ran into not one but two other tables of culinary school grads. And it is a restaurant for the wealthy, as marked by the fact that a very famous comedian couple sat in a corner banquette, sharing wine and looking deliciously unkempt.

Thanks to the tip off from a friend, the restaurant began our meal with a gratis magnum of champagne. The dining room is larger than a lot of four stars (per se has sixteen tables and Jean-Georges is the kind of precious, carpeted room that makes people afraid to speak loudly), though smaller than Del Posto. It is carpeted, as is tradition in these kinds of places. It is filled with warm and sophisticated touches--a flowing wall pattern resembling the ocean; a seascape mural at the restaurant's rear; white orchids on the tables and in large standing vases. It is a hospitable, warm room, if not one that is terribly memorable.

And then: the food. An amuse bouche arrives of poached golden and red beets, wrapped in tiny burritos filled with goat cheese and a puck of tuna tartare and a bowl of lobster knuckle in some kind of emulsion. It points to the luxury of the meal and made even this beet hater a convert.

A raw course of black bass, sliced green grapes, celery, and olive oil packed crunch and punch. It was sweet and savory, silken and crunchy. A foie gras and tuna carpaccio arranged in the shape of a fish was equal parts decadence and allure. Striped bass with crispy artichokes reminded me that raw fish can be powerful in its excellence.

My langoustines arrived next, bathed in a salty, sweet beurre blanc and garnished with various mushrooms and cubes of foie gras. I preferred it to an admittedly well-executed crab cake with potato chips. My entree stole the show--crispy black bass with a mushroom reduction as rich as duck stock, served with a plate of spicy pickled cucumbers. A poached halibut in beet broth rivaled my fish, as did a soft and steaming striped bass with Thai inflections. The meat dishes ordered by two in our party did not measure up to the rest of our meal. One would do best to stick with the sea at Le Bernadin.

Then: dessert. Pre-dessert was a pot de creme of chocolate, layered with caramel and custard and salted cream in a hollowed egg with a demitasse. Panna cotta with figs was a textural dream. A comped mango cheesecake was the best of its ilk and a composed plate billed as apple cinnamon brought me back to an autumn fair ground. Petit fours of chocolate and pate de fruits and a tiny pate a choux filled with cream reminded me that in four star restaurant every touch matters.

Le Bernadin

155 West 51st Street

New York, NY 10019

212.554.1515

Boulud Is Back

2011-09-23T12:13:00.003-04:00

Walking into Boulud Sud on the Upper West Side is like walking into any three or four star establishment of the late 90s and early 2000s. The room is quiet, filled with patterned banquettes, carpeted, and dotted with the oldest dining crowd in recent memory. The only people in my age group were being taken out to eat by their parents.

That didn't bode well for my wallet.

Actually, the menu is conceptually brilliant, divided into seafood, vegetables, and meat dishes. Every category has a series of small plates, appetizers (which might as well be called "slightly larger small plates), and entrees, all priced accordingly. This means that you can skate by without ever ordering a main course, which I took advantage of, instead ordering six small dishes, a side, and two desserts.

But the service left something to be desired. Before our server had even taken our drink order, our first four dishes had arrived at the table. Once I ordered a drink, ten minutes elapsed before the server came back to report that they were, in fact, out of the cocktail. After our final courses were cleared, we waited twenty minutes for dessert menus and another twenty minutes after our menus arrived, waiting for our order to be taken.

Nonetheless, the food was largely impressive. A take on a Greek salad was crisp and clean, speckled with fresh oregano. A plate of hummus, babaghanoush, and falafel came with thin, wafter crisps and a spicy mayonnaise. The bread that came gratis was two kinds of focaccia--one with black olives--and a crispy, fatty flatbread that went perfectly with our harissa marinated mussels, cooked out of the shell in a brunoise of tomato and carrots. Duck legs were wrapped in phyllo pastry and atop a sweet and thick date puree.

A rabbit porchetta, weirdly served cold, lacked flavor (as did the sad, underseasoned market carrots that accompanied it), but the blue prawns, head on, made up for that misstep. The prawns were perfectly cooked and seasoned and the heads were crunchy--I ate all four heads. Broccoli rabe was another disappointment, but dessert, when it finally arrived, was a dinner atonement. A grapefruit sorbet came in a hollowed grapefruit with halvah and segments of the fruit. Our second dish featured sweet and tangy plums over squares of a soft cinnamon cake that resembled, in texture, the fluffy inside of a sourdough loaf. It was a delicate and lovely end to a long meal.

Boulud Sud

20 W. 64th Street

New York, NY 10023

212.595.1313

Kaiseki

2011-09-21T11:33:00.003-04:00

Before last night, I had never sat down to a full, multi-course, Japanese kaiseki meal. But I landed a reservation at Bouley's new TriBeCa hot spot, brushstroke. Ten courses, three hours (the courses moved a little too fast for my taste, a persistent NYC problem). We ordered an extra course, just to be cute.

Our meal began with outstanding cocktails--muddled red grapes in liqueur for me, and kiwi in green tea foam for my dining companion. Next, our first course, a Hassun, or seasonal appetizer: skewered, gently smoked salmon cube; gooseberry; turkey liver pate; Japanese berry; mushroom in sesame oil. A kabocha squash soup--undersalted, I felt--came next, with maitake mushrooms and toasted pumpkin seeds.

Then: a sashimi trio that could have come right from the ocean. Perfect, pink tuna. Toothsome fluke. Clean, sweet Spanish mackerel.

A remarkable chawan mushi, or Japanese egg custard, with uni and black truffle broth.

A nearly inedible duo of sardine sushi on rice, so fishy that after one, I pushed my plate away.

For a palate cleanser, a beautiful yin and yang of cold onion puree, beet puree, stewed onions, and onion crisps, which reminded me, in the best way possible, of Lipton's onion soup.

Poached lobster in a clam and edamame broth with a scallop dumpling did not disappoint, and neither did slick and fatty pork belly, marinated in pepper and served with malanga yam puree and ponzu. Our rice courses were a hit and a miss. Stewed wagyu beef over rice was an epic success, redolent of brisket and accompanied by a soothing red miso broth and salty cucumber and cabbage pickles. But a crab and mushroom hot pot was underseasoned, with overcooked crab and nearly nonexistent mushrooms. The pickle side included a dried fish pickle, which I wasn't expecting and which left a horrible fish aftertaste in my wearied palate.

Dessert? Awe inspiring. A quenelle of vanilla-soy ice cream arrived with toasted buckwheat and hit all the necessary notes of savory and sweet. Ditto for the soy milk custard, finished with green tea and a rich, hidden caramel at the bottom of the bowl. Crispy, delicious rice paper candy came as a petit four, along with frothy and warm green tea. It was a remarkable finish to a mostly remarkable meal.

brushstroke

30 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10013

212.791.3771

Lyonnaise Birthday

2011-08-26T11:05:00.004-04:00

I went to Lyon, initially, to see an old friend from my BLT days who is now the lead chef. But he was out of town on vacation. That was fine. It was a birthday celebration regardless, with plenty of meat to go around. Duck wings--three of them--arrived with a sticky, salty glaze, just as addictive as the smaller, more precious Buffalo variety. A charcuterie platter featured chewy beef salami, lamb pate, country pate, blood sausage, spicy mustard, grain mustard, pickled cauliflower, and cornichons. Onion soup was everything we wanted and more--a crouton thick with cheese and bone marrow, a broth with beef and onions and strings of braised brisket. And a truffle inflected hot dog, served with sauerkraut and mustard on a soft pretzel, was a meal in and of itself.

Entrees were a little less uplifting. A special of mussels and French fries was not only woefully undersalted but also a little too redolent of the ocean. They smelled and tasted a little old, regrettably. Steak tartare was a true winner, salty and creamy and filled with capers that popped in the mouth. But the bechamel on a baked dish of macaroni and cheese wasn't quite the soft and supple creamy I craved.

And even though I found the mission fig tart for dessert a little dry, an ice cream sundae, threaded with toasted coconut clusters and sour cherries, made up the difference. We got a lot for our money and if I happened to live in the West Village, I might find myself stumbling in every few nights for a plate of those wings and a hot dog.

Lyon

118 Greenwich Avenue

New York, NY 10011

212.242.5966

Return to Flushing

2011-08-24T10:04:00.003-04:00

Flushing rarely disappoints. This time, I headed out for Hunan food at Hunan Kitchen of Grand Sichuan. The room is noticeably smaller than most of the banquet hall dining rooms of outer Queens, the food just as potent. I took a tip from Sam Sifton and ordered what the Times recommended, with some deviation from the rules. Marinated wood ear mushrooms were slick and salty and chewy and bright; shards of cucumber came bathed in a vinegar mixture that coated each piece in some kind of miracle emulsion. Even the simplicity of fried pork dumplings astounded us. "These are how dumplings should taste," exclaimed one of my dining companions.

Braised pork Mao-style (you'll see a lot of reference to Mao in this spot, who, according to legend, shared a hometown with one of the proprietors) was really just fatty pork belly in a bright red sauce with baby bok choy. The texture isn't for everyone and harkens trotters, but trotters I can live with, really. Cumin coated lamb was crispy and aromatic and complimented by the leaves and stems of fresh cilantro and more than a few red Thai chiles.

Pea shoots sauteed with garlic were seasoned adequately, which is one of my usual complaints at Chinese restaurants that only serve greens as an afterthought. Actually, these greens tasted more of peas than some actual peas I have eaten.

For the rest of my companions, the evening's piece d' resistance was a whole duck, cooked in a mirepoix of vegetables and served over a bunsen burner, tableside. The waiter picked the braised meat from the bones and left all of it to simmer in a roasting pan. But I found my plate laden with more bones than meat and the addition of caraway seeds was nothing short of overwhelming. It tasted more of rye bread than barbecued duck, which is what it had been billed as. Also, cooked celery gives me the creeps and always has, so I had no particular longing to repeat my duck experience. Next time, I'll order what Sifton recommended: sliced pork with dried turnips.

Hunan Kitchen of Grand Sichuan

42-27 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11355

718.888.0553

Enzo

2011-08-02T09:47:00.003-04:00

Back in Newburyport, I headed over to Enzo, recently opened in the Tannery and boasting a farmer's market menu. Phew, finally. Cocktails ranged from run-of-the-mill (classic Negroni) to inspired (market Bloody Mary with pickled garlic scapes). House foccacia, which I can only assume was made there, was soft and buttery.

Fried olives came in a crispy, cornmeal crust and stuffed with oozing cheese, a nice take. An appetizer of a soft goat and cow's milk cheese arrived with Tokyo turnips and baby arugula and honeyed Marcona almonds, simple, but smart. Bruschetta tasted of the garden: fresh dill, tomatoes, soft cheese, black olives.

Entrees, though well-conceived, were less successful. A dish of fresh linguine with maitake mushrooms was woefully under seasoned. Sea scallops over corn risotto were the requisite sweetness and crispiness, but the risotto was a portion in and of itself, overwhelming the dish.

A brown butter cake for dessert, served with an almond creme anglaise and fresh cherries hit all its marks, even if a chocolate pudding lacked enough starch to form an actual pudding, as opposed to a thick sauce.

Because the product is good, Enzo might overcome its issues and grow into itself. I certainly hope so.

Enzo

50 Water Street

Newburyport, MA 01950

978.462.1801

Piggies

2011-07-18T13:48:00.004-04:00

The best kind of bachelorette is the kind where you sit down to dinner with eleven other women--all of whom are wearing ridiculously high heels--for a meal of roast pig.

We were at The Breslin, home of organ meats and pigs galore. First came a caesar salad, hearts of Romaine with a perfect, lemony dressing, fried parsley, fresh croutons, whole anchovies. Sometimes, the simplest dishes are the most satisfying.

It would have been nice to revel in the delight of a well-executed salad but, alas, the staff at The Breslin pushed us too far too fast. Before we had finished salad and sparkling wine, white wine and side dishes arrived, and then red wine, and then a whole pig. All night, servers were clearing plates while other members of our party ate. All night, wine arrived before we had attacked the glass previous.

The pig? Crisp skin, delicate meat, accompanied by a minty green sauce and a sweet red chutney. The head came on a second platter--eyeballs, brains, tongue, ears, and jowls for us to enjoy. But we had no time to complete our feast before the pig had been cleared and ice cream arrived on the table (really, ice cream, for $120?). They packed our pig to go, but without any of the sauces that came with. Duck fat potatoes, crisp and meaty, were the star of the evening, as were salty-sweet roast carrots. Wilted greens I could have done without. And the service? Well, they certainly didn't win my heart.

The Breslin

16 W. 29th Street

New York, NY 10001

212.679.1939

Shopping For The Perfect Pie

2011-06-29T10:03:00.003-04:00

Maybe it wasn't perfect, but it came damn close. And I considered us lucky to get a table for three within minutes of entering Rubirosa, considering the crowd. It turns out that our table, hidden in a nook in the front of the restaurant, was oblivious to servers everywhere. Service: D plus.

But really, it was about the food. Rubirosa is the Manhattan branch of a long-standing Staten Island establishment, so it makes sense to go traditional. We ordered two bruschetta, one with mushrooms and pignoli and one with duck and caramelized onions. The bread was grilled and held up to the layer of topping. Even more traditional--and equally satisfying--was a plate of baked littleneck clams, salty and garlicky and complimented by fresh lemon wedges.

The pizza? Oh, the pizza. We ordered a small classic pie with mushrooms and olives (large enough to feed three people; buyer beware) and a small sausage and broccoli rabe pie, along with a side of grilled asparagus to keep things green. The classic pie hit all the right notes--a good ratio of sauce to cheese; ample yet not overwhelming toppings; a crispy crust that was neither too doughy nor too cracker-like. Unlike the pizzas of Lucali's and Keste, both personal favorites (and born of the Neopolitan style), Rubirosa is crispy throughout, reminding me a little of a great pie I once ate at Pulino's.

The sausage and broccoli pie didn't exactly disappoint, but it did come sans sauce, which is never my direction of choice. Bad service be damned; I'd return for another pie any day of the week.

Rubirosa

235 Mulberry Street

New York, NY 10012

212.965.0500

Notes On A Long, Drunk Dinner

2011-06-22T08:49:00.003-04:00

wd-50. Iconic New York. Our waiter asks us if we have ever heard of the restaurant before. Is he kidding? wd stands for Wylie Dufresne. Wylie hates oysters and spicy foods. He's married to a food editor from The Food Network. He eats raw cookie dough straight from the freezer. Yes, I've heard of it.

Obviously, if you've never eaten at wd-50 before (and I hadn't), it is necessary to indulge in the $140, eleven course tasting menu. First: raw Spanish mackerel with a dried chip of Chinese sausage. The food came out too fast. I didn't even have time to order a glass of Cremant d' Alsace before it arrived.

Next: Everything bagel ice cream with smoked salmon powder, tiny rings of pickled onions, and a shard of freeze dried cream cheese. A weird dish. The salmon was overpowering. I probably wouldn't eat this again.

All night, the pacing was off. I thought back to El Bulli, thirty five courses in eight hours. By that mathematical equation, the food at wd-50 should have taken around three hours, but it took closer to two. The wine took too long to arrive at our table each time. Service was, overall, inconsistent.

But the dishes got better through the progression. Foie gras torchon stuffed with passion fruit gelee was inspired, if filled with too much passion fruit. Cutting into the torchon released a pool of fruit that overpowered the liver a little but still tasted divine.

A soft boiled egg over caesar dressing blew me away. It came with pickled bean sprouts and an edible brown butter egg shell. My favorite dish of the evening followed, noodles made from king oyster mushrooms (and impossibly endowed with a perfectly noodley and mushroomy texture) with pan fried sweetbreads and banana molasses. It was sweet and filled with the tart undercurrent of vinegar and every competing texture in the dish made me want to eat more.

Then: Tai snapper over an onion "tart" (really more of a soft, oniony disk) with a brunoise of cucumber and several jardiniere of Asian pear and a crust of coffee and cashew, all over a smoked tomato sauce. Everything about this dish worked, from the textures (soft, crunchy, silky, crisp) to the flavors (smoky, bright, sweet, savory). The fish was cooked to medium, most likely prepared sous vide and picked up on the skin side. The coffee in the background reminded me of southern barbecue.

A quail dish didn't hit all the same grace notes. The quail, arranged either with meat glue or just pressed together in a torchon, looked a little more rare than medium rare and came with sunchokes that were cooked too quickly--they reminded me of underdone potatoes. But a rectangle of lamb loin (sous vided again), with some kind of grain that reminded me of corn and that the menu only billed as 'red beans and rice,' was addictive. It was a fine note to end the savory courses on.

And then, celery ice cream. It was impossibly green and impossible to eat. We finished ours only because we felt guilty for the waste. If I never have to eat celery ice cream again, that will be fine with me.

Something about the buckwheat quenelle with apricot puree and poached rhubarb didn't work, either. It tasted nearly medicinal. But these two experimental failures were bolstered by one true success, a thick ribbon of soft chocolate with crispy bits of beat and Chinese long pepper, all served with ricotta ice cream. The plate itself looked like the victim of a serial killer, a pastiche of red and brown splattered haphazardly. If we were dubious at first about the integration of beets in dessert, we were easily won over by the spiciness and the subtle vegetal quality the pepper and beet offered up. It was an incredible dessert.

Before we left, we received one final treat: rice krispy balls and cocoa packets. Bite into a ball and release a pool of sticky marshmallow. Bite into a plastic-looking packet of cocoa and release soft chocolate goo. Eat it all together and it offers up a memory of a s'more on a summertime beach.

wd-50

50 Clinton Street

New York, NY 10002

212.477.2900

Salty and Fatty

2011-06-13T08:55:00.003-04:00

Salt and Fat is an apt name for the fusion restaurant that just opened in Sunnyside because the food served is, indeed, salty and fatty. At the meal's start, a server shows up with a paper bag filled with popcorn cooked in bacon fat. It's a redemptive amuse bouche, the kind that sets the pace for a great meal.

Salt and Fat is mostly small plates, which gave us the opportunity to sample most of the menu. We began with a trio of seafood dishes, a cured yellowtail served with jalapenos, shaved radish, and grapefruit and orange supremes. The fish was clean and complimented by the spice of the jalapeno, but I think I would have felt better about the dish if it had not been so similar to a lobster salad we ordered--poached lobster pieces over a bed of greens with those same citrus supremes. The redundancy was my largest quibble with the menu. Items often bore too much similarity to one another (Korean steak wraps; short rib buns; pork sliders). That lobster salad was good enough (and, for $9, a complete and total steal), though I might not go back on the merit of that dish. Seared scallops with a bright orange accompanying puree was a bigger success. The scallops were cooked perfectly and the salty and sweet from the puree was the ultimate condiment.

Next came the lettuce wraps, hanger steak with pickled daikon on Bibb leaves. They were perfectly seasoned and a little spicy, and I would have eaten more than just one. Then: short ribs on buns with cucumber pickles. The buns were the pillowy, David Chang variety. Something about this dish left me incomplete. It was a little too acidic, or a little too salty. I can't tell which. A smear of mayonnaise or hoisin would have remedied the problem for me. An oxtail terrine was the star of the evening, crispy on the outside and soft in the center and served with earthy Hen-of-the-woods and enoki mushrooms and a salty-sweet sauce. It was a home run in the face of singles and doubles.

Our final trio left me underwhelmed. Papparadelle with a soft egg and asparagus and mushrooms and peas seemed woefully under-seasoned (and lacking cheese!). Pork belly tacos felt redundant in the face of all that meat in wrapping, and they needed more crunch and more acidity. Fried gnocchi with bacon in a bechamel, meant to be a play on macaroni and cheese, was an epic fail. The bacon was too chewy, the gnocchi too soft, the breading a degree too burnt. Unfried gnocchi would have been better.

For dessert, we ordered three ice creams--toasted marshmallow, white peach and jalapeno, and Thai iced tea--as well as a lychee panna cotta with yuzu buttermilk sorbet. The toasted marshmallow ice cream had the consistency of an actual marshmallow and had me wishing the kitchen had sent extra. The Thai iced tea was no real surprise, but it was plenty delicious. But the white peach was too grainy and more closely resembled a sorbet than an ice cream. We had a bite and left it for the kitchen gods. But, oh, the panna cotta! It was the perfect consistency and the perfect brightness, brought completely to life by that palate cleansing sorbet. That panna cotta, paired with the oxtail terrine and the bacon popcorn, might be enough to bring me back to Salt and Fat. Someday.

Salt and Fat

41-16 Queens Boulevard

Sunnyside, NY 11104

718.433.3702

Hung-Ry

2011-05-30T09:23:00.002-04:00

It isn't just a bad pun; it's also the name of a hand-pulled noodle restaurant on Bond Street where delicious shochu cocktails and mediocre noodles abound. Order the pina, which goes down easier than any high octane drink really should.

But maybe skip the short rib appetizer, which comes cloaked in white foam (how early 2000s!). The ribs are good, yes, but the foam is distracting and unnecessary. A pork head spring roll--really much more akin to a dumpling or a drunken noodle casing--meets with more success, a fatty, unctuous combination of meat and starch.

The noodles, though? Oh, how they disappoint. Each dish comes with the choice of thick or thin noodles, so we ordered one of each. Thin noodles with pork belly were fine, but nowhere near the nuanced texture of Ippudo. The pork belly was rich, but the overcooked turnips left something to be desired, as did the wan broth. Ditto for the duck, with its overcooked breast meat, thick and boring noodles, and flavorless stock. No roast pork bones to be found in these soups, alas.

Hung-Ry's beer and wine list is broad and interesting, and it might be worth it to stop in just for a snack and a libation. But beyond that, noodles are best procured elsewhere.

Hung-Ry

55 Bond Street

New York, NY 10012

212.677.4864

In Vino

2011-05-25T09:45:00.003-04:00

Veritas. In wine there is truth. In the wine list at Veritas, there is an abundance of high-ticket items. I had to call the sommelier over to direct me towards something less expensive (the lowest item I could find in all of France hovered around $120). Conceptually, I understand having a list with wines on it in excess of $25,000. But no average wine drinker can hope to afford what Veritas brings forth. And it is worth noting that point.

The amuse bouche for the evening was a Taylor Bay scallop served in its shell and garnished with a pepper coulis. It was lovely and fresh and set my palate up for more food. I began with the Ocean and Land, bone marrow and butter-poached lobster, served with a powdered lobster roe. Sadly, my lobster was overcooked and my marrow undersalted. My companion's crudo--salmon belly and Atlantic tuna with pomegranate seeds and grapefruit supremes--was a nicely composed dish, if lacking a little spark.

My entree, billed as a "wooly pig," was a pork loin cooked to medium over a gastrique and a mix of dark pork meat breaded with panko and fried, all over braised butter lettuce and roasted grape tomatoes. It was a beautiful dish, but I felt, once more, that everything lacked a little inspiration. My friend's raviolo--one large piece of pasta filled with short ribs and mushrooms--would have fit better on a winter menu. With spring in full swing, why settle for braised meat? Where were the peas and asparagus and morels and ramps?

I let the waiter talk me out of the strawberry tart and into the doughnuts and toffee pudding. One came with a peppermint ice cream and the other with a ginger lime, neither of which left me with much enthusiasm. Our cheese plate came with almonds, honeycomb, and fruit bread. Snore. I missed Tia Keenan's inspired combinations back from my Casellula days: bacon with white chocolate; lavender; home made fudge.

Overall, dinner left me a little poorer and a little underwhelmed. It could have been better, or at least less expensive. But maybe this is the milieu of the modern American three star restaurant.

Veritas

43 East 20th Street, #1

New York, NY 10003

212.353.3700

Italian Night

2011-05-22T13:15:00.003-04:00

I had wanted to try Ciano since it opened--and was awarded two New York Times stars--last year. The restaurant is known for its northern Italian cuisine along with its different approach to wine drinking; one can order a glass of any wine on the entire list, which can range from the ridiculous to the even more ridiculous as far as price points are concerned. But never mind. The idea is appealing to single diners or those who find themselves in the company of non-oenophiles.

Because my reservation included ten other people, we had a set menu, which is never an accurate reflection of what a restaurant can accomplish. Our appetizer choices included an arugula salad, fresh burata with a pine nut pesto and caramelized onions, and two oversized meatballs redolent of fine short ribs. Both the burata and meatballs were fine and delicate dishes, worthy of any menu.

I skipped the swordfish option entirely and found myself among duck papparadelle and a medium-rare lamb loin instead. The paparadelle was toothy and satisfying, if a little rich for mid-May. I missed the possibilities brought forth with spring's vegetable bounty. The lamb came closer to what one might expect from a spring menu, but the fava beans at the plate's top arrived undercooked and underseasoned. The lamb itself--cooked to a cool center--was surprisingly tough and gamy. And the portions for a tasting menu were far too large to be considered appropriate.

But dessert brought spring to the table in full force, a delicate and complex napoleon of strawberries and rhubarb and minted cream. I would have ordered it again and definitely would have chosen it over the yodel-like chocolate cake and stracciatella ice cream. I found myself underwhelmed at meal's end, possibly a testament to the limitations of a set menu.

Ciano

45 East 22nd Street

New York, NY 10010

212.982.8422

Mmm. Wells.

2011-05-10T23:18:00.003-04:00

This is the third time that I have attempted to eat at this restaurant and the first time that I have found success. It helps that a New York Times review forced the Canadian-influenced Long Island City Diner to start taking reservations; we made ours for the bar. The menu at M. Wells changes daily, so it's hard to predict which way the wind will blow on a particular evening. There are large format plates and organ meat feasts and a slew of French-style desserts, all boasting a Montreal heritage. And few of our dishes disappointed.

We began with bone marrow and escargot, which lacked a little salt but spoke to the finest qualities of both fat and snail. A raw tuna preparation came decorated with pickled mustard seeds, an incredibly inspired and balanced preparation. Veal brains grenobloise reminded me of the crunch suckers I once enjoyed in a cavern in Barcelona. I would have liked a touch more caper, but I was happy even without. The dish arrived atop the Time Out New York award. No, I'm not joking.

Next: a soft shell crab club sandwich with bacon and onions and mayonnaise and an ample dusting of smoked paprika. Would spring ever be complete without fried soft shells? The sandwich paled in comparison to the one consumed by our dining neighbors, M. Wells regulars who received, gratis from the kitchen, a foot-tall sandwich of foie gras, meatloaf, fried chicken, veal brains, soft shell crab, and fried grouper. It's not to say our sandwich wasn't near perfect--it was. But how can one look at a sandwich like ours next to a sandwich like theirs?

M. Wells serves a spin on a bibimbap, the Korean rice dish that usually comes cold with chili paste. This version featured oysters on the half-shell, foie gras, raw scallop, gravlax, carrots, cucumbers, and avocado. I wanted the cote de boeuf with soft shell crab, a mammoth rib-eye carved off the bone. M. Wells also serves a peking duck tasting priced at $150 for three courses, but we didn't get that either.

But five courses could not prevent us from eating dessert, a Paris-Brest filled with almond pastry cream and a lemon pot de creme with madelines and, finally, a pineapple upside-down cake. Chef told us to come back as we waddled away from the bar. And yes, I will be back.

M. Wells

21-17 49th Avenue

Long Island City, New York 11101

718.425.6917

A Trip to Latin America

2011-05-09T09:56:00.003-04:00

Or, more accurately, a trip to Nuela, on W. 24th Street, where Peruvian haute cuisine is alive and well. Nuela opened last year and has done an admirable job of turning Latin American food into high-end art. The room is a vibrant red, sort of reminiscent of the color wash one might encounter in South Beach. It will appeal to some and not others, and sitting by the floor-to-ceiling windows only offers a vista of down-on-its-luck 24th Street. A better bet is probably to sit at the bar.

Before any food arrives, Nuela sends out tiny warm rolls made with yucca flour. They taste like elevated cornbread and come with a salted cream and honey for spreading. Pork belly with cheese-filled arepas and a ramp chimmichurri didn't disappoint, arranged architecturally into cubes and spheres. The short rib empanada, stuffed with a traditional savory-sweet cross of meat and golden raisins, was a success of flaky crust and earthy meat, even if the pie itself--one small serving--was a little too little to be an adequate appetizer.

The ceviches, as expected, stole the show. Blood red tuna came with a charred pineapple marinade and slices of watermelon and French breakfast radish, a spicy and crunchy compliment to all that sweet. Hamachi was served with a black garlic marinade that did not overtake the delicacy of the fish. Our only regret was not opting for the fish of the day, red snapper with chili, lime, and red onion.

Entrees at Nuela are offered in several ways. Some of the dishes are normal, entree sized portions and some are large format options for the table to share. They offer a suckling pig in three sizes--a quarter, half, and whole pig--as well as chicken, porterhouse, and duck. We chose the duck, served hot in a paella pan over rice, sugar snap peas, and market carrots. The manager came over to scrape the soccarat, or burnt rice bits, from the bottom of the pan. A confit of leg and a breast roasted rare accompanied a fat lobe of duck foie gras, not to be outdone by a duck egg, sunny-side-up. It was a transcendent take of an Andalucian dish.

The wine list at Nuela is heavily South American, not really my bag, and expensive for what it is. I found a bargain in a 2005 Shafer Merlot (not normally the type of wine I would have chosen, but supple enough to live up to the food). And I finished my meal with deep-fried cinnamon churros and hot chocolate for dipping, along with a glass of cream sherry, which may be the perfect way to end a Saturday night in New York.

*
Nuela
43 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10010
212.929.1200

Winner, Winner

2011-04-25T09:51:00.003-04:00

Double dinner. I had back-to-back dinner dates for a change. Usually, I am either in the kitchen or ordering pizza to my one bedroom, but not this weekend. On Saturday night, I ventured out west to Cookshop, a haunt I haven't haunted since it first opened a number of years ago. Cookshop was one of those restaurants that did locavore and farm-to-table before it was really cool, so it was interesting to refresh my perspective. The eaters I dined with were hardly adventurous, so we didn't test the limits of the Cookshop kitchen. I wanted the special boudin blanc, and the steamed littleneck clams, and the tongue salad, but instead we got a blistered ramp pesto pizza, tiny biscuits filled with sliced country ham, chicken wings served manchonner-ed and doused in hot sauce and sesame seeds, a butter lettuce salad in green goddess dressing, and two crostini smothered in chunky cheese. The pizza was a standout, reminding me a little of the Franny's pies in Brooklyn. The wings were tasty enough, as were the buns. I could have skipped the boring salad and crostini.

My companions seemed a little put off when I ordered the rabbit milanese, but it tasted the same as any milanese does, a shroud of crunch and fry over a thin piece of barely detectable meat. It was served off the bone and over a salad of wilted greens and a warm, creamy, mustard-heavy potato salad. The three together reminded me of some of the most simple and most satisfying meals I ate in Milan. Dessert was warm and fuzzy, too, though the flavors of the three we chose were a little too closely related. A chocolate and vanilla ice cream sundae was almost ennui-inducing, though tasty. A fluffernutter pie of chocolate and peanut butter tasted a lot like the creamy banana pudding, also filled with peanut butter. I would have opted for the sour cherry sorbet to finish, but my companions had no interest. Cookshop is a place that still puts out tasty food, even if it doesn't push any real culinary boundaries. Sometimes restaurants don't need to.

For Easter Sunday, I went in a different direction, to the ocean at Imperial No. 9, Sam Talbot's chic and sustainable seafood restaurant in SoHo's Mondrian Hotel. My friend from school works in the kitchen and so we, a party of seven, dined like little queens. We ate through the entire menu with the exception of three items, mostly because the kitchen supplemented our order with an abundance of free food. Deep fried oysters in cornmeal and served with strips of fried ham and a sweet tomato relish were a definite winner, as was the restaurant's version of the iconic Marea dish, lardo and sea urchin. At Marea, there is too much to eat in a bite and the weight of the toast obscures the delicacy of the fish and fat. Imperial No. 9 uses a slighter approach, putting less on the plate and using a thinner piece of bread. It's well-executed, even if the idea has been pirated. Raw fluke would have been better without the frozen accoutrement. Cauliflower fritters were gooey on the inside, but they pretty much fell apart as I dipped them in my yuzu sauce. Raw tuna came Hawaiian poke-style, cloaked in sesame oil and mustard oil and served, unnecessarily, with buttery grilled bread. But the flavor of that fine tuna competed too nearly with the pea shoot salad drenched in Miso. In fact, a lot of the restaurant's dishes taste too alike, in one way or another.

Take, for instance, a fantastic dish of Israeli cous cous, cooked creamy and served with roasted acorn squash and an immersion circulator egg. The texture of the cous cous most nearly resembles well made risotto, but the egg was redundant, appearing in nearly the same form in a dish of plancha-cooked shrimp and blue corn grits. That dish was good, too, and probably needed the egg more than its predecessor, since the grits, picked up with maple syrup, edge toward the sweet. Sesame and black vinegar and garlic are everywhere, coating the tuna and the salad and also the plancha-cooked king crab claws. It is heavy-handed at times and lacking the nuance so necessary to preparing good seafood. The best of the fish entrees was seared diver scallops with littlenecks and pork belly, a nod to my own New England heritage. The worst dish of the evening (besides the two foods I dislike: octopus and roasted beets) was a culotte of beef, not particularly tender, lacking sauce, and served with tiny, underseasoned hockey puck potatoes. A spicy cucumber and Napa cabbage kimchi brightened my mood a little, but it was an exact replica of the version you find in Koreatown, and nothing beyond that. Roasted squash and apples were delicious, if a month out of season by now--we should have been far into asparagus and ramps and favas and peas and morels, but those gems were nowhere to be seen.

And by the way, the menu--confusing, expensive, and hard to read. Appetizers aren't separated from entrees and prices reflect no real difference, so you don't know the size of your dish (and dish sizes tend toward the excessively small) until they arrive. A $32 plate of king crab claws would have fed a half of a hungry person. That tuna poke rings in at over $25, as does the uni-lardo appetizer, which we received gratis. The wine list is overpriced but there are discernable bargains, like a $60 bottle of Bethel Heights pinot noir from the Willamette Valley. And cocktails, though not cheap, are tasty enough. I drank the No. 1, a mix of sparkling wine, simple syrup and "cucumber foam." It went down easy, if a little too easy. Desserts, surprisingly, were inspired and avant-garde. Two tiny chocolate tarts with caramel filling and sour cherry puree were a delicate dance of rich and restrained. Frozen lemon tartlets made with fresh edible flowers and graham cracker crusts were perfect palate cleansers after warm and dense chocolate chip cookies and chocolate peppermint cookies. A deconstructed banana pudding was hard to understand but easy to eat, a mix of marshmallow ice cream and flambeed bananas compressed into frozen squares. Salted caramel ice cream arrived in a bowl filled with popcorn powder, just as El Bulli as it sounds. Those desserts game gratis, too, along with glasses of Moscato d'Asti.

We received a thirty percent discount because my friend works at the restaurant and the kitchen took off nearly half of what we ate and drank, so the meal came to an astonishing $100 per person, a steal for what we got. But that price tag doesn't accurately reflect the true cost of eating at Imperial No. 9, which would easily break your bank if you let it. It seems Sam Talbot hasn't quite found his stride yet. The menu needs editing and the flavors need more definition. As for those prices, well, it's SoHo.

More Tacos

2011-04-13T09:31:00.004-04:00

This time, a pricier version. I should have known that Alex Stupak, the former pastry chef for Wylie Dufresne's iconic wd-50, wouldn't play soft ball. Stupak opened his west village taco joint, Empellon, a few weeks ago and the place is hip enough, with white brick walls and Klimt-esque artwork and antique light fixtures. The menu is medium-sized and full of interesting choices--ceviches, sopes, tacos, chicharrones, snacks. Our over-eager waitress upsold us on a fine guacamole with two stellar sauces on the side--one smoky and nearly sweet, the other fiery hot and made with pumpkin seeds. Still, I wish I had more time to check the menu before I agreed to the starter. I would have ordered the chicharrones with capers and olives instead.

Our two appetizers--a sope with fried egg and beans and a Staub cast iron filled with kale and melted cheese--arrived with warm tortillas, a nice touch. Each was delicious and satisfying, if not particularly inventive. Tacos come in trios and so we ordered a lamb barbacoa, which came with green olives and cheese, and a minute steak with onions emincer and fresh cilantro. The tacos were the way I like them--salty, smoky, texturally complex. But at $17 for three, I felt a little ripped off. No native Mexican could ever in good conscience pay such prices for elevated street food.

The pastry kitchen has always been Stupak's home and at Empellon, that tradition continues. Our chocolate flan (a misnomer, since it more closely resembled a mousse than a custard) was adorned with crunchy bits of one sort or another and a spicy cinnamon ice cream quenelle and warm honey. Aside from the truly inspired grapefruit margaritas, dessert was the best course.

Empellon

230 W. 4th Street

New York, NY 10014

212.367.0999

Taco Taco Taco

2011-03-23T10:24:00.004-04:00

Pachanga Patterson has been all over the blogs recently, which is weird, because it's in my neighborhood, which typically shies away from citywide attention. The concept is "Mexican food as made by people behind the line who are hungry after a night of service." Maybe not the most terse description, but hey, it's accurate. Of course, people already know this place, thought it has only been open a few weeks. I ran into the sous chef from Ma Peche, a sign that industry has already caught on.

Here's what they've caught on to:

P & H soda mixers in the cocktails from Anton Nocito at P & H. The hibiscus margarita is delish, if a little on the boozy side. A trio of salsas might not be in season (corn and tomato in March?), but I ate them anyway. Tomatillo had good texture and acidity, while a roasted tomato version coaxed every available molecule of summer sweetness.

I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed a crispy, crunchy, peanutty salad of romaine leaves, fried peanuts, jicama, and pickled red onion. It would have been the perfect salve for the extremely fiery and nonetheless addictive fried chiles with cotija cheese that I ordered with my tacos. Because I can't do anything food-related in moderation, I ordered nine tacos for the two of us. (Note: this is what I consider to be a restaurant misstep; every taco plate comes with three tacos and the menu specifically says that mixing and matching is prohibited. Boo to a lack of variety.)

Moo shu duck tacos actually tasted nothing like moo shu--I was thinking cabbage and mushroom and hoisin--but they did taste strikingly similar to the Ssam Bar pork buns, and I mean that as a compliment. The filling appeared to be a confit of leg, along with lightly pickled cucumber and fresh sliced radish. Berkshire pork tacos were stuffed also with pickled onions and deep-fried pork rinds. Say no more. A taco advertised as "black trumpet mushrooms" was actually portabellos for the evening, a huge disappointment, since the two couldn't be more different versions of fungus. Still, it tasted good. Overall, the restaurant could use to include one meat taco with more meat texture, as opposed to all the slow-cooked stuff it has going on (pork shoulder, short ribs, duck confit). Bring on the tongue!

Dessert was the dark version of Vesta's baby Jesus cake, the Diabolita--same owners, different appeal. The cake is a square of chocolate and spice, served warm with caramel. It isn't a cerebral dessert, but dessert needn't always be so thinky.

'Cue

2011-03-06T12:15:00.004-05:00

I stopped by Fette Sau in Billyburg last night, but the long line and lack of seating pointed me elsewhere. But when you're in the mood for 'cue, you're in the mood for 'cue, so to South Williamsburg we ventured, miraculously snagging a vacant table at Fatty 'Cue in under ten minutes.

The spot, in aesthetic and execution, isn't so different from Zak Pelaccio's Fatty Crabs, which is to say that the food is spicy, sweet, salty, textured and, above all else, full of fat. The best exemplar of "fat is flavor" comes across in the Dragon Pullman Toast with Master Fat. What is it? Slices of that well-known and pillow-soft bread with grill marks and a salt crust, served with a side of fat drippings from the barbecue. It's like eating the deckle of a rib-eye on toast, if that deckle had been rendered into a dippable liquid. Not half bad, I say.

We ate lamb ribs, off the bone and crisp, with a mackerel aioli, which sounds gross but isn't. Two mammoth pork ribs came with a palm sugar glaze that's stickier, sweeter, and more appealing than the best Texas red sauce. Pork bone broth is basically a rich consomme with sliced crunchy celery. In the context of all this meat, it almost reads like health food. So, too, do the habit-forming black eyed peas, served with the traditional addition of burnt ends and the not-so-traditional slickening of yellow curry. Grilled bacon, leaning towards the fatty, comes with a curry mustard and toast points, a modern take on charcuterie that doesn't feel too haute or out of place.

I would have ordered the crab for a shareable entree, but one of our party members is allergic, so we settled on brisket instead, which didn't disappoint. Fatty 'Cue serves the lean, pink slices alongside the dense, fatty ones. The brisket comes with mayonnaise, chili sauce, steamed buns (Peking duck style), cilantro, pickled red onions, and a bone broth for dipping. It's a rendering of make-your-own pork buns, or a French dip. And it's really, really good. Cutting all that fat with sugar and acid (found everywhere in accompanying sauces and in the vinegar and fish sauce container left on the table for each party's personal use) works so well, one wonders why Malaysian barbecue isn't already a "thing" in the city.

Then again, these treats are probably best enjoyed in moderation.

Fatty 'Cue

91 South 6th Street

Brooklyn, NY 11211

718.599.3090

Comfort Me

2011-02-27T13:00:00.003-05:00

I'm sort of ambivalent about the comfort food movement. Certainly there are more challenging and original foods out there to make than fried chicken and biscuits. Still, when a hot spot opens in my nabe (a truly rare occurrence), I take notice. Queens Comfort has been building a following all week, with its rakish Williamsburg aesthetic--white wainscoting, chalkboard menus, Stumptown coffee in house and to go, alternative music blasting, cash only. You get the picture. I had to go in.

I sat at the bar, which makes for a comfortable enough brunch. Queens Comfort does their own baking and I had to challenge myself not to eat one of their fresh donuts. I won that battle, but lost others.

My fried green tomato sandwich was a little heavy on the remoulade and a little light on the sweet pepper jam, but I assume they'll find balance after the official week of soft-opening is over. My bread had the coarse texture of cornbread with a tiny bit of the same quality of sweetness. I was aiming for a meat-free morning, which prevented me from ordering the brisket sandwich with horseradish and red onion jam, or the pulled pork sandwich with Stumptown barbecue sauce and slaw, or the fried chicken sandwich with maple butter on a biscuit. The calorie counter in the back of my brain advised against a side of macaroni and cheese, though I'm sure my discipline will only follow me so far. For my family, I brought home three maple bacon biscuits, the last in house.

The staff has advised me that the menu will change and expand in coming weeks. They also plan to delivery and, hopefully, accept credit cards. I'm not sure if Queens *needs* a spot to order a two dollar Mexican Coke, but hey, we have it now. For anyone who was concerned, it should come as a great comfort.

Queens Comfort

40-09 30th Avenue

Astoria, NY 11103

646.597.8687

Eat Here Now

2011-02-26T23:12:00.003-05:00

Renee's Kitchenette and Grill. Woodside, Queens. Filipino Barbecue.

There isn't much to see, beyond some communal cafeteria-style tables and a slew of strange gift items marked "twenty percent off." But, oh, the meat.

Order the mixed grill. With it, you'll get pork on a skewer and fatty-tender pork belly and a full chicken leg and thigh and spicy sausage, all doused in a sweet Filipino barbecue sauce. Dip your varied carnivorous pleasures in the side bowl of fish sauce and vinegar, spiced with just enough chile to keep you human. Take some of those spicy pickled veggies--mostly cabbage, I think--and drape them over the modestly delicious garlic fried rice.

Spicy, salty, and sweet, and everything takes a cool respite in a crunchy cucumber, tomato, and hard-boiled egg salad. Eat that, too. Save room for a cool coconut drink with "tropical jello" and toasted rice. It is sweet and likely very bad for you. Saturday only comes once a week.

If the meat doesn't fill you completely, take a jog a few blocks down to Red Ribbon Bakeshop, what my dining partner called, "The Filipino version of Crumbs," where everything is extremely sweet and calorie-laden. I don't know what made the frosting on our angel food cake green, but it was sugary enough to chase down any cravings. I finished the slice of chocolate, too, two layers held together with dulce de leche.

Renee's Kitchenette and Grill

69-14 Roosevelt Avenue

Woodside, Queens 11377

718.476.9002

Red Ribbon Bakeshop

65-02 Roosevelt Avenue

Woodside, Queens 11377

718.335.1150

Del Posto

2011-02-23T09:11:00.003-05:00

I had only ever walked into the space in daylight, before they even served lunch. It is a cavernous dining room with marble and wide balconies and lush carpet where the tables are. By night, the glow of candles and table side sconces turns the room into a giant Deco-era piano bar (and yes, there is a piano, under the stairs).

Del Posto offers two menus, both price fixed. We chose the lesser of the two, five courses, which has more flexibility; the seven course menu is set in its courses and does not allow for guests to choose their food from the larger menu.

Prosecco arrived within moments. I didn't complain, even though I had already downed a near perfect white peach bellini at the bar. Next, a trio of amuse bouche: gougeres with mortadella; sticky saffron risotto balls; and a clarified chicken broth striated with egg yolk. Then, crusty bread and whipped lardo, an Italianophile's dream spread.

Our 1996 Riserva Barbaresco had been aged in barrique, which I noted to the sommelier. "Do you prefer a more traditional style?" he asked me. I said yes. He told me he would make a note on my reservation so that the next time I have dinner they would serve me something less pronounced. The night was full of comparable attention to detail.

I let the server steer me towards a beef tartare with porcini mushrooms and shaved parmesan when she told me that the kitchen could not produce the goose liver special without almonds (I'm allergic). Her selection won me over, full of crunch and salt and smooth edges. Then came the first of our two pasta courses, a pasta called caramelle, which looked like cellophane-wrapped candy and oozed with gorgonzola and black truffles. A whole wheat spaghetti came with chunks of mirepoix and shaved bonito flakes. The pastas are the star of the whole Del Posto show.

But my lamb--a mixture of leg, t-bone, and other gamier parts--was not to be outdone. Cloaked in a perfect puttanesca, it was the ultimate combination of unctuous fat and tender meat. I still had room for dessert, a butterscotch semi-freddo with candied melon. Every portion served was modest, preventing the post-meal guilt so often associated with four star dining. There was even room to enjoy the final glorious moments of our meal, served in a box grater: a caramel in edible paper, a tiny ice cream bon bon on a lollipop stick, a chocolate truffle, two pieces of candied fruit, and a golf ball-sized beignet filled with citrus cream.

Del Posto

85 10th Avenue

New York, NY 10011

212.497.8090

Thai Style

2011-01-30T13:05:00.003-05:00

Before my reservation at Kin Shop, my mother and I made a pilgrimage to Eataly in Gramercy. I call it a "pilgrimage" because that's exactly what it is. We waited in line nearly twenty minutes, pleading our case to two disaffected bodyguards before we were finally granted entree into the most expensive and expansive grocery store I have ever seen.

I won't deny that my tiny, crunchy cannoli was pitch-perfect, nor will I claim nonchalance. Eataly is truly a sight to behold, with its gorgeous fresh pastas, scored breads, fresh fish, and various Italian imported foods. The space, weaved with restaurants and wine bars, is reminiscent of Barcelona's Boqueria, where patrons can shop and eat all in one venue. But price-wise, Barcelona doesn't hold a candle to this New York monstrosity. A small ham that couldn't have weighed more than 3 pounds cost $34.95. Lesson learned: come for the sights and a quick cannoli, but buy your wares elsewhere.

Kin Shop was a welcome relief from the fray. The restaurant has a minimalist feel, in the same genre of momofuku, with blond wood tables and chopsticks in lieu of silver. But the prices at Harold Dieterle's newest hot spot are more in line with tablecloths and china. At the behest of the server, we ordered heavy--and she was right, since portions are fairly conservative--which resulted in a weighty check of over $200 for four people. It isn't expensive by New York standards, exactly, but it isn't cheap, either. Casual dining in the city has retained its cache, but not its price point.

Kin Shop has a deep and interesting wine list, filled with German and French whites with residual sugar, perfect for spicy food. We drank a 1999 Auslese Riesling, well-suited for our creamy bone marrow (which could have used a touch more salt, but never mind), our head-on prawns (no complaints here), our scallops and snap peas in coconut milk (sweet, savory, and full of contrasting textures). Chinese sausage with a soft egg and chopped razor clams was salty and complex, though it would have been better served by leaving the razors whole. Tamarind seared duck breast had been breaded in something light to create this crunchy exterior that was nothing short of addictive. Paper-thin layers of roti had been bound together in clarified butter. I stuffed mine with a cucumber relish that tasted like chopped homemade pickles, an Asian tea sandwich of my own creation. Even a modest dish of egg noodles with Hen-of-the-woods mushrooms and a poached egg failed to miss a beat.

And then: dessert. I ordered a root beer float, but instead of the galangal ice-cream that came with the dish, I had mine with Thai iced tea ice-cream, an authentic interpretation of the real thing. Coconut cookies arrived on the house, as did a scoop of icy but refreshing lychee sorbet. It's all pricey for Thai, but worth the price tag.

Eataly

200 5th Avenue

New York, NY 10010

212.398.5100

Kin Shop

469 6th Avenue

New York, NY 10011

212.675.4295

Ocean Life

2011-01-09T09:52:00.005-05:00

I have retreated, in my old-ish age, from dinners at fancy restaurants, where I once found myself most at home. But every once in a while an occasion arises--a birthday or otherwise noteworthy and celebratory event--that calls me back into three- and four-star New York life. Last night, such an occasion, my sister's birthday, brought me to Marea.

Despite some service missteps (the wine list arrived in the hands of my sister's boyfriend as a matter of gender consequence instead of my own knowing paws; the expeditors brought our crudo course to the wrong seat numbers; the sommelier, when petitioned by me to recommend a "not crazy expensive" and accessible Barolo pointed to a $190 bottle; the captain placed the check at my right, rather than at the payee's place), the food was, in fact divine.

First, green olive focaccia, slick with oil and salt, and a little cup of squash consomme to clean our palates. That gentle taste prepared us for what came next, the unctuous, fatty, and inspired combination of uni and lardo on charred toast, a marriage of the sea's prizes and the land's. It was like eating a combination of many different butters all at once, one with the tiniest briniest reminder of the ocean. Crudo was simple and clean. In retrospect, I should have ordered a fattier fish, since the rest of the table didn't do the menu justice. I had three perfect langoustines, raw on slices of mandoline-thin cucumber. My sister had the same preparation with sweet Maine ama ebi and red chili, but she found it too slimy. The rest of our table ordered oysters, a bit of a snore, even if the mignonette duo--red and wine vinegars--was tasty enough. In the future, I would go for a pink snapper or a tuna or even a branzino.

My next course was yellowtail, also raw, but adorned with chanterelles and thin slices of seared foie gras. In some ways, I found this course, in its entirety, most successful. My sister ordered Nantucket Bay scallops, which, when ill-prepared, reek of fishiness. But these were candy sweet and matched with bright red pomegranate seeds. The Nova Scotia lobster with fresh burrata sang in its simplicity and was complimented by a bright and impossibly summer-like basil puree. Gnocchi with shaved black truffles, stolen from my brother's plate, were the pillowy things they describe ad nauseum in The Godfather III and not those gummy, overdone monstrosities too often found in Italian joints nationwide. And a mushroom risotto across the table from me played to the virtues of fungus while demonstrating the care and caution it takes to make good rice good.

Next were main courses, which, for me, came in the form of delicate orecchiette in a sweet tomato sauce with even sweeter shrimp, just barely undercooked to maintain their texture. My sister shared her bone marrow and octopus fusilli with me, cooked in a deep red wine reduction and filled with all of the extreme decadence that one might expect from such a dish. She pushed her bone marrow to the side and I happily accepted her discard pile with those twists of pasta that were some of the best textured noodles I have ever eaten. My brother's swordfish, though it wouldn't have been my pick, was a study in well-cooked fish, but I didn't make it much farther around the table than that.

I wasn't expecting much in the way of dessert, as the Italians are rarely known for their sweet tooth, but Marea's pastry kitchen is extremely talented and nimble. My rosemary panna cotta was what I think of when I crave a little milk pudding and a wine reduction and sorbet added sweet to an almost savory concoction. My sister's beautiful white chocolate honey cake came with parisienne balls of grapefruit sorbet on top. Her boyfriend's salted caramel and chocolate cake hit all of the obligatory notes and added an extra punch of cream in the center that reminded me of the best kind of Hostess cupcake.

In the future, I will spend more occasions at Marea.

Marea

240 Central Park South

New York, NY 10019

212.582.5100

Market Fresh

2010-12-31T09:14:00.004-05:00

The food at Market Table reminds me of most of the other food coming out of New York kitchens these days--seasonal, homey, ingredient-focused, and lacking a little bit of fire. That's ok. Sometimes you just need a tasty meal and, for me, last night was one of those times. Anyway, who could pass up sitting in such a pretty little restaurant, with its floor-to-ceiling windows facing snowy Carmine Street, with its colonial Christmas wreaths on the doors and windows, with its string of precious little white lights running up the bar's central wood column? I love Christmas as much as any Jewish girl ever could and I love sitting in a warm and glowing restaurant on a December night wrapped in a soft sweater and a wisp of red wine.

Speaking of wine, the Market Table by the glass list isn't deep, but it is thoughtful. I had an inexpensive (by European standards) Corbieres from the south of France, followed by an Olga Raffault Chinon, one of my long-standing favorites. It was a little young and not as dirty as it gets with age, but I appreciate any restaurant that sells a Chinon by the glass.

And so, the food.

My hamachi crudo starter came with the obligatory sliced fruit--in this case, julienned pears. The dish hit all the right notes, with clean acid and sweet fruit and a slight hint of the ocean, but it was a dish I had tasted before on another night in another farm-to-table restaurant. No spark, no fire.

Next came a generous pork porterhouse, bone-in, cooked to a perfect medium and topped with a red onion and vinegar slaw. The meat was surprisingly underseasoned, forcing me to reach into our complimentary bowl of Maldon salt for some pork triage. It helped. The meat itself was leaner than I had expected but still possessed of the perfect texture of well-cooked pork. The creamy, cheesy spaetzle underneath, dotted with fine leaves of Brussels sprouts, went down easily indeed. So did the crispy, crunchy Old Bay fries with their horseradish ketchup (which really tasted of nothing but cocktail sauce). And so did our two scoop gelato finish, a rich dark chocolate and a nutty bourbon pecan.

It all tasted good and I left nothing for the waiters to scrape into the bins out back, but I still have to wonder if good tasting food is enough anymore. Maybe I miss the fire.

Market Table

54 Carmine Street

New York, NY 10014

212.255.2100

In Season

2010-12-11T11:46:00.003-05:00

I don't have too many opportunities to discuss restaurants that I believe to be nearly perfect, but last night's dining experience, at Seasonal, was one such pleasure. I started off on the wrong foot at a table too near the door and hostess stand and without wine or cocktail list for ten minutes before a lanky manager arrived to quench my thirst. From there, the night could have gone sour, but it didn't, not by a long shot. To start, K. and I ordered cocktails made with Sekt and apricot nectar and elderflower. Next, I flagged our thickly-accented server-manager-type and asked for a bottle of 1992 Spatlese riesling from Germany, a surprising steal on an otherwise expensive list. Recognizing my pedigree from my pick, my new manager friend sent, to start, a glass of J.J. Prum.

I should have known from the amuse bouche, a sliver of cured fluke that should speak for all raw fish everywhere, that our meal would sing. We wanted to eat three courses and began with a soft-poached egg, which came with rich lobster knuckles and pumpernickel crumbles and hen of the woods mushrooms. It was delicate and earthy with a touch of salinity from the sea, a stark comparison to the rich pork belly, adorned with silken quince and honey. The belly itself was fork tender, a pink plume of meat that can so often disappoint, rose to the occasion.

Next, a midcourse of consomme with rock shrimp and bone marrow and cubed rutabaga. I didn't know it would be such a pristine show-stopper, elegant and flush with contrasting textures. The bone marrow, no more than an inch wide, would have been fine on toast, but in the clear soup, bobbing around like the world's best butter, it inspired.

The house sent a second midcourse, fried veal sweetbreads with an accompanying cream of celery root, a sliver of onion, a leaf from a blanched Brussels sprout. I was relieved at its arrival--the dish was one I had wanted to order when I had originally considered my options. With our extra course, our manager returned to bestow upon us mystery glasses of wine, on him. I guessed Gruner Veltliner, from its crispness and aroma of green apples and was rewarded with a nod.

And then our entrees arrived, pillowy veal wiener schnitzel with lingonberry jam and soft, creamy, salty scalloped potatoes. On the side, a cucumber salad, cut into ribbons and slickened with mayonnaise, provided crunch. Cheesy spaetzle sent my stomach over the line into deeply full, even though it teemed with vegetables. Still, I had room for a recommended dessert: kaiserschmarrn, or dough dumplings that are pan fried and coated in sugar and spice and served with sliced apple compote on the side.

Seasonal

132 West 58th Street

New York, NY 10019

212.957.5550

Sprouts

2010-12-10T09:58:00.003-05:00

Last week, I stumbled into a nearly empty Sorella, a pity on a Thursday night. Only a block away, Mary Queen of Scots, the LES newcomer who denied us a table, was filled to the gills with hipsters and mock foodies, leaving poor Sorella to fend for herself. Why would anyone pass up the dense, generous beef carne cruda, or the slick pici with its economical pool of creamy sauce? What misinformed eater would have chosen an overdone burger over the flash-fried and bacony Brussels sprouts, or the potatoes with speck that arrived crusty and lacquered with mayonnaise in the style of fine patas bravas?

I couldn't say. I felt sad for the lonely, crispy, salty, herbaceous breadsticks, which assuaged my hunger before our food arrived. My sweetbreads were a touch overcooked, but their crust--it must be cornmeal--lingered. Even our desserts, scoops of gelato laced with chocolate and caramel and banana and a host of other secrets belied a restaurant that should be remembered and isn't. The food is delicate and modest in its portions. There are no disappointments, aside from the spare following. I hope they keep their doors open through another long winter.

On to other sprouts. In Astoria, on another cold night, I found myself at Vesta, a wine bar with Italian inclinations that opened a year or so ago. Upon first glance, one might think their pizzas a hair too large, but the crust is cracker-thin and so the slices go down easy. I could have used more blue cheese and less sauce on my pie of blue and caramelized onions, but never mind. The fusilli, while too large a portion for sure, came with crisped sweet Italian sausage and a sauce that boasted an old Italian secret: starchy cooking water from the pasta pot. It was a stick-to-your-ribs bowl perfectly suited to the weather. The grass-fed rib-eye is a steal at $25. I would have liked to have sliced it myself, but never mind. It came rare, as ordered, and well seasoned, which says something about the diligence of the kitchen.

For dessert, I allowed the server to talk me into Baby Jesus Cake, which is really just a toffee steamed pudding adorned with fresh whipped cream. My server was right; I was glad I had listened.

Sorella

95 Allen Street

New York, NY 11201

212.274.9595

Vesta Trattoria & Wine Bar

21-02 30th Avenue

Astoria, NY 11102

718.545.5550

Omakase

2010-11-15T09:10:00.003-05:00

It would seem unbelievable, to most, that I, devotee to all things culinary, had never before sat down to an omakase sushi dinner. Well, for one, omakase can be insanely expensive and not everyone is comfortable with the wide open unknowingness that comes with sitting down for a multi-course raw fish meal. T. and I were planning to go well before now, but she suffered an allergic reaction to fish over the summer and was told by the doctor to wait it out. And so it was not until cool November that we made it our mission to eat through an omakase menu at 1 or 8, a stylish-but-homey (surprising, since the restaurant is all white) sushi joint in Williamsburg that has gotten anemic press since it opened last year.

First of all, the Sushi Sekis and Sushi Yasudas of the world will happily charge you $200-$300 for an omakase tasting, but at 1 or 8 you can sit at the bar and do the flight for $50, $70, or $90. We chose the middle route, sushi rather than sashimi, though I would have been happier with either. I've decided to list what we ate below, since it was mostly an undulating flow of raw fish affixed to rice with a dollop of wasabi and a faint glisten of soy sauce.

Blood red raw tuna

Yellowtail

King salmon

Red snapper

Raw squid with uni

Chopped mackerel with scallions and yuzu

Poached eel

Sea scallop

Amberjack

Fluke with monkfish liver

Big-eye tuna

Mackerel, unchopped

Sardines

Finally, the piece d' resistance: a thick, toro-like slice of tuna, seared on each side and dusted with salt, pepper, and lemon. It tasted like steak and that heartiness was not lost on us.

I could have lived without the sardines, which were almost unbearably fishy. Eel isn't really my cup of tea, either, but the large mouthful was cut by the sticky rice. I was glad, on both courses, that we had opted for sushi and not sashimi. I missed ama ebi; T. had informed out sushi chef that she had a shellfish allergy, but despite my enthusiastic endorsement, the chef kicked me out of the shellfish dealings, too. T. offered to buy me a hand roll, but I declined. It seemed rude, after all.

I was surprised by the mildness of the raw squid. Squid isn't my favorite fish and I tend to avoid it in restaurants, but this version was chewy and complimented by the soft, briny sea urchin. The yellowtail, or hamachi, was one of the cleanest fish I have ever eaten. 1 or 8 turned out consistently fresh and clean product. At meal's end, they offered us steaming bowls of miso soup where, at bowl's bottom, we found a surprise lurking: house-made soft tofu.

Modern eaters, in the face of heritage pork or American wagyu beef, eat far too little good fish. Forget about the tuna or the swordfish or the prawns; we have forsaken fine raw fish in favor of a little more meat in our diets. I realize that it requires skill and attention and good fishing to produce such a noteworthy meal, but it's worth recognizing that the beauty of fish can sometimes surpass even the fine marble of an aged rib-eye.

Halloween

2010-11-01T09:26:00.003-04:00

Oh, dear blog, fear not; I have not forsaken you. I just got really busy and spent most of my time cooking vegetarian meals for one, topics not worthy of you. I can't promise full redemption--New York is expensive, and my budget is nonexistent--but I will try to do better.

Anyway, what better night to dive back into the New York scene than Halloween? And of all the neighborhoods to choose from, why not torture ourselves with the West Village, home to New York City's most decorated (and possibly most obnoxious) seasonal parade. I don't go to Times Square on New Year's Eve and I sure as hell don't stand on Fifth Avenue on Thanksgiving morning, so my lack of cohesive thought when T. and H. and I decided on a trip to Takashi (Hudson and Barrow) was out-of-character and very non-New Yorker of me. Also, between the three of us, we had over thirty years of New York living, and we still needed a iphone map to figure out the geography of the West Village.

I won't get into the crowds, the costumes, or the overburdened subway that stopped so frequently that we were forced to take a cab home from the 20s. I will get into Takashi, the Japanese steak joint I have been meaning to eat at since June or July. Normally, this small restaurant requires great patience. They are always full and the wait usually exceeds an hour. There was our one gleaming prize in all of this Hallow's Eve madness: No one had gone out to eat. And so we were seated instantly, at a wooden table designed for four and outfitted with a grill top for our own personal use. First came the candy-sweet plum wine (on ice), which the generous waitress decorated with a whole cured green plum. Next, a series of delicate wonders. Here, a scallion salad demonstrating admirable knife skills and a confident condiment hand in the application of sesame oil and soy sauce. There, thick swaths of cucumber bathed in something that rose to a warm spiciness on the back palate. Finally, the appetizer piece d' resistance: four squares of raw and marbled meat, topped with shiso leaves and a spoonful of uni. We were instructed to top the uni with wasabi and roll everything on the underlying nori sheet, dip in soy sauce, put in mouth. The meat was a faint note, earthy and creamy, almost overpowered by the herbal shiso, the briny uni. Almost.

Next came a crispy achilles tendon salad, served cold. Tendon takes some getting used to, but this was one of its finest hours, cut into pieces small enough to render it chewy but not inedible. And then the meats began. We started with a tongue tasting, three different sections of cow tongue, each adorned with a simple seasoning. We were told by our waitress about cooking times (certain parts of the tongue needed as much as one minute per side) and began our grilling session. The tongue was not tough, but supple, meaty, filled with the flavor of beef that beef itself so rarely provides. The short rib did not disappoint, either. It was more like eating a piece of grilled butter. Sweetbreads required the most patience, four minutes per side, but we were rewarded with generous, clean, and silky thymus glands with a well-earned grill crust. Beef cheeks were not the version we were accustomed to seeing in a fine restaurant, stewed to oblivion and dark in pallor. No, these beef cheeks were red and white and thin and we kissed them to the grill, flipped, and ate. They, like the short ribs, came in the house marinade with a side dipping sauce that was just light and fragrant enough to stand up to the meat without subverting its subtlety.

Takashi serves any part of the cow you can think of, and that includes such delicacies as first stomach, second stomach, liver, and heart. We didn't venture too far into the weird, but then again, we've eaten a lot of this stuff before. Instead, we stuck to our favorites--fatty, marbled cuts of meat that could stand up to a hot grill. But if I make it back, braving the West Village and all its insanity, I may opt for a little beef liver and skirt steak, just to make things interesting.

Takashi

465 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

212.414.2929

The North Shore

2010-09-11T10:53:00.001-04:00

It is always surprising to me that a town like Newburyport, Massachusetts, hailed for its beauty and proximity to the ocean, has so little to offer the dining community. Everywhere along rolling hills are farms and farmers with corn in summer and apples in fall. The sea coughs up scallops, clams, mussels, oysters, cod, and striped bass. But the local menus reflect a dedication to Sysco, not the earth. It's sad to see such summer bounty wasted.

I've been to Ristorante Molise in Amesbury over and over again. I never liked it, not its massive, encyclopedic menu, and not its repetitious use of the same "Italian" ingredients: mushrooms, artichokes, proscuitto, garlic, and roasted red peppers. Recently, a restaurant consultant revamped the place and pared down the menu, offering up fewer offerings. Less is definitely more. On a recent visit, I asked to order one of the pastas, advertised as homemade, as an appetizer. And homemade it was, thick, unyielding pappardelle in a light dusting of marinara and ricotta salata and tossed with thick cubes of summer's last eggplants. The salad that came with my meal was no longer an exercise in excess (servers used to list a litany of available dressings, but this one came with no more than a hint of oil and white vinegar). It was a small tumble of arugula and lettuce, cherry tomato and whisper-thin red onion. On principle, I'm against the "salad that comes with your meal," but this was best described as an intermezzo. My entree was everything one could want from a summer meal: large local clams, fresh stewed tomatoes, yellow potatoes, fennel, caramelized onion, sausage removed from its casing and seared on a flattop. The bowl of meat and fish and vegetable and broth came with two thick slices of grilled bread, perfect for sopping up the clams' remains. The portion was overgenerous and I could have done without the tomatoes, but the plate was spicy and sweet and an ode to the ending of a season. It made me wonder why more places in Massachusetts don't serve the very foods that crop up in their local gardens.

Two nights later, I found myself in Portsmouth, New Hampshire again, this time along the water and the wharf at a place called Black Trumpet. The restaurant bills itself as a bistro and wine bar, but the wines in the 40-70 dollar range were disappointingly slim pickings. A house cocktail of sparkling sake, muddled nectarine, and pineapple-mint simple syrup saved the alcohol component of the evening. The food was uneven. Rock shrimp cooked in garlic and harissa (one of the restaurant's "small plates") was delicious, but I felt cheated by the name. Had I known that rock shrimp would appear, in place of tender prawns or normal sized shrimp, I would have saved my appetite for something else. Sauteed foraged mushrooms were woefully undersalted, but a plate of house-made sausage and torchon was a resounding success. The sausage itself was livery and more in the vein of a good morcilla. The torchon, made with foie gras and duck bacon, melted into the bread. Pickled cauliflower and carrot provided the requisite tang and crunch and a stone fruit mostarda cut all that salty with a little sweet. Also delicious was a small plate of cured pork and cooked potatoes. There were two types, one closer in style to a chorizo, and the potatoes were browned and chewy. It was a hit with all of us.

Next came a medium-sized plate of quail, cooked over roasted vegetables and served with a heap of cous cous. It was perfectly executed if not terribly inspired. The same applied to my veal chop, weighing in at close to a pound on the bone. The fig sauce underneath was too sweet, the mustard greens too bitter for my palate, and the grain salad simply boring. The dish needed something with more salt to balance the fig, but the sides were yawn-worthy. I applaud Black Trumpet's dedication to local and homemade foods. I applaud that they use good purveyors who bring in meat and fish that is sustainable. But I left a little less inspired than I had hoped to be. At least I know we're moving forward, always forging new territory.

Ristorante Molise

1 Main Street

Amesbury, MA 01913

978.388.4844

Black Trumpet

29 Ceres Street

Portsmouth, NH 03801

603.431.0887

Down The Cape

2010-08-31T10:44:00.005-04:00

We had a run of bad weather. The summer has been hot and sticky and dry, but we picked the week on the Cape when the weather changed and brought in torrential downpours and a night chill. For most of the week, the beach was out, which meant we had to spend our time doing other things (like eating).

On our drive to the Cape, we stopped at Sea Swirl in Mystic, Connecticut for fried food and ice-cream. I shared a scallop roll and a clam roll with my sister. Fried seafood doesn't really do it for me, but the scallops were sweet and delicious. The clams were mostly strips, not at all my bag. Onion rings were the frozen variety. Oh well. I should have stuck with my original philosophy: eat as much lobster as possible. But there was time for that.

Our second night in Harwich, we ate at Twenty-Eight Atlantic. We would eat there twice over the course of the week. The dining room is pretty if a notch too formal, with straight backed upholstered chairs and plush carpeting, but the view makes up for the stodgy appointments. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows face the Nantucket Sound, with its bobbing sailboats and sunfish. A foie gras appetizer--piped pate over duck bacon--was delicious if ordinary. On our second meal, I had the tartare trio (tuna, hamachi, salmon), tasty if non-experimental. The accoutrement was what you would expect with tartare: quail egg, tobiko. What was extraordinary was a fried rice cake (risotto-style) with a creamy interior, possessed of all the right flavors and textures. One night, I had seared scallops over mushroom ravioli. The ravioli was creamy and tasty, but the whole dish was a little too rich and I left it unfinished. My second evening's entree was shelled king crab legs, poached in butter and served with a corn and pea risotto. It was a harmony of salty and sweet but once again I felt assaulted by all the cream and butter and left some uneaten. Desserts were a disappointment and the only element that registered as worth discussing was a basil sorbet, as clean and fresh as August basil itself.

My first gray day found me in downtown Chatham, where I fought my way in to the Chatham Squire, a place I last visited in 1998. I have no recollection of my earlier visit but this time around, I found the place charming enough. I shared a solid lobster roll with my sister (just enough lobster, just enough mayonnaise) and ate my way through a half a dozen raw oysters (salty, briny, perfect) and a crock of onion soup. The Chatham Squire provides fish and comfort and I wasn't looking for much else.

That night, we drove to Orleans to a place called the Lobster Claw, where I enjoyed my first--and only--bona fide clam bake: 1.25 lb. lobster, steamer clams in broth and drawn butter, corn on the cob, and French fries. The ambiance, full of fish netting and decaying buoys, was nothing to marvel at, but the lobster sang. And I had forgotten, in the offseason, how much I love those slimy steamer clams, with their grit and their goo. My father deemed his full-bellied fried clams the best of the trip (he had four separate incarnations), a triumph in itself.

It rained buckets on Monday and it was difficult to get through the wet weather, but we went to Orleans for dinner at Joe's Beach Road Bar & Grille. The best thing about Joe's is their stellar wine list, which is aggressively underpriced and surprisingly comprehensive (for the Cape, I mean). We drank a bottle of Kistler 'Les Noisetiers' for under a hundred clams, but that didn't make up for my undersalted frog's legs or my overcooked seafood pasta (lobster, shrimp, and scallops, but who wants to eat chewy lobster, anyway?). Rumor has it that Joe's slashes their prices on all bottles by fifty percent in the month of October, so maybe the place is better for a bar bottle and a side salad.

On another rainy afternoon, we drove to Wellfleet and ate lunch at Bookstore & Restaurant, a fitting name that describes exactly what this establishment is. As for the restaurant part, it was decidedly New England, with wooden tables and nondescript brown carpeting and valances above the windows that looked out onto Wellfleet Harbor. When in Wellfleet, one must eat local oysters and so I did, another half dozen. But the true star of lunch was local littleneck clams steamed in wine, garlic, and butter, and served with a half loaf of crunchy white bread. We asked for two extra servings of bread and still made no dent on the pool of butter and broth at our bowl's bottom. Alas. Bookstore & Restaurant has a bookstore, too, filled with ancient copies of books you've never heard of, as well as some you have. I stumbled upon a second edition of Emily Post's Etiquette and brought it back to Harwich.

The next day, I drove all the way to the end of the Cape, to Provincetown, a good hour from where we were staying. We wandered into Pepe's Wharf Restaurant and I found myself a perfect plate of linguine with littleneck clams. The sauce, though buttery and full of garlic, wasn't quite as spectacular as my lunch broth at Bookstore & Restaurant. My clams were still delicious, and anyway, the whole meal was redeemed by my sisters' joint order, two giant pork meatballs sitting in a sea of fresh tomato sauce and cheese. We needed extra bread for that, too.

That evening, we tried to get into the Brewster Fish House, which doesn't accept reservations, but a rude hostess sent me away. Next door, at the Brewster Chowder House, I found solace over bacony stuffed littlenecks and a plate of shrimp scampi that exceeded my mediocre expectations. There's nothing fancy about the Chowder House, which is part of its charm. The menu prices are written in by hand and the focus is on simple meat and fish. The restaurant looked like an old Victorian home that had been haphazardly redone. Old flowered wallpaper still clung to the walls, as did antique mirrors. It bore an unsettling resemblance to the house in Psycho, but we managed to leave the property unscathed.

By Thursday, we could see the sun again, so we went to Nauset Beach, where there had been warnings of Great White sightings. Nauset has its own clam shack, Liam's, and we spent the better part of our afternoon waiting in the Liam's line. I was rewarded with a monstrous lobster roll (1/2 lb. of meat, the sign said) and delicate, beer-battered onion rings. My watermelon freeze, one of my favorites up in northern Massachusetts, was too sweet and I drank only a few sips. Now, about that lobster roll: It was too big. I know some people would argue that more lobster is better lobster, but this sandwich was hard to eat and the pieces of claw were completely intact. I felt guilty tossing some of it away, but I had no choice. As far as clam shacks go, Liam's was fine, if a little too expensive. We should have done what neighboring beachgoers were doing. They had set up two grills and coleman stoves with boiling water and were making their own lobster lunch.

For our last Cape dinner, we went to the Academy Ocean Grille in Orleans, where I had my final clams for the week. These ones were littlenecks stuffed with breadcrumbs and served in a thick, bready broth. In clam world, it was the best of both. My pork loin was impossibly tender and matched with fresh, sweet corn, cut off the cob. I skipped the wan and overcooked green beans, but I did order dessert, a sticky toffee pudding that demanded my full attention. It was a fitting farewell.

Sea Swirl Seafood Restaurant

30 Williams Avenue

Mystic, CT 06355

860.536.3452

Twenty-Eight Atlantic

2173 Massachusetts 28

Harwich, MA 02645

508.430.3000

Chatham Squire

487 Main Street

Chatham, MA 02633

508.945.0945

The Lobster Claw

52 Cranberry Highway

Orleans, MA 02653

508.255.1800

Joe's Beach Road Bar & Grille

5 Beach Road

Orleans, MA 02643

508.255.0212

Bookstore & Restaurant

50 Kendrick Avenue

Wellfleet, MA 02667

508.349.3154

Pepe's Wharf Restaurant

371 Commercial Street

Provincetown, MA 02657

508.487.8717

Brewster Inn & Chowder House

1993 Main Street

Brewster, MA 02631

508.896.7771

Liam's At Nauset Beach

4 Nauset Beach

Orleans, MA 02653

508.255.3474

Academy Ocean Grille

2 Academy Place

Orleans, MA 02653

508.240.1585

Chicken Little

2010-08-14T10:33:00.003-04:00

Somehow, my friends and I miraculously missed the line at Pies 'N Thighs last night. It helps to know the people who make the chicken. As it was my first time at this famed establishment, the group suggested I order the Fried Chicken Box, a three-piece fried set (what pieces you get seem dictated by chance), which comes with a buttery biscuit and choice of one side. Chance fell in my favor: I ended up with two thighs and a bone-in breast. The exterior of PNT chicken is pretty much crispy chicken heaven. New York is no groundbreaker when it comes to the stuff, but no matter. Any southern food worshipper can get a fix in Billyburg.

The sides? The sides were fine. Macaroni and cheese was a slight disappointment, with a grainy and broken cream sauce. My watermelon and cucumber salad was assaulted with a little too much mint, an assertive flavor that tends towards the vegetal in excess. Deep-fried zucchini was the perfect mix of savory and sweet, enclosed in a thin and delicate batter and dressed with honey. Biscuits, if you like that sort of thing, were a standout, too. "These are the real thing," a co-eater exclaimed. It's all about the butter. The other ladies ordered the chicken on a biscuit, one white breast with a hit of spice served in the middle of one of those buttery biscuits and topped with honey or maple syrup (it was hard to tell which). The biscuit meal is less food than the three piece and less money, too, and if it hadn't been my maiden voyage, I may have gone down that road, too.

My watermelon agua fresca proved the perfect respite from the spicy Frank's Red Hot that came drizzled atop my thighs. But what rounded out my meal completely was that final piece, a sour cherry hand pie, which is a polite way of saying that it was deep-fried. Call it a turnover, call it a slice, call it whatever you like. What it was, in its simplicity and brilliance, was a sour cherry pocket doused in hot oil and topped with powdered sugar. What better way to bid adieu to cherry season and to summer?

Pies 'N Thighs

166 South 4th Street

Brooklyn, NY 11211

347.529.6090

Second City

2010-08-10T08:32:00.003-04:00

I took my first trip to Chicago to accompany my sisters to Lollapalooza, a three-day festival held this past weekend in Grant Park. The food at this year's Lolla deserves a nod; local restaurants were asked to set up shop in the festival's two giant food courts, which made eating at the show less disgusting than usual. Graham Elliot served lobster corn dogs and truffled popcorn, but we skipped those decadences in favor of watermelon gazpacho, as good as you would expect from the tatted, roly-poly chef. At Blue 13, we grabbed perfectly decent pork belly sliders, which we followed with Mexican corn and a pork belly tostada from Big Star. There were plenty of choices, but nothing came cheap; a modest lunch for three rang in at over fifty bucks.

But nevermind. The weekend's most successful culinary adventures didn't begin or end on the concert grounds. Our first night, we trekked across the Chicago River to Blackbird, Paul Kahan's minimalist spot. An amuse bouche of smoked sturgeon left me breathless, as did my appetizer of pitch-perfect sweetbreads. They were at once crunchy and soft, salty and sweet, paired with an unexpectedly delicious (and not at all weird) combination of pickled lime and flash-fried chocolate. The suckling pig worked, too, as did the duck liver pate, smoky like good southern barbecue. Even an endive salad, presented with a runny egg in a potato gaufrette and then dissembled table side, showed the majesty of simple things done well.

We waited over an hour for our entrees, a misstep the kitchen acknowledged with a midcourse of seared halibut, a fine example of the fish in all its glory. When my entree finally did arrive, it was a tad disappointing; my quail was unexceptional and the duck my sister ordered was by the book. We all agreed that entrees had been the weakest aspect of the night. We ordered two desserts and received four for our trouble and these were savory, sweet, crunchy, soft, and everything in between. The best, a coconut cake with passion fruit, disappeared from my sister's plate before the rest of us had time to dig more than one spoon in.

The next afternoon, I convinced our group to take a cab to the outer reaches of Roscoe Village, where there's this hot dog joint that everyone agrees is a must-see: Hot Doug's. Must-wait is more like it; the line progressed at a snail's pace and we waited two hours for our dogs, Chicago-style. But it was worth the wait. Chicago-style means a poppy seed bun, celery salt, green relish, onion, a pickle spear, mustard, and probably other elements that I'm forgetting. The vienna standard was fine on its own, but we got fancy and ordered a bratwurst and some other types of sausage, which came grilled and split with all the same accoutrement. The sausages' flavor was top-notch and even the corn dog--never my favorite--was the best of its breed. Duck fat French fries are only served Fridays and Saturdays, so keep this in mind if you're thinking of doing the dog-waiting thing. It's worth the extra calories.

Saturday night found us in Chinatown at Lao Beijing. Chicago's Chinatown is tiny by comparison to other metropolitan enclaves, but it still boasts great eats. The back alley that is Archer Street is basically a Chinese mall, studded with bubble tea joints, dim sum restaurants, and novelty stores. Lao Beijing is the third in a restaurant trilogy owned and run by Chef Tony Hu, this one serving food from the Beijing province. We started with chewy homemade noodles and pork. The texture won me over, even if the notably bland sauce didn't. It was no match, however, for our beef in garlic sauce, which came next, covered in a spicy sauce and adorned with wood ear mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and peppers. Tony's special dumplings look more like giant pigs in blanket (and taste like them, too). The cylindrical tubes of pork came sheathed in delicious and addictive dough. And while we're on the topic of dough, there was fried dough, simply called, "Fried Dough, Northern Style." It was sheets upon sheets of crispy fried dough, savory and served with two different chili sauces. It put every American incarnation of the stuff to shame.

We had pork and cabbage dumplings, too, as well as a chive cake that failed to resonate. The Chinese couple sharing our table laughed at our gluttony, but we had enough food for another meal. We did, however, regret not ordering the gorgeous bok choy and mushrooms enjoyed by our tablemates. Alas. Next time.

Caught in the rain on Sunday afternoon, we braved the half-hour wait at Mindy's Hot Chocolate in Wicker Park (Chicago's version of Park Slope) and allowed our cheery server to upsell us donuts with raspberry compote while we awaited our meals. But wait--before the food came the hot chocolate. Hot Chocolate serves four varieties: milk, dark, Mexican, and Chai. I opted for dark, the closest to straight melted chocolate. My sisters ordered milk, which came with a heavy hand of caramel and was a notch too sweet for my palate. J's Mexican was spicy and sweet and gone before we looked twice. Each mug came with a homemade marshmallow on the side. By the time my open-faced BLT arrived, I could have called it a day, but I soldiered on, eating my way through heirloom tomatoes, market arugula, local bacon, two sunny-side-up eggs, homemade focaccia (Hot Chocolate makes all of their own breads) and aioli. Brunch isn't my thing, but this version won me over, albeit temporarily.

Our final culinary adventure was a trip to Pilsen, Chicago's Mexican neighborhood. In Pilsen, we stopped off at Nuevo Leon, an institution since 1962. Women in traditional costume brought pickled carrots and jalapenos, fresh chips and salsa, and tiny bowls of chicken soup with stewed drumsticks. An appetizer of taquitos proved heartier than advertised, five open-faced tacos topped with marinated skirt steak, onions, and cilantro. I didn't really need the chorizo tacos afterwards, but food isn't always about need. Those tacos--fatty and served with the traditional American set of tomato, iceberg lettuce, and onion--were equally tasty, though I couldn't finish my plate. Neither could my sister, who had opted for the chorizo tostadas, crispy corn shells with refried beans, meat, and the same set of veggies. We drank our Jarritos (lime, pineapple, and grapefruit) and then decamped for the El. I was impressed by the city's culinary breadth and depth. It's no wonder they call it the Second City.

Graham Elliot

217 West Huron Street

Chicago, IL 60654

312.624.9975

Blue 13 Restaurant

416 West Ontario Street

Chicago, IL 60654

312.787.1400

Big Star

1531 North Damen Avenue

Chicago, IL 60622

312.235.4039

Blackbird

619 West Randolph

Chicago, IL 60661

312.715.0708

Hot Doug's

3324 North California Avenue

Chicago, IL 60618

773.279.9550

Lao Beijing

2138 South Archer Avenue

Chicago, IL 60616

312.881.0168

Mindy's Hot Chocolate

1747 North Damen Avenue

Chicago, IL 60647

773.489.1747

Nuevo Leon

1515 West 18th Street

Chicago, IL 60616

312.421.1517

Northern Exposure

2010-08-02T15:08:00.004-04:00

I home for the weekend, up to the northern reaches of Massachusetts, where the ocean water still isn't warm enough to swim in, even in August. The food in my hometown is generally unimpressive, ranging from greasy pub fare to overpriced seafood. What the locals call fine dining I call Sysco-supported agriculture. You heard it here first.

But my best friend is dating a chef now, and even though said chef works at an equally ennui-inspiring Italian joint, he seems to know a thing or two about food. That means that my best friend, who really has no interest in food beyond her corporeal need for it, has suddenly found herself itching for haute cuisine. "I want to eat something that doesn't disappoint me," she said, so I searched the internet for something--anything--that would fit the wide criteria.

I stumbled upon Mombo in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which opened two months ago and is still showing some signs of growing pains. The restaurant itself is a sight to behold, a Colonial building tucked into Portsmouth's prestigious Strawberry Banke. The front porch resembles that of an actual home and the wood has been painted a quaint cream. The dining chairs are antique replicas made from dark wood and the room is raftered and equipped with a functional fireplace. I imagine it's lovely in winter, but even in summer, my view from a corner table faced a shingled home and leaning wildflowers and a triangle of blue Atlantic. The bar is minimalist, boasting only a handful of spirits, and the outdoor space in back, covered by a white tent, is a brick patio with cast iron furniture and one small fountain. The cozy atmosphere can't really be matched in even the oldest and coolest New York haunt. I was hoping the food would match.

First, the wine list: underwhelming, but given my surroundings, I was happy to find a perfectly drinkable Saint Emilion on the list. The chef's tasting menu was a mere $55 for five courses, a New York steal. We bought in. Our first course came in white porcelain mugs, chilled melon and heirloom tomato soup with a fiery finish of ground cumin. Our second courses were both different. L. had duck breast carpaccio topped with a poached egg and accented with arugula and green zebra tomatoes; I had seared yellowfin tuna with fresh peaches and black truffles. The tuna took the prize. Next came country pate with spicy yellow mustard, toast, and cornichon. It was L.'s first pate and she ate the whole thing. I felt like a proud parent, having opened the doors to offal. Cod came next, a fat fillet (clearly over five ounces and topped with a crispy sheath of skin) over black trumpet mushrooms and overcooked potato spaetzle, a rare misstep. The fillet came with fatty cod cheeks over black olives, cubed apples, and Marcona almonds. I had been hoping for a proper meat course, or at least a one-and-one, and I must admit I was a little disappointed. But even as dessert arrived, I knew I was very full.

Dessert was the same for both of us and I felt a little cheated with the lack of variety, but for $55, who could complain? We each received pre-dessert ice-cream sodas spiked with bourbon in tiny glasses with cocktail straws, a precursor to our blueberry cakes, cinnamon ice-cream, and grilled peaches. We left and unbuttoned our pants in the parking lot. It is refreshing to see seasonal cuisine arriving in New England, even if they are a few years behind. I wonder what fall will bring.

Today, I crossed back into the city and hit up another local Bosnian restaurant, Ukus, for cabbage pie and cevapi. Cabbage pie is basically cooked cabbage in delicious puff pastry. One piece could feed five. Why we thought we needed a 12-sausage order of cevapi remains a mystery. Our salad came with bright red tomatoes ('tis the season) and a salty, crumbly cheese that tasted like ricotta salata. Cevapi came with a large, puffy, and warm pita on the side, along with the traditional condiments of chopped onion, red pepper paste, and some kind of thick cream cheese. I might have dreams about that cabbage pie. Luckily, Ukus is right across the street.

Mombo

66 Marcy Street

Portsmouth, NH 03801

603.433.2340

Ukus

42-08 30th Avenue

Astoria, NY 11103

718.267.8587

To The Ends Of The Islands

2010-07-16T17:39:00.003-04:00

I spent two rainy days in Montauk, cursing the weather and eating my way through the Hamptons' haul. On Tuesday night, I stopped at Bostwick's, the East Hampton version of a New England chowder house. The prices were reasonable--for the Hamptons. My one-pound lobster, served cleaved in half (an insult, really), was a scant eighteen bucks. Still, the poor beast was sadly overcooked and a far less sweet version of the crustaceans I'm used to. A side of corn, gratis with the lobster, was mushy and tasteless and decidedly not from Long Island. The real winner of the evening was my appetizer of stuffed clams, which was full of texture and salt and crunch, like a clammy Thanksgiving stuffing.

I had a lobster roll the next afternoon at Gosman's, which was a fine specimen, even if the hot dog bun, grilled, lacked butter. The lobster mix itself was heavy with dill and chopped celery and decorated with only a touch of mayonnaise. The roll was approachably priced at fifteen dollars, though I will say that the true Maine version goes for loads less. In a time when lobster is overabundant (you can find them on the Maine and Massachusetts docks for $1.99 a pound), it is hard to justify paying such premium price for mediocre product.

The Hideaway, Montauk's ode to Mexican, is a far more successful establishment. I drank a Pacifico and ate grilled pork tacos and Mexican corn, my own homage to summer. Who wouldn't toss their calorie count aside for grilled corn with cayenne, mayonnaise, and cotija cheese? The Hideway's food is authentic and tasty and causes far less damage to the pocket than any of the seafood joints in town. It is a shame that the finest food in Montauk has nothing to do with ocean fare.

The stretches of Long Island led me to the stretches of ninth avenue this afternoon, where I lunched at Google for the second time in my life. The Google dining room is run by Restaurant Associates and features a grill station, a "special of the day" station, a salad bar, a raw food station, a dessert station, a soup station, a fish station, and other miscellaneous stands with other miscellaneous eats. A map on the wall near the desserts pinpoints all of the farms from which Google gets its produce. Index cards actually spell out what comes from where, right down to the melons in the chilled melon soup. It is a tirelessly modern ideal in a world where local and sustainable often comes up short against corporate interests.

We arrived at Google on the later side; the dining room closes at two every afternoon and the pickings are slim after one thirty. I had a hamburger with extra pickles, a personal favorite, as well as a fresh cucumber salad, roasted fingerling potatoes, and green beans tossed in sesame oil. B. ate swordfish with polenta and T. ate a raw butternut squash salad. Would that all workplace cafeterias offered so many options for so little dough (and by so little, I mean none).

By the time we were finished, the gelato cart had closed up shop, a near miss. We went to the snack room for fresh fig newtons and Red Jacket Orchards Fiji apple juice and plums. The snacks at Google are endless, which must be why so many young workers stay so long.

Bostwick's Chowder House

277 Pantigo Road

East Hampton, NY 11937

631.324.1111

Gosman's Clam Bar

500 West Lake Drive

Montauk, NY 11954

631.668.2447

The Hideaway

364 West Lake Drive

Montauk, NY 11954

631.668.6592

They Aren't Actually Known For Their Kababs

2010-07-12T08:50:00.003-04:00

Kabab Cafe has about eight tables (and that's an optimistic estimate). The set up behind the make-shift line more closely resembles the cluttered space of a home cook than it does the professional space of a New York restaurant. There is one chef and one assistant and the chef, donning a green apron and hulking around his tiny restaurant--he's about six foot four and well into the three hundred pound range--takes up a lot of space. When he comes to your table, he lists of a selection of items that he has special tonight. There's no menu and you might not be able to order what you see on your neighbor's plate, since plates seem in a constant rotation of unavailability. Alas, the lamb shank that table is eating is gone, gone, gone, but there are sweetbreads.

Order the sweetbreads.

We told our chef what we did want to eat (vegetables and meat) and what we didn't want to eat (fish, due to a table allergy). He brought us cold mint tea with sugar and green apples. Next, he brought a meze platter with bright hummus, fava bean dip, baba ganoush, and fried lettuce. It's as good as it sounds. Then the sweetbreads arrived. They were lamb, not veal, and carried with them the gamy sophistication of good meat. Sauteed peppers and onions and garlic decorated the plate.

A roasted beet salad wasn't exactly my jam, but I loved the sweet roasted apple that came with them, as well as all the garlic. Lamb chops didn't disappoint, either. We were told to use our hands for the chops and I happily obliged. The potatoes and onions and peppers had been cooked in lamb fat and were dark brown and slick with a pomegranate sauce.

It was late, so we weren't offered baklava and Egyptian coffee (basically the same as Turkish coffee: short, concentrated, served black and unfiltered with sugar in the brew), but we drooled over a neighboring table's good fortune. Their baklava looked flaky and delicious.

Kabab Cafe

25-12 Steinway Street

Astoria, NY 11103

718.728.9858

Queens Tweet

2010-07-10T09:59:00.003-04:00

I was invited to a Queens tweet-up last night at Dutch Kills, the bar that mimics its sister and brother bars in the city: Milk and Honey and Little Branch. In keeping with the Prohibition-era theme of these Manhattan bars, Dutch Kills is dark and wooden with mustachioed barkeeps in suspenders. In the bar's rear, the floor is covered in sawdust like the butcher shops I remember from my youth.

Cocktails are slightly less pricey than in the city at ten bucks a pop and you should order one for the aesthetic alone. The bar produces four separate kinds of ice: chunky granules of even shape and size; smooth cubes; one large block for scotches and other brown spirits; and crushed ice for shaking and muddling. My Marie Antoinette resembled a pretty little sno-cone and came topped with a chilly raspberry. The drink itself, in fading shades of red and pink, was a sweet and tart combination of crushed berries, creme de cacao, and light rum. Regrettably, I kept forgetting that Dutch Kills serves its libations with metal spoons and more than once found my teeth clicking against the straw.

As a follow up to our Queens tipple, we headed over to Sweet Afton, which really looks like the type of place you would find in Brooklyn, not Queens. There is exposed brick and all the food and drink is local and the hipsters seem to have invaded from Williamsburg. The Brooklyn vibe doesn't change the fact that Queens is clearly the borough of choice for ethnic food, but it is nice to feel like Astoria is getting some locavore chops. Finally.

The fried pickles are McClure's, of course, and come with a mayonnaise-based dipping sauce. They erred a bit too far on the side of doughy, but I'll take my pickles any way I can get them, which is why I doused my spicy hot pickle bites with a McClure's pickle martini, one of the house cocktails. Next arrived a truly transcendent grilled cheese sandwich. You can choose your cheese and we chose muenster. We also chose to add to our sando caramelized onions and chewy, smoky bacon. The sandwich's strongest asset is the tasty whole-grain mustard and side of pickles (yes, I'm obsessed).

The French fries that came with our perfect burger were an unnecessary addition to an already-full meal. But that burger... mid-sized patty on white bread with lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickle, and cheese. No mayonnaise, but I can live without. The burger had the oniony seasoning I love. I'll be back for the Irish sausage next time: sausages wrapped in puff pastry and baked until brown. Sounds right up my alley.

Dutch Kills

27-24 Jackson Avenue

Long Island City, NY 11101

718.383.2724

Sweet Afton

30-09 34th Street

Astoria, NY 11103

718.777.2570

Meat To Beat The Heat

2010-07-09T09:24:00.004-04:00

Counterintuitive, isn't it? But then, steakhouses are always well air-conditioned, so steak it was this past Wednesday evening. I had read Alex Witchel's rave reviews of the old school joint Frankie and Johnnie's in the Times a few months back, so it seemed the perfect place to dig into a dry-aged rib-eye. Also, I find an unusual and somewhat secret comfort in traditional steakhouses. I love the leather and the white linen and the dim lights and the booming voices of fat businessmen. This must make me an American.

Pine Island oysters, hailing from Oyster Bay on Long Island, were buttery and fat specimens, even if they came sparsely adorned with lemon, horseradish, and cocktail sauce. I'm a mignonette girl myself, but I'll pardon the omission because the oysters were clean and substantial. A crab cake duo surprised us with a crunch of potato. The outer layer of the cake, generally breaded in something like panko, was sheathed in a mini potato hash brown that was all snap but still yielded to the fork. Okay, the crab itself--the real deal--didn't have enough binding to it and fell apart into shreds of crab and crunch, but I'll forgive that misstep, too.

I can't really forgive the distracted waiter who brought my warm half-bottle of Sauvignon Blanc twenty minutes after I had ordered it, but even he is a distant memory in the face of the massive cut of beef that appeared before me. Frankie and Johnnie's makes their own steak sauce, but there's no need; the fatty dickle and salty crust provided all the condiment this steak required. I prefer my rib-eyes bone-in and this baby was no disappointment. Garlic mashed potatoes were pedestrian, at best, and the mint jelly served with my co-eater's lamb jobs was just gross. But the asparagus, shaved expertly at the ends and sauteed in hot oil with slices of brown garlic, more than fulfilled our quest for a decent green vegetable.

But Frankie and Johnnie's was closing all around us, even though it was just ten o'clock, so we decamped for Keens Steakhouse, home to over 250 single-malt and blended scotches. Laphroaig 10 with a hand-cut ice cube was my particular brand of poison, but the bartender could have pointed me in any direction at all. "Drink what you like," he said. "That's what I tell people all the time."

The morning after, in need of more meat to sop up that lingering Laphroaig, I headed to the end of my street, where there's a Bosnian restaurant that I have, embarrassingly, never visited in my five years living in Astoria. The place is called Old Bridge Restaurant and serves "traditional" Bosnian cuisine, which, nearest I can tell, is a combination of meat, meat, and more meat. I started with a Cockta soda, made with real sugar and "natural plant extracts" (for what it's worth) and no caffeine or phosphoric acid. It tasted like a marriage between Moxie and Coke, and I'm sure it isn't for everyone.

You can forgive the modest decor and scattered waitservice when you come upon your very own cevapi, ten grilled beef sausages served in something resembling muffaletta bread and served with chopped onions, cheese, and a roasted red pepper paste. The sandwich is roughly the size of a dinner plate. So, too, is the pljeskavica, a thin beef burger on that same bread with more chopped onions. As in Croatia, where every meal I ate was accompanied by a slim salad of cucumber, tomato, and vinegar, our meal came with a crisp little ode to summer: cucumber, tomato, iceberg lettuce, and mozzarella cheese with white vinegar and oil. It was crunchy and salty, like most of the food at Old Bridge. I should have eaten there years ago.

*
Frankie and Johnnie's
32 West 37th Street
New York, NY 10018
212.947.8940

*
Keens Steakhouse
72 West 36th Street
New York, NY 10018
212.947.3636

*
Old Bridge Restaurant
28-51 42nd Street
Astoria, NY 11103
718.932.7683

Fort Defiant

2010-07-01T11:13:00.003-04:00

If Fort Defiance, in Brooklyn's newly-gentrified Red Hook, were a little more ambitious and on-point, it would be a great concept. Plates are small and inexpensive. One could order every item on the menu for under $150. Cocktails have that Prohibition-era twang.

If only.

The restaurant is unbearably cute, with fine touches here and there. I loved the brass leaf-shaped chandeliers and the lacquered tables that were covered in what best resembled shelf lining or summer picnic tablecloths. The restaurant has the spirit of eclectic Brooklyn bohemian chic down to a science. But the food--however cheap--couldn't stand up to the cuteness of the decor.

First, my drink, billed as "punch," was really just rum with simple syrup and a paltry squeeze of lime. When I asked my overburdened waiter for more lime juice, he took my glass and returned with a drink that tasted exactly the same as it had minutes earlier. Chicken liver pate, smooth and sweet, matched well with tiny slivers of baguette crostini, but deviled eggs lacked the requisite punch. Yes, they were smoky and salty, but where was the heat?

Pimento cheese on Ritz crackers would have been difficult to mess up, but the corn soup was a substantial disappointment, lacking texture and taste. Corn isn't sweet enough yet, maybe, but the dish was undersalted and overblended. I missed the subtle crunch of early season corn.

And then: pork chops. We ordered two. The meat itself was fatty and rich, but our chops, bone-in, were, sadly, overcooked. A side of grits was a little sticky for my taste and the side of squash reminded me of wan vegetable sides in bad pubs. But our side of asparagus, lightly blanched and served with a salty, creamy version of hollandaise, redeemed those soggy squash. Hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, slick with butter and woodier with thyme, almost made us forget those overcooked chops. Almost.

Fort Defiance

365 Van Brunt Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

347.453.6672

Here, There, And Everywhere

2010-06-30T08:11:00.004-04:00

Sunday night, my family and I headed out for seafood, the perfect match for a hot June night. Eastchester Fish Gourmet serves clean, honest seafood, the kinds of dishes I crave when the weather gets hot. Truth be told, I feel nostalgic for afternoons that sweep into evenings on decks above the Atlantic in Massachusetts, where lobster comes with a plastic bib and a bright cylinder of corn. New York is full of many culinary possibilities, but I've never felt that the dining scene here ever truly understood a proper New England seafood meal.

I considered the steamers, of course, but they are messy and I was wearing silk. Instead, I settled for east coast oysters, five different ones (Peconic, Blue Point, Malpeque, and Beau Soleil) that were as clean and briny as any served on any fine coastline. My softshell crab appetizer was crispy and well suited for the caper and pepper sauce that accompanied it. The bed of chopped spinach underneath was a nice final touch.

And then, my lobster. They had no chickens in house, so I bumped up to the next bracket, 1.75 lbs. of pure Maine crustacean. Any New Englander will tell you that the smaller lobsters yield the sweeter meat and the greed of diners who order the 3 or 6 or 9 lb. beasts is never rewarded. Lobster is a true measure of quality since it's eaten with nothing but drawn butter and this specimen didn't disappoint. I remember a time when I hated lobster, the one food in my home that my mother permitted me to pass up. More for her, she always figured, and now I know the error of my ways.

Dessert gilded the lily--I could have (and should have) stopped after my shellfishpalooza--but I needed that pineapple upside-down cake, didn't I? Or maybe I just needed the caramelized banana ice-cream that came with it.

From linen tablecloths to cafeteria dining, my next night out found me in Flushing, back to the Golden Mall for noodles, dumplings, and other assorted snacks. At Xi'an Famous Snacks, one must never leave without trying the Liang Pi noodles (cold, thick, glutinous noodles served in a secret sauce with slabs of tripe) or the lamb burger, a spicy combination of lamb and cumin served on a thin and crispy bun. You would never expect from the dinginess of the place that this stall has played host to Eric Ripert and Anthony Bourdain, but they know good tripe when they see it. Next door, the noodle-pullers at Lanzhou Handmade Noodles served us beef and noodles in broth, far tastier than whatever incarnation I had the last time I came (skip the gristly beef itself, but drink the cilantro-flecked broth).

At House of Xie, another mall stall, we sat down to julienned potato salad, slick with chili oil. Then: a perfect, sticky bun filled with savory beef and sweet onions; thin sliced kielbasa, served cold; chewy pig ear cut into fine ribbons. Nan Shian Dumpling House graced us with chive and meat dumplings, pan seared. They were soft-topped and brown-bottomed, like any good fried dumpling should be from a combination of steam and oil. A good dumpling sticks to the bottom of the pan. We ate ours with black vinegar and black garlic.

Back on the street, we stopped at the duck bun vendor for $1 duck buns, flesh and a perfect square of crisped skin served on a white, doughy bun with hoisin, scallion, and cucumber. There is no better dessert.

Eastchester Fish Gourmet

837 Post Road

Scarsdale, NY 10583

914.725.3450

Xi'an Famous Snacks

Golden Mall

41-28 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11355

Lanzhou Handmade Noodles

Golden Mall

41-28 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11355

House of Xie

Golden Mall

41-28 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11355

Nan Shian Dumpling House

Golden Mall

41-28 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11355

The Queens Vibe

2010-06-20T07:48:00.003-04:00

It is a rare pleasure to spend the day at the beach and the night in a fine Italian joint, but that was the story of my Saturday. We started at Cedar Beach, past Jones in Long Island, where we arrived early and inconspicuous enough to pirate a small dog onto our private slice of sand. The heat propelled talk of ice cream and ices and we decided that a trip to Long Island would be incomplete without a pit stop at the Lemon Ice King of Corona on the way back.

The name is a misnomer, because the Lemon Ice King actually serves twenty-five different ices, and only one of them is lemon. Sizes range from pizzeria standard (a whopping $1.50) to a full gallon (price unknown) with a range in between. T. ordered mint chip, a vibrant green, but I prefer a fruitier style. I almost fell for my all-time favorite, rainbow, but I veered at the last minute and found surprising joy in fruit cocktail, which had real fruit floating around in all that ice. The Lemon Ice King is open all year long and if Corona was a little closer to Astoria, I might find myself saving my spare pennies for a daily ice. Where else can you sit in a park full of old timers watching bocce while sucking your ice from a dixie cup?

Our final stop was in Woodside, where we hit up Sapori d' Ischia, known to insiders for its incredible pasta. We could have skipped our sloppy mushroom salad (too many ingredients, we decided) and the passable carpaccio (canned truffles on top were impressive, but not that impressive), but we could go back again and again for that decadent pasta. Our pick? The restaurant's famous fettucini, made fresh and tossed with ham and cheese and heavy cream in--get this--a hollowed wheel of Parmesan. If you're wondering whether this is cheese overkill, well, it isn't. The dish never bores me and I am easily tired of dining trends. But that soft and toothy pasta in all that cheese was our perfect sunset.

Lemon Ice King of Corona

5202 108th Street

Corona, NY 11368

718.699.5133

Sapori d' Ischia

5515 37th Avenue

Woodside, NY 11377

718.446.1500

To Montauk And Back

2010-06-06T08:53:00.005-04:00

It is worth comparing the Hamptons to other seafaring communities, since--externally, at least--this Long Island enclave bears resemblance to them. Like in Martha's Vineyard, farms and farmstands are abundant from Southampton through Amagansett. Like in northern Massachusetts, rolling, verdant hills lead to eroding (but still breathtaking) dunes. Like in most of New England, summer means a return to clams, lobster, and other shellfish.

But unlike New England, where blue collar really does still reign except for in specific places (see: Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard), a lobster roll in Montauk, while delicious, will set you back an astounding eighteen bucks. That's right. Eighteen dollars for a hot dog bun with mayo and lobster. This is even more ridiculous given the fact that last year's lobster bounty was overabundant, sending lobster rates down nationwide. In my hometown, our local grocery store sold summer soft-shell lobsters for $2.99 per pound. A lobster roll weighs in at about a quarter of that.

Of The Lobster Roll Restaurant, known by locals as Lunch because of the large sign out front, I will say this: the roll is good. The elements are mostly there (the crunch of celery, the ample but not heavy-handed application of mayonnaise, the hearty-but-not-over-chopped presence of tail and knuckle and claw, with the noted exception of the buttery bun. My bun, while traditional in style--supermarket-bought hot dog variety--was neither grilled nor slathered with warm butter. For eighteen bucks, they should have offered me a stick to go. Accompanying French fries were wan and once-frozen crinkle cut atrocities. Don't these people know that matchstick is protocol?

I also made a trip to Gosman's, sort of the Disney World of Montauk, where I drank a bad mojito (made with too much Rose's lime juice) and sat out on the water and munched on Blue Points. Blue Point oysters are native to Long Island and were impressive in their own right, much more than the baked clam (which was a Cherrystone, or Quahog, a bit more than I'd bargained for in the chewy department) and the crunchless crab cake (which I'm pretty sure featured Maryland--and not Long Island--crab). Go for the oysters and the oysters alone.

Farther into Amagansett, though, you might find one place worth your mighty dollar. La Fondita sells convincingly good tacos for a small price. They also sell traditional Mexican drinks like watermelon juice and horchata. My watermelon juice could have benefitted from the tart presence of lime, but I will let it slide. La Fondita hawks all different kinds of tacos, but I ordered soft-shell crab ('tis the season) and carne asada (always a good representation of a taco joint's abilities). Limes and various salsas are available in a corner near the pick up station. I brought to my table all shades and varieties of red and green with the exception of habanero, too spicy for this gringa. Tacos arrive open-faced on corn tortillas with a variety of accoutrement. Soft-shell came with mayonnaise and cabbage slaw, while carne asada was graced with cilantro and chopped onions. I could have eaten twenty of these suckers had my diet provided for it.

Still, I was glad for my return to the mainland and its less expensive and hard-to-reach sweet eats. On Wednesday, that meant oysters and scallops at the Grand Central Oyster Bar. Oysters here are still plentiful and inexpensive enough, coming in at just under two bucks apiece, depending on the variety. We ate our way through two dozen of the smaller ones, a mix of both east and west coast. I suggest finding a friendly bartender who will see you through three hours of your evening, and relying on his oyster-y expertise. We did. Of course, oysters aren't the best food for sopping up alcohol, so for that, we turned to a big plate of McDonald's-type French fries and a scallop pan-roast that was a little too goopy for my taste. Certainly Grand Central's lobster is more fiscally approachable than the lobsters of Montauk and that will be the road I head down the next time I find myself waiting for a commuter train.

Yesterday, two friends and I took an adventure to the new Hester Street Fair on the Lower East Side, where we shmoozed with banh mi from An Choi NYC (pork meatballs as well as the rest of the traditional toppings) a chili kimchi dog made with sausage from Williamsburg's Meat Hook, fresh lemonade from Too Good Traders, maple-bacon-cream cheese macarons from Macaron Parlour, and pineapple-mint popsicles from La Newyorkina. Vendors change from Saturday to Sunday and I'm excited to go back some weekend for Luke's Lobster Rolls, meatballs from Meatball Shop, and other tasties. It was a good way to spend an admittedly hot afternoon and it cost nearly nothing for all our treats.

Would that it were all the damage I could do in one day, but evening found us at Kanoyama, one of the most astoundingly awesome sushi places I've found in recent days. For the good stuff, you will pay the price, and some day, when I'm rich and famous, I will sit at the bar and order omakase, but for now, I can live with an a la carte lifestyle, especially if it includes Japanese baby red snapper. Why? Because this snapper, thin-sliced, raw, and skin on, comes with a tuille of fish carcass that our server generously offered to deep fry after we had eaten our meat. First, the fish was impeccable: clean, redolent of a fine ocean, and salty in a splash of ponzu. But the bones, which I have only had once before, were battered (along with head and eyeballs) and fried and served to us with salty green tea powder. It was like the best, crunchiest potato chip you've ever had and not at all gross, if that's what you're thinking. Impressive, too, was a light and peanuty watercress salad, a thin slice of duck breast rolled and served warm, a pan-fried pork gyoza with more ponzu, a roll of spicy tuna and cucumber, an eel roll with cucumber instead of rice as the binder. Hemlock oysters, hailing from Connecticut and arriving with their own version of ponzu and scallions, were as fresh as any others I had in the past few weeks. But the snapper was its own delight and I would return just for it and the other sashimi that I was too poor to try. Next time. Next time.

For dessert, we disappointed ourselves with cupcakes from ChickaLicious, which had turned soggy and sticky in the June heat wave. Our s'more stuck to our hands and faces and the carrot cake cupcake wasn't tart enough on top for my liking. I'm told that this was one poor performance and that I owe it to myself to return on a cooler evening, when the cupcakes are showing better. We'll see if that's in the cards.

The Lobster Roll Restaurant

1980 Montauk Highway

Amagansett, NY 11930

631.267.3740

Gosman's Restaurant

500 West Lake Drive

Montauk, NY 11954

631.668.5330

La Fondita

74 Montauk Highway

Amagansett, NY 11930

631.267.8800

Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant

Grand Central Terminal

15 Vanderbilt Avenue

New York, NY 10017

212.490.6650

Hester Street Fair

Saturdays and Sundays, 10am to 6pm

Hester and Essex Streets

New York, NY 10002

Kanoyama

175 2nd Avenue

New York, NY 10003

212.777.5266

ChickaLicious Dessert Bar

203 East 10th Street

New York, NY 10003

212.475.0929

Downtown Is For Hipsters

2010-05-15T11:22:00.003-04:00

And I'm no hipster. Maybe the lack of a truly entrenched "hipster scene" is what left Village Tart empty at eight o'clock on a balmy Friday night. Who knows. Surely it isn't the tasty food that's keeping the masses away.

The food really is tasty. Ok, the parmesan popcorn, served in a wax paper sleeve, tastes little of cheese and a lot of drippy movie butter (and I mean that in a good way). I'll take my butter where I can find it. A salad of golden and red beets comes together with the help of unctuous Greek yogurt. And while the enormous Wagyu pig in a blanket, shrouded in buttery croissant, needs no help, the spicy mustard it comes with would be delicious even on toast.

Brussels sprouts with bacon and honey were too heavy-handed and sweet and not charred enough to my liking. I was hoping for some salt from the bacon, but sugar was the name of that veggie game, and next time I'll pass. I will order, however, the mushroom tart, thin sliced cooked beauties over another flaky open-faced croissant. The arugula salad that joins it, full of lemon and pepper, is just an added bonus.

Village Tart is the handiwork of pastry chef Pichet Ong, so one would expect pastry to reign supreme. We took our strawberry tart to go, and by the time we ate it, over an hour later, the cream had redistributed and the pastry was hard to get at. I'm not sure if that was a reflection of a chef's misstep or ours, so I'll make my way back, eventually, to indulge my sweet tooth.

Village Tart

86 Kenmare Street

New York, NY 10012

212.226.4980

Pizza Party

2010-04-28T10:47:00.006-04:00

Pulino's, Nate Appleman's New York venture, opened a few months ago. It's the only pizza place I know of that has brunch service, which should come as no surprise to anyone who has been to collaborator Keith McNally's Balthazar. Appleman used to work at San Francisco's A16, which he abandoned last year when he decided to come east. I've been to Balthazar and Minetta Tavern and I've never felt terribly inclined to give a transcendent review. McNally's restaurants are always busy and fun to eat at, but I've never left one of his spots thinking it was the best meal I'd ever had. Yes, the steak at Minetta Tavern ranks high on my all-time list, but the other food was just adequate.

So I was pretty surprised by how much I liked Pulino's, despite the hype and the hour wait, despite the fact that the restaurant looks vaguely similar to Balthazar inside. Cocktails were fine--I had the house julep--if on the weak-and-miserly side. The menu offered more than just pizza. We started with two crispy pieces of pork belly and a pear mostarda, which I could have ordered again and again. Next came grilled asparagus spears with rhubarb, charred and perfect. Pasta courses are offered in small and large (we chose small) and ours, a large noodle stuffed with lamb ragu, was toothsome and earthy. Nduja sausage isn't for everyone; it's served on the cool side and is the texture of loose pate. But I was happy to spread it on crispy bread. It was studded with red peppers.

The pizzas are thin and crispy and cut into squares so that some slices have no crust. Discard your notions of the Neapolitan pie, or the New York pie, or the Chicago pie, since the Pulino's pie is none of the above. It's wafer-thin and charred and the toppings stay put and don't well up the dough with moisture. We had a meaty combination of meatballs and sausage, though basil leaves provided a vegetal respite from so much protein.

It isn't like me to skip dessert, but skip we did. We didn't need the calories anyway. I'm going to have to go back to Pulino's for brunch (who doesn't want and excuse to eat pizza in the morning?), or, better yet, for their late night menu, which features a burger notably absent from the regular nightly menu. Go now. It's worth the wait.

Pulino's Bar and Pizzeria

282 Bowery

New York, NY 10012

212.226.1966

The San Francisco Treats

2010-04-11T19:39:00.004-04:00

I put my heels back on for some serious, mindful west coast dining. I tackled Manresa first, which I've heard loads about. I actually watched David Kinch cook--and lose--to Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America. I remember thinking that his plating was pristine and unique, but I didn't really know the level of precision exacted until I went up to Los Gatos on Thursday night. It's amazing I survived the red eye and didn't fall asleep in my veloute. But I didn't.

The dining room is intimate and warm, with red walls and dark wood. Somewhere, there's a garden, but night hid it from us, which is a shame. I would love to see where the produce comes from. Amuse bouche included crispy kale chips (similar to a recipe from The New York Times that I recently oversalted and consequently botched), warm savory beignets filled with chard and cheese, and an impossibly delicious egg; it somehow arrived in its shell, soft cooked and blended with creme fraiche and maple syrup. We had to dig deep and get each yolky combination on the spoon. It tasted like a condensation of breakfast, like we had mistakenly blended our eggs with our French toast, and in the best possible way.

Manresa offers two different tasting menus and we opted for the less pricey of the two. For that, we were able to choose an appetizer, a fish course, a meat course, and a dessert. As there were three of us, we decided to order twelve different dishes, a good representation of the restaurant. Appetizers included a light and delicate sea bream sashimi, with olive oil and chives; a verdant soup poured table side with tiny purple flowers and ground mustard; and battered, fried mussels with stacked stalks of asparagus. Flowers are abundant in every dish, a reminder of warmer weather. For fish: diver scallops seared and only slightly memorable; cod with a rich and salty brown sauce; seared sea bass with pureed parsnip. A fine nod to the sea, if not anything particularly mind-blowing. Our meat courses were larger than we expected, especially given the price to food ratio usually observed in fine dining (the larger the price tag, the smaller the meal). Duck breast came with an over oranged glaze but an addictive mashed beet side. Beef bavettes were fine, as were the accompanying grain, but the lamb won the show--loin and tongue, in a sea of spring ramps, mint, pea puree. We couldn't finish.

Manresa's wine list is manageable enough and we drank Sekt to begin and then a bottle of Brewer Clifton "Ashley's" pinot noir, cheap by New York standards. Drinking California in California is a bargain. We chose three cheeses for an extra fee, and the fromager, impressed by my limited but existent knowledge of American artisanal cheeses, brought over three extra, aged provolone and parmesan and creamy unnamed sheep's cheese from the back. Pre-dessert, a buttermilk sorbet with tangy foam. Desserts were combination plates, full of beignets with powdered sugar, ice-cream, caramelized banana, cake, nougat, mint panna cotta, and caramel. My favorite was a limey semifreddo served with strawberries. I could have done without the truffles that signified the meal's end, and even without the soft caramels that came as we walked to the car. But each plate maintained the signature of Kinch's sure hand, a delicacy and a beauty that only comes with a deep love of the craft. So I admire the ambition, even if I won't ever return.

For lunch on Friday, I headed to Japantown with my friend A. We went to Tanpopo, for pork broth ramen and then to a crepe place in the Japanese mall for crepes with banana and cinnamon and sugar and butter. Later, I met up with an old friend who, for several years now, has worked as a server at Traci des Jardin's Jardiniere. After a lot of complimentary Laurent-Perrier, we moved on to a complimentary charcuterie plate, the winner of which was the stellar pate and cornichon. We shared salty, pan-seared quail and diver scallops with fava beans and an uni emulsion that mostly tasted of butter. Next came a mid-course of gnocchi and mint and stewed lamb, extremely soft pasta that still took ample space in my stomach. I had to stop before I finished to save room for the next course, halibut and a pork tasting. The pork was rich, but once again too much on my plate. We washed this down with a Littorai pinot noir. Dessert remains a wide gap in my memory, which leads me to believe it wasn't particularly memorable. But the macarons that came with our check were chewy and sweet, a nice end.

Saturday found me first at the Japantown cherry blossom festival, where I watched my friend A. obsess over spam musubi and these little pancakes filled with red bean paste. We went to Absinthe for a drink and bowl of onion soup, a decidedly good version of one of my old favorites. By dinner, we were bored with nice restaurants and had decamped for the Mission, where we ate tacos and burritos and fine guacamole at Puerto Allegre. We ended the day of gluttony with cakes and puddings at Tartine, where I've heard they make a mean croissant (they were out). Instead, I had a lackluster and very sweet lemon meringue cake and a taste of a friend's smooth chocolate pudding, the surefire dessert winner.

Finally, for my last moments in the Bay Area, I pushed through rain and cold in a panda hat to the Ferry Building for lunch at the long-lauded Slanted Door. Thank heavens for my hearty eater friend N., who was up for the challenge of eating through the menu. And thank heavens for our server, who suggested half-portions of some dishes to save room in our stomachs and wallets. As a result, we had room for yellowtail sashimi with Thai basil and fried shallots; spring rolls with pork and prawns and peanut sauce; wood-fired Manila clams in broth with sliced green peppers, onions, and pork belly; sticky pork spareribs; a large daikon rice cake, swimming in soy sauce and cilantro; cellophane noodles with dungeness crab; and sugar snap peas with hen-of-the-woods mushrooms. We drank a surprisingly reasonable 1992 Zilliken spatlese riesling and came out in the clear. So long, San Francisco. Thanks for all the fish.

Manresa

320 Village Lane

Los Gatos, CA 95030

408.354.4330

Tanpopo

1740 Buchanan Street

San Francisco, CA 94115

415.346.7132

Jardiniere

300 Grove Street

San Francisco, CA 94102

415.861.5555

Absinthe Brasserie and Bar

398 Hayes Street

San Francisco, CA 94102

415.551.1590

Puerto Allegre

546 Valencia Street

San Francisco, CA 94110

415.255.8201

Tartine Bakery

600 Guerrero Street

San Francisco, CA 94110

415.487.2600

The Slanted Door

1 Ferry Building

San Francisco, CA 94111

415.861.8032

Aloha

2010-04-09T12:42:00.005-04:00

If you're wondering where I've been, I slipped off to the west, first to Hawaii and then to San Francisco (where I'm currently typing). San Francisco deserves its own proper blog, and I'll commit to that task later in the week. As for now, I give Oahu its due.

I spent the week with an outpost in Waikiki and from there I explored the leeward and windward sides of the island as well as the island's north shore. On my first afternoon in Waikiki, I ate lunch at Todai, at the suggestion of a friend. Todai is an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet that charges a minimally-invasive $15 at lunch. Sound gross? It wasn't. The sushi bar featured everything from shrimp tempura maki rolls to fresh tuna and avocado maki rolls. Individual pieces of sushi ran the gamut from ama ebi (sweet shrimp) to octopus. Even non-sushi-eaters would find this place a bargain. The cold bar included a range of pickled salads, like kimchi and taro root. The hot bar serves ramen and udon made to order, steamed and fried dumplings, shrimp tempura, addictive barbecue pork, glazed chicken, beef, and other delights. The dessert bar features all those weird and crazy desserts you get at dim sum brunch: gelatin cubes in varying colors, mango pudding, miniature pumpkin pies, crepes with cream. Dinner is $30, but for that still reasonable price, you get sashimi, too. In the late afternoon, I walked to the International Market in Waikiki, where a farmer's market was taking place. I had a pineapple to end all other pineapple-eating--they cut it up for you fresh and deliver it in a plastic bag--and bought some brown fruits called "chicos" and some fresh litchi and green mangoes. I also bought a red papaya, because I could. The chicos are like a sweeter version of a pear.

For dinner that night, we ventured to BLT Steak, where my friend is chef. I've written of the BLTs before, so I won't go into much detail here, though I will say that the Hawaii-inspired grilled corn with barbecue sauce is a nice side, the tomatoes in the tomato and stilton salad are the kind of tomatoes that remind one why all supermarket tomatoes should be permanently banned from sale, and the rib-eye was transcendent, as usual, marked by a thick sear crust and rarety rare in the middle. Chef sent a kurobuta pork belly, braised and served over risotto, a decadent and worthwhile trinket of tastiness. Later, we ate the blackboard special desserts: light steamed chocolate pudding and a coconut mango concoction that I can't explain but enjoyed eating.

The next day's lunchtime found us on the windward side of the island, near Lanikai and Kailua. There's only one place to eat over there and that place is Buzz's Steak House. At lunch, they feature less steak and more stuff. I made the mistake of ordering the house specialty, the "Big F*cking Rum Drink," a mai tai that tastes of diesel fuel and had me sleepy and inebriated for the remainder of the day. I also had a surprisingly great prawn salad. Buzz's was generous and gave me five big, smoky Hawaiian prawns, shell-on. Fresher is always better.

On the first Friday of every month, the art galleries in Honolulu's Chinatown open their doors late and allow in curious wanderers. So after a snorkel trip to famous Hanauma Bay, we headed to Chinatown, for art and Chinese. Chinese was a stop at Little Village Noodle House for fatty steamed pork dumplings, fried rice with tiny shrimp and roast pork, and a dish simply called "volcano." Pork chops are cut and flattened and battered in wondra and then dusted with five spice powder and flash fried. Then, they are put into a large aluminum foil egg, along with garlic, and set on fire at the table. The result is crisped pork and crisped garlic. It could have used an accompanying sauce, and the portion was so large it was almost ridiculous, but it made for good leftovers; I seared the pork in oil Sunday morning for my own personal Easter brunch.

On Saturday, I met up with friends of my father and we went to the Kapiulani Community College where, on Saturday mornings, a fine market opens and closes before eleven. We arrived in the nick of time and scored fried green tomatoes with wasabi aioli, tall glasses of fresh lemonade, butterfish (known to easterners as black cod) over salmon fried rice, curried rice with dried cranberries, and fried rice with some kind of sausage. It was a fine way to start the morning and sustenance for our long drive to the often unvisited leeward side of the island.

I met back up with my host for dinner and we hunted down Irefune, known by everyone for their "garlic ahi." Irefune offers a variety of combination plates that feature the ahi, so I ordered the garlic king crab legs (messy, but sublime) along with my ahi. The dish also came with miso soup, a salad, Asian cole slaw, and rice. For $17. And the ahi? It was cooked through and tasted of a fine marinated steak. You really have to like garlic, which, in my case, is no real dilemma. For dessert, we drove a little farther down the road to famous Leonard's for malasadas, a type of Portuguese donut that somehow made it to the island years ago. Leonard's has a few different varieties, including a "flavor of the month," which rotates seasonally between mango, lilikoi (passion fruit), pineapple, and some kind of nut. We are in mango season now, so mango it was, along with plain (dusted with Li Hing Mui sugar, or the island's well-known "salted plum sugar") and custard. Custard and mango won the battle. The donuts are round and leak cream when you bite into them and are best eaten hot or warm. The mango cream is less like a jam and more like a decadent custard that just happens to have mango in it. I'm glad there is no Leonard's near where I live or I would weigh 300 pounds.

Sunday's meals are not worth a mention, so I'll soldier on to Monday. For a late dinner, we headed to Side Street Inn, which is really a local outpost and also where people in the restaurant industry eat after work. Side Street is really a dive, which is part of what I loved about it. Pulled pork buns came with grilled pineapple and a sticky, yummy barbecue sauce. A salad of shrimp and dressed greens satisfied my healthy impulses, as did some of the finest poke I've had: cubed raw ahi tuna with soy sauce, Maui onions, and seaweed. The tuna is impossibly red. Kal-bi, or marinated bone-in short ribs, on the other hand, satisfied my unhealthy impulses. We could have skipped the massive plate of fried rice, which had spam hidden somewhere in it. But I would go back for the buns and short ribs.

On Tuesday, I took a trip alone to the north shore. The car rental people ran out of compact cars and gave me a convertible instead. My first stop in Hale'iwa was Aoki Shave Ice, not as famous as the idolized Matsumoto's, but equally good. They make their own syrups and keep them cold. I got rainbow. I don't know what flavors they put in there, but it was the perfect breakfast, regardless. (Please, don't judge.) As I made my way up and back around the leeward side, I stopped first at Giovanni's Shrimp Truck for six garlic shrimp in hot oil over rice. The shrimp trucks are world-famous, and there are many of them, but I was told to stick to Giovanni's. Next time, I'll do some comparison shopping. The shrimp were shell-on and scalding hot, but were also completely delicious and dripping in garlicky oil. I saved room for Uncle Bobo's, right outside of the Polynesian Cultural Center, where I ate a pulled pork sandwich with homemade barbecue sauce that was roughly the size and shape of a nerf football. They gave me all the crispy bits, and for this I thank them.

I had dinner alone at the Honolulu version of Matsugen, the noodle master's first restaurant in the United States. Unlike the Manhattan restaurant, which is in conjunction with Jean Georges and which charges an outrageous $30 to $50 a plate, Honolulu's modest Matsugen charges a more reasonable $13. I ate soy-pickled cucumbers and drank a glass of plum wine on ice (a taste for which I share with a family member) and had fresh buckwheat soba, cold, dipped in a soup of pureed daikon and perfect Japanese mushrooms. The restaurant was filled with Japanese, slurping their soba and udon. I can't think of a more modest decent meal in Waikiki.

On my final afternoon in Hawaii, I went to the Asian grocery store near where I stayed, Don Quijote. Don't ask me why the name is Mexican; I have no idea. In the store's fish department, they sell ten different types of ahi poke and a bunch of different kinds of kimchi. The fish counter guy will let you try whichever one you want with a toothpick. I bought a quarter pound of fresh ahi tossed in soy sauce and green onion for a staggering $2.50. Add to that a quarter pound of cucumber kimchi for $1.00 and you have the perfect poor man's meal. I met back up with my father's friends for dinner and we went for Korean barbecue at Gyu-Kaku. It was one of the craziest, most frenetic meals of my life. Like me, my father's friend has an impulse to order everything, and does. We ate fried calamari and edamame and deep-fried cheese dumplings and ahi poke and bibimbap (Korean rice pot with soft cooked egg) and kimchi ramen and seaweed soup. And then the barbecue came: two different types of marinated skirt steak, scallops, shrimp, filet mignon, zucchini, eggplant, corn, onions, tuna, enoki mushrooms, white button mushrooms. We dipped everything in sauce and finished every bite and then, when dessert came, we finished that, too. Dessert, tiny pancakes grilled on the barbecue and topped with azuki bean and green tea ice-creams and maple syrup, was the perfect sweet goodbye to Honolulu.

Todai Restaurant

1910 Ala Moana Boulevard

Honolulu, HI 96815

808.947.1000

BLT Steak

223 Saratoga Road

Honolulu, HI 96815

808.683.7440

Buzz's Original Steak House

413 Kawailoa Road

Kailua, HI 96734

808.261.4661

Little Village Noodle House

1113 Smith Street

Honolulu, HI 96817

808.545.3008

Irefune

563 Kapahulu Avenue

Honolulu, HI 96816

Leonard's Bakery

933 Kapahulu Avenue

Honolulu, HI 96816

808.737.5591

Side Street Inn

1225 Hopaka Street

Honolulu, HI 96814

808.591.0253

Aoki Shave Ice

66-117 Kamehameha Highway

Hale'iwa, HI 96712

808.637.7017

Giovanni's Shrimp Truck

83 Kamehameha Highway

Kahuku, HI 96731

808.293.1839

Uncle Bobo's

51-480 Kamehameha Highway

Kaaawa, HI 96730

808.206.7479

Matsugen

255 Beach Walk

Honolulu, HI 96815

808.926.0255

Don Quijote

801 Kaheka Street

Honolulu, HI 96814

808.973.4800

Gyu-Kaku

1221 Kapiolani Boulevard

Honolulu, HI 96814

808.589.2989

From Low To High

2010-03-26T18:01:00.004-04:00

For dinner last night, I joined friends in the east village for dinner at Northern Spy Food Company, named for the famous local apple. And boy, do they do local. Not only does Northern Spy sell farm-to-table dinners, but they also sell, as a part of a shop in the restaurant's rear, everything from local soup to nuts.

To start, we shared a raw kale salad with clothbound cheddar and kombucha squash, a fatty pork pate with nose-clearing mustard and a lightly dressed arugula salad, and a side of white beans cooked with more cheddar. Dinner included a sandwich of crisped chicken thigh with a poached egg and chimichurri sauce, a flatbread panini of ham/cheese/mustard/pickled onions, and a pan-seared fillet of black bass served on a bed of nettle and watercress. The former two impressed, while the fish was tasty enough, if not quite inspired.

Dessert included a slightly undercooked slice of apple pie accompanied by a perfect scoop of almond ice-cream and, my personal favorite, a raisin-heavy square of carrot cake with a pure half-inch of piped cream cheese frosting. The candied ginger on top, though a nice tough, was completely unnecessary; I would have eaten the frosting with or without it.

As for our non-alcoholic tipples, we enjoyed ciders from Red Jacket Orchards. For me, a concord grape and apple, for one of my friends a light-colored Fuji. Northern Spy is downright inexpensive and worth the schlep to Alphabet City for a pretty little market meal.

So compare that with today's lunch, which began as an unambitious trip to Eleven Madison Park for the restaurant's "two courses, $24" lunch. Sometimes, I'd rather just eat the ham sandwich. Two courses (per person) turned into six (per person); we were spotted, and sent four courses apiece, all on the house. Lunch began with a miniature olive baguette as well as a sourdough version. Amuse bouche were tiny savory macarons, one celery, one filled with foie gras. Then: uni custard with bay scallops and apple in the hollowed shell of an egg; a "cappuccino" of lemongrass, curry, and langoustine; a salad of shaved and blanched market greens with a red wine vinaigrette--asparagus, pea tendrils, multi-colored carrots, sugar snaps, baby lettuce; radicchio with buffala mozzarella and pickled persimmon; deep-fried veal sweetbreads over toasted fregola in a rich meat broth; fresh linguine tossed in butter and served with shredded king crab and herbs; a square of crisped halibut in a broth of mussels and chorizo; par-cooked salmon with daikon; pork belly and (regrettably overcooked) loin with gorgeous spring onions and salty-sweet rhubarb; lamb sausage, belly, and loin in a broth of paprika and jus. For all that? Fifty-eight buckaroos. Total.

Dessert is a la carte, and who knows how we had the room for a mango linzer tart, pine nut and ricotta tart, and slice of chocolate caramel pie. But we did--or so we thought, until I rose after lunch, sick to my stomach. Dinner desserts are composed plates, but our tarts came with a savory vanilla creme fraiche, not exactly the winner of the afternoon. The petit fours, more macarons, probably put us over the top. The different types included pink peppercorn, chocolate/banana, toasted coconut/chocolate, peanut butter/jelly, sesame/green tea/kumquat, poppyseed/lemon, and grapefruit. Wine is expensive, but varied, but get too carried away and you'll find yourself miles from that check of $24 per person. Luckily, there wasn't too much room for more damage this afternoon. The compositions at EMP are some of the most beautiful I've seen in any dining room, anywhere. The market salad alone would probably have encouraged me to come back, during fairer weather. But lunch is the way to go, if you're willing to skip the calories of dinner. Otherwise, you're sure to break the bank.

Northern Spy Food Company

511 East 12th Street

New York, NY 10009

212.228.5100

Eleven Madison Park

11 Madison Avenue

New York, NY 10010

212.889.0905

Farm To Table

2010-03-15T15:46:00.003-04:00

My family and I were supposed to visit Blue Hill at Stone Barns on Saturday night for my sister's birthday, but inclement weather relegated us to a pot-luck dinner in my bedroom instead. Luckily, the incredibly generous and accommodating staff of BHSB allowed us to switch our reservation to Sunday instead, and even pretended not to hate us when we showed up a half-hour late (we literally got stuck behind a bulldozer).

Blue Hill at Stone Barns can probably be credited for bringing California "farm-to-table" cuisine to metropolitan New York, even though the restaurant is in Westchester. Their sister restaurant, in the west village, sources most of its food from the Westchester working farm, and both spots have been doing so for some years now, starting well before local restauranteurs touted the virtues of heirloom tomatoes. So there.

As is customary at Stone Barns, we began the evening with a bit of local produce. Winter may be ending, but root vegetables still abound. Our amuse bouche began with baby carrots and bok-choy, both lightly salted. Next came deep-fried salsify and proscuitto, a tiny shredded vegetable tart, caramelized onion bread with whipped lardo and cottage cheese and butter and carrot salt, roasted beet sliders, chilled carrot soup, and a plate of coppa and speck. We opted for the five course menu rather than the eight course ordeal, the first of which was a lovely beet salad--red and golden--atop pine nut butter and served with greenhouse greens.

To underscore how much Stone Barns caters to the whims and wishes of its guests, I point to our wine selection. My father no longer drinks, which left only two adults, one of whom was driving. We didn't want to invest in a bottle and we don't really share similar wine tastes. My stepmother told Thomas, the Stone Barns Wine Director, that she prefers buttery chardonnays, like Kistler's "Les Noistieres." Presto: a bottle of the wine appeared at her side, with the friendly invitation to drink as much as she liked. That hundred-dollar bottle of wine cost us a mere $25.

As for me, I allowed Thomas to serve whatever he saw fit. That meant a 1989 Ehrhard riesling from the Rheingau, followed by a ribolla from Movia (a Slovenian cult wine), and a 1998 Brunello di Montalcino. With dessert? A 1979 Pedro Ximenez Sherry. All this for--you guessed it--another $25.

But back to the food. Beets gone, waiters arrived with round glass pyrex dishes containing one large Maine sea scallop and a cream broth with fennel, celery, octopus, mussel, and rock shrimp, a superior take on chowder. Our egg course, enjoyed by four of us, was an egg-circulator egg in a broth of mushroom and broccoli. One stab to the egg yielded orange runny yolk. Before the course, our server had brought to us a glass basket of different colored eggs from the farm's hens, some of which gleamed green and blue, the color specific to breed.

My father hates eggs, so he had salt-baked rutabaga instead, kind of like the best sweet potato you've ever had. Entrees were slabs of pink Berkshire pork, brined in something sweet, like cider, and served with more of that tender baby bok-choy.

Dessert arrived in waves. First, honey with tofu and bergamot; next, chocolate mousse with apricot jam and frozen raspberry cream; finally, moist carrot cake with fromage foam, cream cheese, and vanilla ice-cream. They put a candle in my sister's cake and brought petit fours of chocolate, yogurt marshmallow, and sesame candy. Stone Barns remains one of the most worthwhile meals in New York.

Blue Hill at Stone Barns

630 Bedford Road

Pocantico Hills, NY 10591

914.366.9606

Eye-Tal-Yun

2010-03-11T13:20:00.003-05:00

On Monday, I went to Locanda Verde, where I've been wanting to eat for a while. Reviews from friends have been mixed. Last week, one friend told me not to order any of the pastas, but that the antipasti and secondi were worth a try. Saturday, a different friend disclosed the opposite. "The pastas are fantastic," she said. Well, whatever.

The dining room is massive and it was incredibly loud, even for someone like me who has worked in far louder environments. We sat at 9:30 and I expected that, for a Monday, the crowds would be dwindling, but that wasn't the case. In fact, our food came so quickly, it was clear they were pushing our table for yet another seating. Rushed would be the polite term for how the evening went.

To start, we ate steak tartare with cornichon, walnut, and a quail egg. The steak lacked salt and the bread was a bit thick and eggy for the meat. The star of the evening came next, blue crab and jalapeno crostini, spicy and salty and briny and perfect. The sausage and pickled ramp crostini were nice, too, though the pickled ramp receded a bit into the background.

Pastas were good but not life-changing. The rigatoni with lamb and ricotta and mint tasted bright and fresh and somewhat reminiscent of the love letters at Babbo. But the "grandmother's ravioli" was a disappointment. It was billed as ravioli filled with pork and beef, but it could have been filled with anything; the prevailing taste was that of the sauce, a fresh tomato and basil that would have made a more appropriate compliment to a less-complicated pasta. In all that tomato, I couldn't taste even a hint of meat.

For dessert, we ordered a lemon tart, the filling of which mostly tasted of lemon meringue pie. Buttermilk ice-cream was nothing to turn one's nose up at, but the real winner was the flaky pie crust. Karen DeMasco uses lard in her crusts, which is probably the secret to foolproof flakiness. Our server offered biscotti as a petit fours, but we waited longer for our check than we had waited for any of our four courses. Perhaps I would feel better about the experience if the "get them in and get them OUT" mentality hadn't been so completely pervasive, but we were finished with our meal in a scant hour, certainly not my idea of a relaxing evening.

Locanda Verde

377 Greenwich Street

New York, NY 10013

212.925.3797

Pork Barrel

2010-03-04T23:38:00.003-05:00

I was looking for a dinner spot that wouldn't break the bank and, more importantly, could accommodate me and a very pregnant friend. So we headed to Ardesia, where my friend (who happens to be the chef) agreed to hold a table for us. Ardesia is equal parts wine and snack bar. The most expensive menu item--the duck banh mi--weighs in at $14, assuming you don't count the plate of all house cheeses, which is $30, but a lot of food. That makes the spot cheaper than Casellula, though no less enjoyable.

We ate Brussels sprouts topped with fried shallots and tasting of something bring, possibly fish sauce. They were perfect, as was the skewered garlic shrimp, four to a skewer, eight to an order. Pork belly bites were cubes of fatty pork atop sweet apple, richness and salt matched by lean, crisp fruit. Surprise! The duck banh mi boasted a glorious layer of liver pate, along with the usual suspects of pickled vegetables and cilantro and the unusual suspect of cured duck.

Next up: bacon lardon, white bean, and frisee salad, but this bacon was fattier and thicker cut than normal salad bacon. And then, tiny house-made cocktail sausages, served with crusty white bread and spicy mustard, a vast improvement over the sticky barbecue sauce ones my grandmother serves in her ancient chaffing dish (no offense, Grandma). Two cheeses--both pasteurized for my preggy friend--were served with candied lemon and bread.

Chef sent dessert on the house. Three open-faced s'mores came atop what amounted to tiny gingersnap cakes--an homage to the graham cracker. The marshmallows, bruleed, tasted better than any traditional campfire. Finally, a square sandwich, wrapped in wax paper, announced our final dessert: a cookies n' cream ice-cream sandwich on chocolate cake. The alternate flavors, we later learned, were peanut butter and vanilla.

The nicest decor detail? The backs of the bathroom doors are painted with blackboard paint and there are nubs of chalk in the bathrooms for high-end note-writing, nothing like those bar bathrooms of yore. Also, to keep you company, a real, live goldfish swims in his glass bowl on a stool in the corner of the loo. No worries, Mr. Fish isn't on the menu. Ardesia is a restaurant for meat-eaters, with only a spare nod to marine life.

Ardesia

510 West 52nd Street

New York, NY 10019

212.247.9191

Playing With My Friends

2010-02-28T11:19:00.003-05:00

Another stress fracture has me grounded, which means less time with my running sneakers and more time doing... something else. I have to remember to exercise restraint with food during the next two months, or I'll be forced to wear nothing but leggings while my skinny jeans writhe in protest. Yesterday wasn't a good start to period of said restraint.

I was invited to see my favorite married couple for bloody marys and burgers. In addition to burgers--ground beef, short rib, and chorizo--we ate pizza pomodoro from the Jim Lahey bread book and cookies from City Bakery and these weird cheesy balls that came from a packaged Brazilian bread mix. That, paired with the leftover cookie dough I ate for breakfast (give me a break--it was whole-wheat dough) would have probably racked up enough calories for the day, but I was hungry, hungry, hungry by the time I made it to Mad for Chicken in Koreatown at ten o'clock.

Mad for Chicken is like the worst nightclub you've ever been to that also happens to sell the best fried chicken. You have to wait for an hour for your table. The bartenders are beyond incompetent. The drinks--a lychee mojito for me--are doused in sugar and bad rum. The clientele is "Asian club kid." If you aren't familiar with that clientele, no need to be.

But then, you sit at one of the Mad for Chicken tables and they bring you insanely spicy crunchy kimchi chicken wings with pickled daikon and celery sticks and this weird cheese and rice-cake casserole that kind of tastes like Spaghetti O's and larger plates of non-spicy-but-equally-crunchy drumsticks and Mexican corn rolled in mayonnaise and queso and chili powder and pretty much everything is okay with the world. In our case, they also brought these ridiculous glass kegs of beer that were topped with dry ice, creating the illusion that the beer was smoking. Each keg was five liters. Our group drank three of them. I won't get into the mathematical possibilities of that, but suffice to say that our bill came to a whopping thirty bucks a person, including tip, so if you want to eat really good fried chicken and drink until you think that playing dominoes is normal and socially acceptable dinner behavior (as two of my co-eaters did), head to K-town asap.

Mad for Chicken

314 5th Avenue, 2nd floor

New York, NY 10001

212.221.2222

I Hate Saturdays In NYC

2010-02-22T11:52:00.003-05:00

And yet I somehow manage to put myself in the middle of the fray. I don't want to go to restaurants on Saturdays, I really don't. But sometimes that's just the way things go--battle the Bridge and Tunnel for a decent bar spot, while you wait an hour for a "table," no bigger than a nightstand. Ugh.

Well, anyway. Saturday snobbery aside, Txikito was a decent place to spend the night. Sure, three people at that nightstand of a table was a little ridiculous, but the menu just about made up for it. Gluttony, I have not left you behind. Small plates are the downfall of any good foodie, and this was no exception. We started with white asparagus with black truffle olive oil and chopped egg, served cold. Spring is on our heels. Next up: miniature mushroom and shrimp grilled cheese sandwiches. Meh. I couldn't really taste the ingredients, aside from the cheese. The sandwich of chorizo hash was more successful, pretty much the tiniest baguette I have ever seen in my life.

Then: shredded chorizo and a sunny side up quail egg on toast, perfect in its execution. Followed by: blood sausage-filled eggrolls (more eggroll than blood sausage, but still delicious), lamb meatballs with "minted broth" (more lamb than mint, but I don't tend to badmouth meatballs), cross-cut braised spare ribs with red and green peppers (very delicious), and salty head-on shrimp (no surprises here, but who really cares?). Finally, the highlight of the meal arrived, a suggestion from our waiter, who recognized our meat-heavy order--seared veal jowl terrine with a sweet onion vinaigrette. Imagine the fattiest rib-eye fat, pressed into a terrine mold and then pan seared and that's pretty much what we ate. The consistency vacillated between unctuous fat and crispy sear and the onions offered a sweet respite from all that density. I wouldn't have ordered the dish without being pushed in that direction, mostly because veal is something I try to eat very little of. But I would have missed the point entirely if I had left without eating it.

For dessert, we shared a very average cheese plate, all sheep's milk, all sliced a hair too thin and served with pedestrian quince paste. Fine. The blue satisfied my cravings, even if the dish as a whole failed to impress me. Ditto a chocolate pudding with sherry whipped cream, though I would eat that again simply because I love pudding.

Txikito

240 9th Avenue

New York, NY 10001

212.242.4730

I Didn't Watch The Superbowl

2010-02-10T14:43:00.003-05:00

I went out for Korean barbecue instead.

1. I am vehemently opposed to the Tebow ad that was scheduled to run and that was funded by Focus on the Family, a group I detest.

2. I was even more upset by the fact that Planned Parenthood and MoveOn.org were denied advertising spots on CBS.

3. I wanted New Orleans to win, but the again, I didn't really care all that much.

We went to Madangsui, on 35th Street. First: jap chae, or slimy rice noodles, cooked with beef and onions and probably a lot of MSG, not that I cared. With that, steamed pork dumplings that were, to be honest, a little dry and tasteless. As for the actual barbecue part, well, I know I've been really anti-beef lately, and I continue to remain true to my values, but this was some of the tastiest meat I have ever had. saeng galbi and bulogi, both marinated. One is essentially shaved beef marinated with a bunch of delicious stuff, and the other is fatty pieces of short rib, also marinated, and cut off the bone by a deft waitress yielding giant scissors. On the grill, too: large circles of white onion and halved button mushrooms.

Part of the genius of Korean barbecue is all the stuff that comes with it: kimchi soup (good), chawan mushi or something to that effect (I had no room for this), sweet pickled vegetables (addictive), two types of kimchi--daikon and cabbage (yum), nori (fine), really spicy radish and peppers (they weren't kidding when they warned us), a salad of shaved onion and celery (perfect for crunch with the beef), and lettuce for wrapping. If I omitted any delicious snacks, I apologize. Wrap whatever you feel like combining with meat and lettuce and you have teeny little ssams. My friend used rice in hers, but I preferred the unadulterated taste of the meat. I'd like to go back with more people and eat more of the menu; as it stood, two beef selections, a noodle dish, and dumplings were the outer limit of what we could eat--and I had run fifteen miles that afternoon.

Well, anyway. I'll be back.

Madangsui

35 West 35th Street

New York, NY 10001

212.564.9333

The New Adventures Of Old Cuisine

2010-02-07T13:05:00.004-05:00

After an evening run on Thursday, followed by a quick stop at the New York Sports Club, which I often consider my public shower, I found myself in the city with time to kill before meeting a friend downtown. Wandering the wasteland that is midtown at 8 pm on a weeknight, I ruled out the following: bad pizza from one of the many take-out joints on Lexington; a bad sandwich from one of the ubiquitous, lunchy chain restaurants; anything from McDonald's. It was cold and I was hungry and then hungrier when I happened to duck down 45th Street, passing a small Japanese restaurant that advertised ramen on a plastic-covered menu affixed to the window: Menchanko-tei. Ramen seemed the perfect antidote to a cold and hungry midtown night. I found a place at the bar.

Like Ippudo, Menchanko-tei serves a variety of different types of ramen. They have tsukemen, broth made from roasted pork bones, my personal favorite. They also have soy and chicken-based broths, also traditional species of ramen. I ordered a plate of cucumber pickles, briny and salty little disks. I ordered a plentiful bowl of pork bone ramen, toothsome noodles floating in a milky broth and topped with a tea-smoked egg, pickled bamboo and ginger, sesame seeds, scallions, and a rolled slice of cooked pork belly. I was surprised at the soup's quality, noodles just as fresh as the Ippudo version. The broth was sufficiently porky and the restaurant, as a whole, doesn't suffer from the relentless popularity that makes a trip to Ippudo tantamount to waiting in line for Space Mountain.

On that aimless walk that night, I also happened past a place I've been reading a lot about lately, a French import by the name of Le Relais de Venise L'Entrecote. Please don't ask me to pronounce that. It seemed to fit the bill for what I had planned Saturday, an inexpensive meal with my sister. In Paris, throngs of people line up nightly for L'Entrecote's $24 prix fixe menu, which includes a salad dressed with mustard vinaigrette and walnuts, crunchy French bread, an abundant plate of French fries, and a thinly sliced steak. Oh, and the sauce. Don't forget the sauce. The sauce is shipped from Paris and the ingredients remain secret. I could identify lemon and pepper and butter and something darker and earthier, possibly liver. If you ask for a list of ingredients, restaurant workers will not divulge, so don't bother. It would be worth it to come back just for a $24 jar of sauce.

The steak at L'Entrecote, something approximating a hanger steak, comes very thinly sliced and bathed in that sauce. At meal's beginning, a waitress, wearing a French maid uniform (black top, short skirt, tiny white apron) asks you how you like your steak and then writes your answer on the paper tablecloth covering your place setting. After your salad is cleared, the steak and frites arrive, served twice. Until you are ready for your second helping, the steak and potatoes stay nearby, atop small candles on a metal chaffing dish. The dessert menu makes up for the lack of variety posited by the restaurant's set playlist. Given over ten options, we chose three tartlets: cherry, lemon, and chocolate. They were small tarts indeed, buttery and fine and hard to justify sharing. Lemon tasted of a meringue pie filling and cherry was topped with three plump versions of the fruit. At night's end, our bill was so low, I considered staying for an encore.

Menchanko-tei

131 East 45th Street

New York, NY 10017

212.986.6805

Le Relais de Venise L'Entrecote

590 Lexington Avenue

New York, NY 10022

212.758.3989

The Carnivore's Dilemma

2010-01-28T09:45:00.003-05:00

One of my more recent decisions regarding what I eat involves cutting meat from my diet. It would be a lie to say that I don't eat meat at all; in fact, I live in a culture where meat is everywhere and where avoiding it, especially at restaurants, is almost a full-time job. I'm not one of those crunchy vegans, who thinks that killing animals is wrong. I do not, for the record, have any real ethical problem with killing animals for food. I do, however, have a problem with the food system as it currently exists. I don't want to eat Purdue chickens that are buckling under the weight of their own breasts, dying in droves, and picked up and tossed by low-paid workers in middle-of-the-night raids. I don't think that commercial beef cattle, for the short time they spend on this planet, should be standing knee-deep in their own waste, eating corn, which the bovine stomach simply isn't biologically engineered to digest. When I know the provenance of my meat--when I know, for instance, that my cows had access to real pastures, that my chickens saw actual sunlight--I feel much better about being an omnivore. But when I think about the compromised ethos of the meat industry, a calculated strategy of animal-torture designed to bring this country more protein that it will ever really need, I feel safe in my decision to eat mostly vegetables.

My local grocery stores do not carry local or organic meat, so, at home, I don't eat it. The restaurants I choose to eat at usually list the farms their cuts come from. On Sunday, I went to Minetta Tavern. Even though they don't list it, I know their beef purveyor, Pat Lafrieda, takes great pride in his meat. Most of the cows are pasture-bred and fed. These days, that's the best you can hope for.

I went to Minetta Tavern because I was able to score a last-minute reservation, yes, but also because I was dying for steak, weak from iron deficiency. My friend was in the mood for bone marrow, an item featured on a handful of city restaurants. We called, they had a table, and that was that. We began with cocktails, mine a crisp cucumber number without too much sweet stuff going on. It was supposed to have rhubarb in it, but if it did, it eluded me. Three large prawns arrived atop a cocktail sauce/mayonnaise and with three delicate artichokes. When it was gone, we had time to concentrate on our 1982 Prieure-Lichine, a steal for $300. According to the wine director, (who's attention we caught after having ordered a 60 ounce steak for two and an ancient bottle of Bordeaux), auction wines are practically free these days. Three-hundred is way out of my personal budget, but dinner was on my friend, just this one time.

The cote d' boeuf was glorious, and made me glad that I still eat beef once in a while. It had a solid, crunchy crust, born of heat and butter. The meat was cool and red in the center and the steak was flanked by three long bones, cut lengthwise so we could spoon the marrow onto our steaks. The dickle was so rich, I couldn't finish even my share. We managed to complete the steak, aside from that last bit of dickle and the rib bone itself, which, in hungrier moments, I would gladly have lifted to my mouth and gnawed on, even in a fine restaurant.

For dessert, we ate coconut layer cake and a chocolate "bomb" that didn't resonate. It didn't matter, anyway. The steak was the point and it absolutely delivered, needing no sauce, but only a hefty appetite. And perhaps our crowning achievement, having impressed the old boys at "impossible-to-get-into" Minetta, was the issue of two business cards with the restaurant's private phone number on it. Our names and telephone numbers were taken at meal's end, and we were added to a list of elite who can actually get a table on a normal night. They'll be disappointed to know, at my next visit, that $300 bottles of wine usually ain't my bag.

So, the rest of the week had to be cleaner. I had a lunch date with my cousin yesterday and I was thinking comfort food, meat-free. We met at Keste, where everyone I know had been telling me to go for a good Neapolitan pie. If you're a fan of a small, doughy pie, with fresh ingredients, a slightly soggy middle (that's how they do it in Naples), and a charred crust, go here. You won't be disappointed. I could have taken down two or three margheritas. The buffalo mozzarella practically disappeared, it was so light. I love a good, crispy New York slice, but this pie, on flavor alone, outdid half the artisanal pies in NYC. I'll be going back for another meat-free adventure.

Minetta Tavern

113 MacDougal Street

New York, NY 10012

212.475.3850

Keste' Pizza and Vino

271 Bleecker Street

New York, NY 10014

212.243.1500

Return To Big Apple

2010-01-06T13:49:00.003-05:00

It was necessary to separate the Miami trip from all other food news, so please excuse the double-post. Upon my return to the City, my bf made good on his belated Christmas gift to me: dinner at Tudor City's Convivio. It used to be L'Impero, Scott Conant's baby. I never ate at L'Impero, though I did dine once at Alto, Conant's other midtown gem (which he abandoned when he abandoned L'Impero two years ago). I was expecting good things.

Of course we ran into someone we knew there. Of course. Sometimes I think I can't go anywhere. Good thing I wasn't wearing sweatpants. Convivio has what I consider to be one of the best deals around: four courses OF YOUR CHOICE for $62.00. That means that, rather get roped into some tiny portion fixed menu in which you choose between chicken and beef (snore), you get to look at the menu and actually decide for yourself. And the portions are appropriate human portions, not those silly pixie helpings they give you on most set menus.

We were given sparkling wine to begin, an expense saved that we immediately devoted to "snacks," which are extra. We ordered green olives with lemon zest, but we also received rich, thick-cut salami, marinated shitake mushrooms, and risotto balls that could best be described as Kraft macaroni and cheese rolled into a ball and deep-fried. In a good way. For our set menu appetizers, we ordered chicken liver crostini, which was almost liquid and served with divine caramelized onions, as well as hamachi crudo with delicately chopped peppers and herbs. My pasta course, hand-cut spaghetti with mussels, clams, and shrimp, lacked flavor, but my companion's rich carbonara made up for it. And then there was the fusilli, sent from the house. It came in a rich tomato ragu of cubed pork shoulder and made me forget all about my boring little seafood pasta.

He had a piece of dorade, served with delicate mushrooms. For me, the lamb, two small chops served over a bed of white beans and tomatoes. By then, the beans were too much; I ate one chop and donated the second. I wanted room for dessert and the remainder of my 2001 Taurasi (the wine list focuses on southern Italian wines, with an estimable Taurasi list; don't waste your time looking for Barolos here), and that wasn't a mistake. A gingerbread cake was topped with a light spiced cream and poached pears. The panna cotta, served in a glass, came with lime yogurt gelato and huckleberries. And the house again sent their regards, this time in the form of a parfait made from amaro gelato and a fresh shot of espresso. Not that we needed it.

Convivio

45 Tudor City Place

New York, NY 10017

212.599.5045

Bienvenido A Miami, ETC.

2010-01-06T10:07:00.003-05:00

I spent the week following Christmas in Miami with my mother. Ever wonder how long it would take for your parents to drive you insane? I estimate one week. She would probably say the same about me.

I will run through the many worthy dining experiences I enjoyed during my week in the sun, though it bears noting that the so-called "local" food movement does not exist in Florida. I understand that the climate is warmer and that produce is seasonal for more of the year, but isn't this citrus season? Why, then, were tomatoes such a prominent part of every menu? Hudson Valley foie gras down south? What's the point? When I did see the word local used--and it was few and far between--it generally referred to corvina, snapper, or grouper. Yikes.

Which isn't to say that the Miamians aren't doing good things with food, because they are. But my trip south codified my belief that New York is lightyears ahead of all other American food cultures. Argue amongst yourselves.

Our first night warranted a trip to Sra. Martinez, Michelle Bernstein's tapas restaurant in the Design District. A plate of "pickles" was hardly enough to nibble on, though I'll forgive the mistake because the deep-fried eggplant disks were so good. Korean short ribs were, indeed, Hagi-style, with the bone in and the grill marks intact. You eat them with your hands. Don't confuse these with the Americanized "fall off the bone" version. I could have done without the overly sweet duck sausage, which came with large white beans, but I never would have passed on the charred and lemony Brussels sprouts--their aioli might have made the meal. Head-on prawns were messy, but worth it. The flan was entirely ordinary (and not my first choice).

Next up: News Cafe for lunch. I was underwhelmed with my extremely expensive egg-white omelet. I did enjoy watching the Ferraris on Ocean Drive, which may be the only reason this place is full all the time.

Then it was Wish for dinner. They serve their frozen mojitos (thumbs-up) in martini glasses with glowing green ice-cubes, an ecto-cooler for adults. Sliced hamachi was heaven: fresh, complimented by the modest heat of jalapeno. My scallops drowned in a sea of squash and (gasp!) whipped cream. That turned me off. Plus, the portions were too big. Maybe I'd stick to appetizers next time, and, of course, the lovely vanilla panna cotta, which arrived with a basil reduction. Delish.

Night three: Douglas Rodriguez' Ola. Lovely ceviche of cobia over Asian pear granita. It might sound weird, but it worked. The waiter dropped the ball on our second ceviche, which arrived with our entrees (boo!), and it wasn't as good as the first, anyway: tuna, corvina, and salmon served over sweet potato. It lacked something. Our foie gras empanadas didn't sit right with me. Something about the idea of eating foie gras as a quasi-eggroll turned me off. I passed on my second half. But our pork Milanese was just as good as the best veal versions I've had. And the yelpers who recommended the deconstructed key lime pie were right on. It came with a separate crust and charred marshmallow. Not to be missed: the watermelon mojito.

For lunch the next day, I dragged my mother to little Havana for a Cuban sandwich at Versailles, the opulent Cuban diner on the far outreaches of Calle Ocho. It was the perfect sandwich (pork, ham, cheese, mustard, pickles, supple-yet-crusty white bread), complimented by sweet Cuban coffee. On the way out, I bought a buttery guava jam cookie. The caramelized sugar on top stuck to the inside of my mouth like the best peanut butter ever.

For dinner, it was Michelle Bernstein again, but this time her high-end outpost, Michy's. Brilliant concept: offer half portions of everything. This way, people like me can eat more. I had sweetbreads (fried) with mushroom escabeche, while my mother guarded her polenta/soft-cooked egg/lardon/truffles with her life--she allowed me one glorious bite. We shared a decadent carbonara, pasta made in house and decorated with crispy proscuitto and other porkiness, as well as a massive churrasco. For dessert, I insisted on jam and chocolate-filled donut holes. Pedestrian, but worth the trip down nostalgic "New York desserts of 2006" lane.

On Wednesday, it was Emeril's, our worst meal by far. My shrimp appetizer, served with a tiny biscuit, was too sweet, owing to the over-generous helping of barbecue sauce. My whole fish--a "local" snapper--was the best part of the meal, de-boned but served with head and tail and complimented by tagiasca olives, lemon, tomatoes, and summer squash (isn't it the wrong season?). My mother's duck, however, was massive--her plate was the size of a proper Thanksgiving serving dish--and sickly sweet, served over even sweeter mashed sweet potatoes. Our banana cream pie tasted completely pre-fab and the table in front of us had an absent sense of propriety, having arrived at dinner in very, very short jean cutoffs. Worse, a table in front of us remained uncleared and dirty for over an hour. Gross. I won't be trying my luck with Mr. Bam again anytime soon.

Thursday was New Year's Eve, and we ate at La Marea at The Tides. This meal, a holiday prix fixe, was not, I don't think, representative of the restaurant's potential, and so I will not mention it here. Suffice to say that New Year's Eve is a rip-off no matter where you dine.

I had been looking forward to our last meal, at Michael's Genuine Food and Drink, all week. This place has gotten a lot of press, so I thought I would be amply impressed. Not so much. Ok, the country pate with spicy mustard and cornichon was great, but it was also pretty boring. A rice cake (kind of like a fried risotto patty) with rock shrimp and egg was confusing. Tuna tartare with a quail egg was too finely chopped and really had no taste. The double-yolk wood-oven cooked egg was good, but very basic. Crispy slivers of fried pig ears may have been the best part of the show. I liked the chicken wings, but they were kind of sweet-and-sour saucy, a bit too much "sweet" for my taste. The Mounds Bar tart was the meal's redemption, served with a miniature root-beer float (most of which my mother drank).

Conclusion: Miami ain't New York.

Sra. Martinez

4000 NE 2nd Avenue

Miami, FL 33137

305.573.5474

News Cafe

800 Ocean Drive

Miami Beach, FL 33139

305.538.6937

Wish

801 Collins Avenue

Miami Beach, FL 33139

305.674.9474

Ola

1745 James Avenue

Miami Beach, FL 33139

305.695.1925

Versailles Restaurant

3555 SW 8th Street

Miami, FL 33135

305.441.2500

Michy's

6927 Biscayne Boulevard

Miami, FL 33138

305.759.2001

Emeril's Miami Beach

1601 Collins Avenue

Miami Beach, FL 33139

305.695.4550

La Marea at The Tides

1220 Ocean Drive

Miami Beach, FL 33139

305.604.5070

Michael's Genuine Food and Drink

130 NE 40th Street

Miami, FL 33137

305.573.5550

Jack Frost

2009-12-17T10:26:00.003-05:00

I should have stayed inside yesterday. I realized this after dinner, as I tried to make it home in the cold. Is it even worth it to eat out when the weather's like this?

But my friend A. was in from California, so we decided on a quick (and cheap) lunch in midtown. We went to Obao, one of Michael Huynh's restaurants (and I say "one of" because he has, like, a trillion). Obao opened in November and is a refreshing respite from the delis and sub-par dining experiences that make midtown lunch what it is. To start, we ordered pork belly skewers, which came lacquered in a salty, sticky sauce and accompanied by pickled vegetables. They were tasty, and not at all good for us. To that appetizer, we added two separate noodle dishes: radish noodles with shrimp, which were a soft, pan-seared noodle, and Singapore noodles with Chinese sausage, which were a little flavorless but improved with a helping of hoisin sauce (available at every table).

The food was a tad greasy, but satisfying enough. It's not hard to understand why Huynh has been so successful.

For dinner, I wanted seafood, but my dining companion was pregnant, which ruled out raw fish. So we headed to the East Village's Mermaid Inn, which has been around for a while. I wanted fluke ceviche, but settled for a shared crab cake. It was made with lump crab meat (delish) and served atop a very mayonnaise-y cole slaw (fine by me). All those thoughts of a nice fillet of fish were dashed in the face of a lobster sandwich, which arrived on a fresh and buttery piece of brioche. In the interest of health, I substituted grilled asparagus for my French fries and was not disappointed by the hearty, smoky spears. My sandwich was more lobster than even I could handle, and I took half home. In lieu of dessert menus, our server brought tiny cups of chocolate pudding with whipped cream on top, a slight disappointment. They tasted over-refrigerated. But no matter. Despite the cold, the lobster sandwich just might have been worth the trip.

Obao

222 East 53rd Street

New York, NY 10022

212.308.5588

Mermaid Inn

96 2nd Avenue

New York, NY 10003

212.674.5870

Apologies, Apologies

2009-12-14T14:10:00.003-05:00

For my extended absence. I had a wedding in Mexico, which, beyond tequila, is not worth reporting (beach was beautiful, resort food was resort food). I found myself back in professional eater-mode when I hit the city again. Actually, a trip up to Larchmont, NY, where my parents live, yielded a noteworthy dining experience on Thursday. We ate at Plates, a small restaurant run by a Per Se alum. My own personal Moment of Zen? A cru Champagne poured by the glass for--gasp!--$13. What are these guys, the Robin Hoods of restaurants? I could have scored a foie terrine for just as little, but ate the smoked chicken wings instead. They are best compared to Momofuku Noodle Bar's (I'll get to those later), but are grilled instead of seared in a pan. Who knows how they get smoky and spicy beforehand. I'm not sure I want to.

The night's special was baked ham with baked beans and cole slaw. I took the bait and was not disappointed. The slabs that made it to my plate were the fattiest and most worthwhile pieces and made an excellent breakfast the next morning. We ordered no dessert and so, in true restaurant VIP fashion, we were awarded a giant ring ding for our efforts. Somebody--I won't name names--hogged all the cream.

When we were leaving, I talked to the general manager about his suspiciously approachable prices. Champagne for $13? Was it made by trolls? No, he assured me. He just believed in charging people fair prices that would actually encourage them to become regular guests. Imagine that. A restaurant manager more concerned with guests than the almighty buck. You don't see that too often.

I guess I should compare that experience to Sunday's, in which I spirited around the city in search of gastronomical greatness. Brunch was a bowl of "rice noodle with crispy meat sauce" at Yun Nan Flavour Snack in Sunset Park. Don't go for the ambience, because there isn't any. Go for the slippery rice noodles, which are impossible to eat without chopsticks, or for the spicy chili paste that tops each bowl, or for the faint song of cilantro, or for the crispy pork bits that are either skin or belly (but I don't care what they are). Go because a huge bowl will last two days--I eat as I type--for four bucks. Just go.

In light of a great Thursday meal and a transcendent Sunday breakfast, I was hoping for more boom than whimper on Sunday night. We started with octopus and a pie (as in a pizza pie) at Motorino in the East Village. The octopus was intolerably fishy. But the pie was worth the adventure: doughy, black-bottomed, and smeared with a sweet tomato sauce.

Then came the disaster of the evening, Momofuku Noodle Bar. While we waited for our table, we drank a soju apple cider slushie, a ludicrously awesome invention that is sure to get even the most hardcore alcoholic a little buzzy. But that was the best the place had to offer. A soy sauce egg was, um, salty. Ok, fine. Our chicken wings were good, but I kept thinking about the wings at Plates, which might have been better and were definitely cheaper. Also, I happen to know that the Momofuku wings are cooked in pork fat for almost a whole day, so those calories might undo any beliefs I once held about their greatness. The rice cakes were crispy and toothsome at the same time, the perfect consistency. Too bad the sticky sauce didn't hold a candle to them. The worst tragedy of all, however, was the $22 seared foie gras. It arrived both undercooked and cold atop salty pineapple and next to a weird miso-brown butter sauce that was more savory than sweet. All that fat and you need sweet to cut it. No dice on this plate. The consistency of the lobe was so far off that we ate less than one bite apiece and then pretended to be full when the server--a former co-worker--came to collect the plates. She didn't ask any questions anyway. "If you didn't know her, I would have sent it back," my friend said.

Well, anyway. She should have noticed our apparent disgust. Also, unless those ducks are eating gold, $22 is highway robbery for four ounces of foie (and it may have been less). I'm over it. If only they sold those slushies from a street cart.

Plates

121 Myrtle Boulevard

Larchmont, NY 10538

914.834.1244

Yun Nan Flavour Snack

775A 49th Street

Brooklyn, NY 11220

718.633.3090

Motorino East Village

349 East 12th Street

New York, NY 10003

212.477.9950

Momofuku Noodle Bar

171 1st Avenue

New York, NY 10003

212.777.7773

Holidaze

2009-11-29T10:34:00.004-05:00

On my way north from New York, my brother and I hit bad traffic on the Merritt Parkway, which somehow ended in a discussion about where we should eat. I usually don't stop at all on the four hour drive to Massachusetts, but I also usually drive alone. This time, with night approaching and my stomach forging a convincing argument about stopping for dinner, I took my brother's advice and took at detour in New Haven.

Now, he claims that he didn't really know how to get to Frank Pepe's, home of Connecticut's best pizza. I remember the details differently. Regardless, we drove around on New Haven's convoluted one way streets for 45 minutes before we found the Italian district. By then, we were famished and slightly opposed to waiting in line behind yuppies buying pizza. We made a decision to take ours to go, convinced in part by the cankle-y and cantankerous waitress who barked at us to wait outside. Twenty minutes later, a pierced pizza attendant slashed our pie (half-mushroom, half-pepperoni) into odd-sized slices and we hit the road again. With no napkins.

Let it be known that I have driven without a seatbelt, have texted while driving, and have, in my youth, made other unsafe driving decisions, but deciding to drive three hours while eating a hot pizza--pizza that dripped down my shirt and onto my expensive jeans--may have been my most hazardous driving decision yet. Imagine negotiating the road, a manual transmission, and a drippy mushroom slice simultaneously. Not good. But what was good, and well worth the hazard, was the dough, giving slightly at the tooth. And my brother and I, perhaps inspired by all good American road trips, ate all but two small pieces of our large pie, furiously fighting the resultant food coma. It was the all-American lead in to the all-American holiday.

As for the holiday itself, I reigned in my over-preparatory impulses this year, sticking to basics. Appetizers may have still been over-the-top (I judge this by the amount of leftovers amassed), but no harm, no foul. My six-cheese American artisanal platter from Murray's went over well enough, even if I did find myself with too much Rogue River Blue afterwards.

Our first-course spread included sauteed jumbo shrimp with a parsley pesto (nuts omitted), a giant pickle plate (made from New York greenmarket veggies: Tokyo turnips, red ball radishes, carrots, fennel, celery, shitake mushrooms, Asian pears, pumpkin, and cucumbers), Broadbent ham with red-eye gravy and whole-grain bread, pork dumplings with a soy-ginger dipping sauce, miniature muffins from my mother, pate from Stinky Brooklyn, and a concord grape compote and fennel-pumpkin grain mustard to accompany the cheeses.

I brined a 25-pound turkey in brown sugar, salt, water, green peppercorns, rosemary, thyme, oranges and lemons. We basted with butter and the result was a brown and moist bird, one of the prettiest I've seen. Our roasted Brussels sprouts were not as charred as we would have liked, but they went over well enough. We always make too much cranberry sauce (an old family recipe), but my brother can eat it by the bucket. Caramelized onions were a modest hit. My mother made mashed sweet potatoes with sauteed apples. Pureed butternut squash and mashed potatoes came from the homes of others. Stuffing was our greatest accomplishment: three loaves of bread disappeared in minutes. The secret: Two and a half pounds of mushrooms, fresh sage/rosemary/thyme, and four or five ounces of rendered chicken fat. Even cooked outside of the bird, it tasted poultried enough.

For dessert, I used a Martha Stewart recipe for a pumpkin pudding, but the recipe, I later discovered, was wrong, requiring too much salt. The end product was a savory custard, so to cut the saltiness, I made a cocoa bourbon whipped cream and layered three inches of it atop the pudding in a trifle bowl. Family members brought chocolate farm cakes, a blueberry pie, a fruit tart, a winter fruit pie with walnut crumb topping, a cheesecake, and brownies, in addition to the butterscotch blondies baked by my mother. We're swimming in dessert here. I'm ready to go home to escape the sugar shock.

And so, I'll be dragging home some leftovers this afternoon, in addition to a lovely gift given me by a farmer friend who works at Russell Orchards: pickled dilly beans, summer squash with turmeric, blueberry jam, and apple butter. Not to mention three dozen farm cakes. So much for dieting through the holidays.

*
Frank Pepe's Pizzeria
157 Wooster Street
New Haven, CT 06501
203.865.5762

*
Russell Orchards
143 Argilla Road
Ipswich, MA 01938
978.356.5366

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Gluttonday

2009-11-23T15:07:00.003-05:00

You get the picture.

I guess Sundays are my "free days," in which I pay less attention to the nutritive value of what I eat. That isn't to say all bets are off (I was offered a late-afternoon cupcake by a friend and declined), but it does mean my standards are lowered a notch.

For lunch, I went to Sunset Park's Ba Xuyen, known for their banh mis. But instead of sandwiches, we had soups, two steamy bowls of pho filled with noodles, shrimp, boiled quail eggs, cilantro, bean sprouts, pork sausage, and boiled beef. I made mine pretty spicy with the help of some nearby chili paste, but regardless, the soup was soul-satisfying. I skipped the boiled beef, which always freaks me out a little. The shrimp was enough protein for me.

Later, I had a birthday dinner planned with a friend, but we were early for our reservation. Walking past Sushi of Gari on 77th and Columbus, we decided that we had to begin our evening with raw fish. Maybe we didn't have to order toro, snapper, and hamachi, but we did anyway. Three perfect sushi pieces came with the perfect compliments. Atop fatty toro, we received a salty radish puree. Hamachi came with lightly pickled jalapenos and my snapper was topped with something deep-fried and something else involving nuts. The pieces were perfect and I think we both wished we had time--and money--for omakase.

But we had a reservation to make down the street, at Dovetail, where the Sunday Suppah is a 3-course meal for $38 (not including extras, supplements, and alcohol). My starter of beef tartare tasted really ketchupy, which I liked, though others at my table disagreed. Perhaps they were put off by the accompanying huckleberries, but I liked the contrast of salty and sweet. Seared foie gras was by the book (served with something sweet--in this case, huckleberries again), and a salt-cooked onion was layered with unexpected shaved black truffles. It was difficult to cut, though worth the challenge. Crab ravioli sang with a smokiness imparted by diced chorizo.

My entree of chicken was tasty enough, left moist and draped with a crack-your-tooth crunch layer of skin. I could have done without feta cheese creamed spinach and I only ate the boring root veggies out of respect for the vitamins they possessed. A cheese plate did us fine. Dovetail pits old world cheeses against their Vermont counterparts. In this case, the Jasper Hill Bayley Hazen Blue lost to a runny and pungent French blue. The sheep's milk cheeses were a tad bland for my taste, though I loved the onion and black pepper jam that joined them.

I would have passed on dessert, had they not arrived in that obligatory "share all" fashion. Apple crumble was fine, though the real highlight of the plate was Calvados ice-cream. I didn't care for the peanut butter and chocolate moussy thing, and could have skipped the sorbets and ice-creams entirely. A warm bread pudding with black mission figs came with a nice glass of malted Ovaltine, not a bad way to end the evening. By then, our heads were swimming from a 2008 Brocard Chablis and a 2007 COS Nero d' Avola. The expensive wine list plundered any notions of a cheap Sunday Suppah. But then, wasn't that to be expected?

Ba Xuyen

4222 8th Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11232

718.663.6601

Sushi of Gari

370 Columbus Avenue

New York, NY 10024

212.362.4816

Dovetail

103 West 77th Street

New York, NY 10024

212.362.3800

Celebrity Sighting

2009-11-16T14:25:00.005-05:00

Saturday night is amateur night, so no, I did not expect to see any famous people, even though I had been warned that the Bowery Hotel plays host to the creme de la creme. But there I was, tucked into a cozy booth at Gemma, waiting for my sister, and when I looked up I discovered Julianne Moore and Family three tables down.

Five minutes later, Max Fischer from Rushmore (a.k.a. Jason Schwartzman) sat one table next to Julianne. I wonder if celebrities give one another the obligatory wave that I give to fellow runners I see in rural places. Probably not.

We were well cared-for at Gemma, despite how busy they were. A call to a friend meant no wait for us, a coveted position for any Saturday night diner in New York. My sister's Coca-Cola and my bellini arrived gratis, as did dessert. Our arugula salad was crisp and fresh, topped with several thin shaves of parmesan cheese. A charcuterie platter was a bit of a disappointment--the meats tasted a little process-y and the cheeses (two of them) were too similar. They were good, yes, but I would have preferred more contrast. Instead, we were met with nearly identical semi-firm cheeses, about which not much was divulged.

But nevermind. Our pasta had been thickened with starchy cooking water and the sauce stuck perfectly to coiled noodles, the name of which escapes me. Spicy sausage in the dish was neither too fiery nor too tame. Our pizza was paper thin, crispy, blackened in the right places. It never betrayed the weight of its (admittedly light) toppings: tomato sauce, cheese, and fresh basil. Maybe our bing cherry clafouti could have used a few more cherries, but the custard was buttery enough to forgive the oversight.

The truly epic--and quite unexpected--turn of the evening came nearly at meal's end, when a familiar face appeared hovering over our corner table. It was my New Jersey-dwelling uncle, who just happened to be an hour from his home at the same restaurant as us, celebrating the 60th birthday of a friend. He and my aunt were the celebrity sighting that neither my sister nor I saw coming. I always say New York is the smallest city on earth.

Gemma

335 Bowery

New York, NY 10003

212.505.9100

Where It's Hip To Be... Hip

2009-11-14T08:11:00.003-05:00

Williamsburg. Proverbial home of the hipster. If you don't have bangs and a pair of skinny jeans, may I suggest sticking to Park Slope?

I guess somewhere along the line, I, too, became a hipster. Note what my friend C. said as we walked in the door at Rye last night: "See, if you don't have a haircut like that girl [pointing at the waitress with really dark, shoulder-length hair and straight down bangs], or like Genavieve [noting that I also have really dark, shoulder-length hair and slightly overgrown straight down bangs], you'll never fit in here." That comparison scares me a little. Our waitress was dopey to the point of common thievery. Our bill, which arrived after a good long period of our party of five sitting around and staring at empty water glasses, exceeded what we had actually spent by $80.

But nevermind. The food was good. C's mother kept talking about how bare and unclean the walls were. In Williamsburg, that's cool. Maybe I would have minded if the lobster bisque hadn't been so rich and lobstery with a hint of spice at the finish. Maybe I would have been staring at the walls, too, had I not been digging into my endive/apple/bacon/walnut/blue cheese salad. Everything was julienned, turning the salad into a giant, cheesy cole slaw. Maybe I would have felt less satisfied if the meatloaf sandwich--suitable for at least three hungry eaters--hadn't actually tasted like the duck, veal, and pork from which it hailed. Or if the pickles hadn't been perfect. Or if the French fries had arrived late or cold, which they did not.

Beausoleil oysters were clean and fresh and a dozen didn't punish our pocketbooks the way a la carte oysters do in Manhattan. Our teeny tiny quail came with bittersweet radicchio and a precious mold of polenta. The only disappointment came in the form of macaroni and cheese, which is rarely a disappointment. But despite the lardon and the tasty noodles, the cheese sauce was insufficiently creamy, a rookie mistake.

For dessert, we headed to Penny Licks, a half-vegan/half-regular ice-cream shop on Bedford. Considering the fact that they still had over an hour left until close time, they were out of a good number of things, including the "penny lick" size cones and all of the sundaes. I had a half-dairy-half-vegan ice-cream, which amounted to mint chip ice-cream (regular) topped with a scoop of pumpkin pie ice-cream (vegan). I have no idea what is in vegan ice-cream and I prefer to remain in the dark. The baked goods looked promising. I probably should have gone for the red velvet cake instead. My ice-cream was fine, but nothing to write blogs about.

Rye

247 S. 1st Street

Brooklyn, NY 11211

718.218.8047

Penny Licks

158 Bedford Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11211

718.384.0158

A Better Burger?

2009-11-11T14:55:00.003-05:00

Lately, I've been confronted with all kinds of ethical eating issues. I've stopped eating beef and chicken without first knowing their provenance. Michael Pollan scared me, and I'm not interested in being one of the huddled masses who unthinkingly consumes chickens that have been standing around in their own waste, pecking at their own waste, yearning to breathe free. Cutting most commercial chicken and beef from my diet has some consequences. Fewer burgers, for one, not that I ate too many to begin with. But, I must confess, I've always loved a traditional American burger with the traditional American accoutrement. And these days, McDonald's just won't cut it.

On a bus ride home from the city last week, I met a fellow food liberator who happens to live in my neighborhood. She gardens, blogs, and seems to live the perfect sustainable lifestyle. I'm teeming with jealousy. She also happens to be an excellent resource for where to find local and organic stuff here in Astoria, which is, most of the time, a locavore's nightmare.

Which is how I found out about Bare Burger.

Actually, I had walked by it before, but I really just thought it was another faddy burger joint, selling patties for ten bucks. Truth be told, it's kind of an eden. The decor--including awesome light fixtures made from those metal spoons that so often disappear in restaurants--comes entirely from recycled things. The burgers (take your pick of elk, ostrich, turkey, chicken, or beef) are all organic. Instead of Heinz ketchup, which contains High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS is not organic because the corn used to produce it is genetically-modified. FYI), Bare Burger serves Annie's organic. Instead of store-bought burger buns, they offer a choice of brioche or multi-grain, both baked locally. Fries are done in peanut oil. Onion rings appear to come from real onions. The list goes on.

I had a turkey burger on multi-grain with a touch of mayo and some Annie's. Okay, it tasted like turkey, but I'm not expecting miracles here. I also had a tiny cob of corn, grilled to almost-burnt, which is how I prefer it. My lunch date had a beef bacon-cheeseburger on brioche and panko-dipped onion rings. He's a tough customer, so when he deemed his burger "delicious," I had to trust that it was.

Sodas are Boylan's and coffee is direct-trade. What more could someone like me ask for in a place like this?

Bare Burger

3321 31st Avenue

Astoria, NY 11106

718.777.7011

Detox And Retox

2009-11-02T08:11:00.003-05:00

I was "keeping it clean" this past week, in preparation for yesterday's ING New York Marathon. (Yes, I finished; no, I did not qualify for Boston.) That meant a bunch of whole grains, vegetables, and lean meats leading into the race. On Tuesday, a friend and I opted for nice, clean Asian cuisine, and, for lack of better ideas, stumbled upon Indonesian at Minangasli in Jackson Heights.

I've never had Indonesian food before, so I'm not sure what I would compare it to. An egg pancake was more like the delicious skin of an egg roll, deep-fried and served with a viscous soy sauce that was almost good enough to eat straight. Our satay combination platter included beef, lamb, and chicken (though the meats were virtually interchangeable) and came with the traditional accoutrement: peanut sauce, cubed cucumbers, red onion. It was tasty enough. But the true meaning of Indonesian food was best expressed to us upon the arrival of our noodles.

They were medium-width noodles like the ones you might find in Pad Thai, covered with browned mushrooms, bean sprouts, and ground meat. On top, three delicate fried wontons greeted us. They were stuffed with an equally delicate meat. On the side arrived a bowl of fragrant broth with tiny, perfect meatballs. We divided the broth, squeezed in some of whatever hot sauce happened to be on that particular table, and dumped our noodles in. The result was perfumy, light, and all in all worth the trip.

That was my last real meal of note until last night, when, in celebration of my own feat (and feet), I lined up for a rib-eye at Prime Meats in Carroll Gardens. I've written about Prime Meats in the past, but I have been waiting for the select opportunity to sample their 36-day dry-aged prime rib-eye (bone-in, of course), priced $1.80/ounce. If you know anything about steakhouses in New York, you know that this per ounce price is criminally low. I hoped it would be worth it.

We began with a crispy salad of celery and celery greens, a plate of addictive (and addictively fatty) lamb ribs, and a soft pretzel with butter and mustard. The salad was dressed with sunflower oil, showcasing the celery-ness of it. The lamb ribs were smoky, charred, and perfect, accompanied by beautiful roasted slices of local squash.

And then the steak. Nearly fifty ounces of it. By the time it arrived, by body had started to revolt. I wasn't hungry, but I soldiered on, making not even a small dent in our chop. The dickle, pure fat, melted. I skipped the chimichurri sauce--an applaudable version--in favor of the steak on its own, showcased only by Maldon salt. The char was perfect, the meat tender (it almost did not require a knife). I ate two pieces and packed the rest up, a moment of clarity that will bring much joy during tonight's Yankee game. Our big bowl of perfect French fries remained untouched and I offered it to the kitchen gods. It was my mistake for over-ordering. But I brought the tender mushroom spaetzle home; it, too, was not worth parting with.

Minangasli

8610 Whitney Avenue

Elmhurst, NY 11373

718.429.8207

Prime Meats

465 Court Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

718.254.0327

Hungry Caterpillar

2009-10-19T11:21:00.003-04:00

Remember Eric Carle's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar? You know, the one where the caterpillar eats through a watermelon, a sausage, a slice of Swiss cheese, and various other tasty finds, only to lead himself to a fierce tummy ache and metamorphosis? Well, I had an Eric Carle moment, sans metamorphosis. It went something like this:

I agreed to go to an early evening movie in the City and suggested a "snack" first. This was initially supposed to be a slice, probably from Artichoke, but somehow we decided that we were going to have pork buns as a snack. Only pork buns. You can get said buns at Momofuku Milk Bar, but you have to stand while you eat them. Instead, we opted for Ssam next door. Presented with a full menu, we did what any normal snackers would do. We ordered two sets of pork buns, a ham plate with red-eye gravy (mayonnaise and coffee, for the uninformed), a pickle plate, and a heaping portion of ground sausage with deep-fried rice cakes. The Edward's ham was not as rich and fatty as I remembered, though the mayonnaise would have hidden any flaw. I found the rice cakes to be overcooked and the pork buns, though still tasty, a bit heavy on the pork fat this time around. Is Ssam Bar slipping after their *** rating? Time will tell.

I skipped popcorn at the movies, which was a wise move, since dinner time (9pm, only a scant three hours after our "snack") found us at Daniel Boulud's new haunt, DBGB. I wore sweatpants out and hardly expected to end up at a scene-y downtown bistro. I knew that I would run into people I knew (we saw two, a waiter we knew from another restaurant, and a chef whom we had loved and lost to San Francisco) and that this familiarity would spiral into the vortex of free stuff. End tally of comps: three glasses of dessert wine, two desserts, one cheese plate, roughly $100 worth of bad-for-you goodness.

It really is appalling to think about what we ate last night, so I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised at my own tummy's reaction. We began with veal tongue and gribiche, along with a thick and fatty chicken/pork liver pate. The pate came with too little bread, my main complaint, though I was happy to see that all the bread before us fell into the whole-wheat category. The cornichons and pickled pearl onions, though scarce, were, as always, the perfect counterpoint for good pate.

Whole-wheat bread could not prevent the descent into gluttony that came next. A very long and very deep-fried pig trotter came with some kind of mayonnaise dipping sauce. Bone marrow, sliced the long way, was topped with black mustard seeds and arrived with toast points and house-cured pastrami. Our sausages were supposed to be the highlight of the evening--the restaurant serves over ten--but I found them slightly disappointing. The Berliner, a boudin blanc served with an under-cured sauerkraut, was a touch more sweet than savory. The Vermont was nicely blistered, but I'm a little freaked out by the concept of cheese in my pork sausage. Must be a Jewish thing.

For dessert, we kept right on ordering. First, baked Alaska, since I'd never had it. It arrived with a cup of absinthe that the server poured over the meringue before setting the whole thing on fire with a blowtorch. But the server left before the fire hit the whole dessert and the fire went out before releasing all of the alcohol. What was left was a very strong absinthe dessert that happened to be filled with meringue, almond cake, vanilla ice-cream, verbena ice-cream, and raspberry sorbet. A "pear" ice-cream sandwich fell short, lacking either the proper cookie texture or the right ice-creaminess. The pear element was actually sorbet and the plating encouraged the use of a knife and fork rather than one's hands. How very un-ice-cream sandwich-like. A mocha sundae was reminiscent of the one once served at BLT Prime. There was a lot of ice-cream, brownie bits, and whipped cream. The desserts, as a whole, remained rooted in, well, ice-cream, more of a one-trick pony than anything else.

A pear sidecar left us underwhelmed, though I was happy to see the Raffault Chinon by the glass, one of my favorite, less expensive Old World reds. I was also happy to see a 750ml bottle of my favorite trappist ale, Westmalle Dubbel, for a staggeringly low $28, dark beer being the perfect companion to a festival of offal.

Our complimentary cheese plate--replete with such cliches as Humboldt Fog--was just cheese and bread, along with a paltry sprinkling of nuts. I longed for something more elaborate, like the composed plates that used to appear at Casellula, before the fromager defected. Oh, well. I shouldn't have looked a gift horse in the mouth. At three in the morning, I was regretting the cheese regardless, along with the horse it rode in on.

Momofuku Ssam Bar

207 2nd Avenue

New York, NY 10003

212.254.3500

DBGB Kitchen and Bar

299 Bowery

New York, NY 10003

212.933.5300

K-Town, Etc.

2009-09-28T12:17:00.002-04:00

Anyone who knows me would gladly attest to the following: I am not a nice/forgiving/happy/generous/enjoyable-to-be-around human being when I am hungry. This is just fact. I get grumpy. I get hypoglycemic. I swear to whomever I'm with that I'm just going to die. I could substantiate this with a thousand vignettes from childhood and beyond, but I'll leave it up to the imagination of my readers.

Now, on Friday afternoon, I ended up in Manhattan, walking up 6th Avenue, where you ain't bound to find anything worth buying, unless you're really into plastic beads or fresh flowers. This includes anything remotely ingestible. It's a culinary wasteland. I was starting to get my familiar hypoglycemic hand shake, and became immediately convinced that if I did not stop for food RIGHT NOW, I would... well, you get the picture.

My companion did not much care for my theatrics and kept telling me to pick a place, but what was there to pick? A corner bodega? A McDonald's? None of this jived with my "local foods" or "homemade" mantra that I've been espousing since August.

Inevitably, we ended up on 32nd Street, home to Korea Town, commonly referred to by drunks and foodies as K-Town. We were reminded of a place recommended to us by a friend of mine a few months ago, but before we made it I saw signs for Pho32 & Shabu and decided that we need walk no farther: Pho it was.

Pho32 & Shabu specializes in two things: pho (duh), and shabu shabu. Pho is a delicious Vietnamese soup, and Shabu Shabu is this method of cooking wherein a pot of steaming broth is lit on fire before you and you dip assorted things (a.k.a. meat, vegetables, tofu) into this broth until they cook. I opted for pho, since I've never been able to get shabu shabu down.

First, a salad of cabbage and ginger dressing arrived. It was slightly bitter, crisp, salty, perfect. Next, a plate of lime, bean sprouts, shaved green peppers, basil. Finally the soup, a large bowl of beef broth, thin-sliced flank steak cooked rare, beef brisket, rice noodles. I was instructed to spill my plate of stuff into the broth "to taste" (that meant spilling the whole thing in). A condiment caddy displayed sriracha, hoisin, and chili paste. I dumped that in, too. What resulted was a rich, meaty, basil-y, crunchy, chewy, satisfying bowl of stuff. True pho eaters will tell you that tripe is a very important part of the pho experience. But I will tell you that I think tripe is disgusting and I don't like the way it looks like cotton or spun sugar, sitting out on the butcher display in my neighborhood, so I will never order my pho with tripe.

My dining companion ordered great fried chicken potstickers, but I wouldn't go back just for those. I would, however, go back for that soup, which may have been the most transcendent bowl of Asian noodles ever, aside, of course, from those pork-perfect ramen bowls at Ippudo. Slurp, slurp.

*
Pho32 & Shabu
2 W. 32nd Street
New York, NY 10001
212.695.0888

A Spanish Inquisition

2009-09-13T15:31:00.003-04:00

I apologize to my readers for a lack of promptness in retelling tales of my recent travel to Barcelona and the Costa Brava. There were so many memorable meals and so much worth processing that it feels impossible to distill the five day trip into one mere blog post. Obviously, El Bulli and my night there deserves an unhealthy cut of attention here, as does El Celler Can Roca, where I enjoyed dinner the night before heading to Roses for my 35-course feast. I should, however, mention in the meantime that Spain was full of culinary possibility. My first meal in Barcelona was enjoyed on my 29th birthday at a small restaurant within Barcelona's famous Boqueria. Seated at the bar, we ate a plate of fish cooked a la plancha--prawns, razor clams, manilla clams, firm white fish, squid. We ate mushrooms and asparagus tips drenched in good olive oil and we ate pan con tomate (which we would eat much more of in days to come) and a rib steak grilled on the flattop and dusted with Maldon salt. We ate French fries and, finally, creme caramel with a candle in it. It was our best meal in Spain.

Other great meals followed. At Els Pescadors, the daily catch arrived atop gorgeous scalloped potatoes and roasted onions. A snack of brined baby garlic made most of us swoon, and we could have asked for no better treat than a plate of 'Joselito' Iberico ham, straight from the pata negras.

One night, in Barcelona, we were taken out to dine with wine friends, who lamented the fact that good restaurants were mostly closed on Mondays. No matter. He found a traditional Catalan space for us, ordered peppers a la plancha, fried lamb brains, various cured meats. But the restaurant's claim to fame was its massive wine list, more of a tome than anything, and through dinner seven diners were treated to seven impressive bottles of wine. Some wine got lost in the recesses of a wine-logged brain, but not to be forgotten were a 1998 Chateau Latour, deemed corked by some (I argued that 1998 was an off-vintage and that now, ten years later, inadequate grapes were showing signs of the weakness of the year, tasting green. We split our opinions down the middle; I drank what others passed up.) and a 1987 Vega Sicilia 'Unico,' demonstrably better than the pricier first-growth.

Our kind friend picked up the check. But there were more surprises ahead.

Once we tackled the demons of the highway leading north from Barcelona--a flat tire befell us mid-trip--we tucked in to our first of two long and undulating meals, this one at Michelin two-star El Celler de Can Roca. We ate nineteen courses, seven of which were deemed "snacks." We drank a bottle of vintage Cava (1999), a 2007 Egon Muller Spatlese Riesling, a 2001 Donhoff Riesling, and, our most impressive of the evening, a 1999 Jacques Prieur Le Musigny. Memorable delights of the evening included a bright cherry broth filled with one halved cherry, a slice of smoked eel, and a scoop of ginger ice-cream that resembled a cherry completely; a preparation of sole that involved pairing the fish with five descending sauces (olive oil, pine nut, fennel, bergamot, and orange), a steak tartar that played on sweet and savory elements; and an apricot made of blown sugar, airbrushed pink and orange and dusted with sugar and releasing, at the tap of a spoon, a creamy interior of apricot nectar.

A trip through the wine cellar with one of the Roca brothers (Josep, the sommelier), revealed a mind-blowing dedication to the regions of Sherry, Priorat, Champagne, Burgundy, and the Mosel. The cellar consisted of five separate rooms, all built from old wine boxes. In them, Josep described the virtues of his favorite regions, showed videos from prize vineyards, and involved us in tactile games (in one such moment, he pulled a piece of green silk from a worn wooden bowl and lifted it, stretched it, urged us to touch; it was riesling, he said: strong, resilient, elegant, not ruined by age).

We left dinner at two in the morning, after arguing with our server about the meal charge: it was noticeably absent. But no, they told us; the food, a total of $1,000 Euro, was a gift. Our only expense was our six bottles.

I suppose El Celler set an impossibly high standard for fine dining, but if any restaurant could rise to the challenge, it is El Bulli, the notoriously impossible-to-get-into hotspot for molecular gastronomy on the beach. When we arrived, we were immediately brought to the kitchen to meet Ferran Adria. We took pictures and stumbled back to the sweeping vistas of the patio, where we would have our snacks in clear view of the Mediterranean.

There were snacks, and there were cocktails, all of them conventional-ish, none of them conventional. Mojitos arrived in pure cane sugar sticks. We chewed them to release the rum and lime. "Mimetic" peanuts looked like the whole suckers found at baseball stadiums, but when they hit the mouth they turned into very cold peanut butter. A milky cocktail came with the pleasant addition of candied pine needles ("eat the needle and then take a sip," our waiter instructed; El Bulli has many, many instructions) and tasted the way you would imagine very sweet and delicate pine sap would taste.

It would be silly for me to describe all 35 courses. For one, they weren't all good; two were actually inedible and several inspired a lot of laughter. The most memorable parts of the meal included three fun and different bottles of Champagne (NV Diebolt-Vallois 'Prestige' Gran Cru Cramant, NV Jacques Selosse 'Blanc de Blancs' Gran Cru Avize, 1998 Paul Bara 'Comtesse Marie de France' Gran Cru Bouzy); a course entitled "Margarita Cactus," which was really a cactus leaf infused with tequila, lime, and salt (we ate the leaf); a course entitled "Oyster Leaf," which was an actual edible leaf that came from Norway and, amazingly, tasted exactly like an oyster (it came with a mignonette); a dish called "Coco," a giant frozen dinosaur egg (but not really) that the server broke at our table and told us to eat with our hands, as the shell was a melty cool-cold Coco Lopez-type concoction; a dish that was a dessert but that looked exactly like shellfish innards (it was supposed to); tea service, wheeled over and prepared by a woman who clipped herbs from live sage, basil, thyme, mint, and tarragon plants; a cardboard pop-up birthday cake that came replete with a real, lit candle at my very own place setting; a box of forty or more assorted handmade chocolates (I sampled them all); and, finally, Cuban cigar service on the terrace as the punctuation mark to our meal.

Our bill was outrageous. But what's more outrageous than seven hours of gluttony? As a token of appreciation, the staff gave us each copies of A Day At El Bulli, a color book showing the crazy workings of the oiled machine. Not that I would have forgotten. Not in a million years.

Els Pescadors

Placa Prim 1

08005 Barcelona, Spain

34.932.252.018

El Celler de Can Roca

Can Sunyer, 48

17007 Girona, Spain

34.972.222.157

El Bulli

Caja Montjoi

Roses, Spain

34.972.150.457

Boroughs Other Than Mine

2009-08-28T11:22:00.003-04:00

Before I head back across the Atlantic to visit some of the world's more gossiped-about eateries, I owe it to you, dear readers, to describe my last few days here on this continent.

On Wednesday afternoon, I was treated to a comped lunch at Prime Meats, which included a very delicious soft pretzel with sweet Bavarian mustard, a soft-poached farm egg over sauteed trumpet mushrooms with a grilled white sausage, and a small-but-noteworthy spiced stout cake. The sausage came with a horseradish mustard, spicy enough to satisfy me. The stout cake, possessed of a different judicious spice set (clove and cinnamon and the like) was gooey moist.

For a snack, I ended up at another Carroll Gardens joint, the newly opened Eton, Too, sibling of the original Eton, which serves dumplings and shave ice. I spent a few frustrating hours driving around the big island of Hawaii last August hunting down authentic shave ice, so it's nice to know I can get it close to home. Shave ice, for those unaware, is delicately shaved ice topped with flavored syrup, or syrups, if that's your bag (it's mine). In Hawaii, they also top their shave ice with: condensed milk, fluffernutter, mochi bits, chocolate syrup, canned fruit, vanilla soft serve, etc. Hawaiians are big on preserved food, i.e. spam. I'm a purist: give me a shave ice in a plastic cup that looks like an upside-down hat and one of those straws that doubles as a spoon and I'm good to go.

I had a half lychee-half watermelon. It was delicious. I also bought chicken-mushroom and pork-beef-cabbage dumplings to go. Heat and eat. Yum.

Later, after more wandering around BK, we ended up at Buttermilk Channel, where we snacked on pickles (our second helping of the day, after a duck into Stinky Brooklyn for pickles made at another local restaurant, Chestnut), grilled bacon with a mustard vinaigrette, bratwurst with sauerkraut and French fries, and four small baby back ribs with a mediocre slaw. The ribs were passable, as was the bacon. But the bacon... that's a dish you go back for.

Call these dalliances the introduction to my very meat-heavy pre-birthday birthday party last night at Korean hot spot Kunjip. I called for a reservation, and it's a good thing I did; the line snaked around 32nd Street and we still had to cram in to our side-by-side tables. Everything came at once. Fried dumplings, steamed dumplings, kimchi, daikon, egg custard, blood sausage with cellophane noodles and hot peppers. In a large skillet, the servers cooked boneless short ribs (outstanding), de-veined shrimp (also memorable), and slabs of pork belly (regrettably overdone). Bibimbop made my Polish friend sweat, though I found it only moderately spicy and perfectly coagulated owing to a raw egg on top.

We drank OBs. At the meal's end, the music increased to unpleasant decibels and a cake--made purely of orange segments and topped with three lit candles--arrived before me.

So perhaps that was the perfect American parting gift, even though it was not at all American. Espana, here I come.

Prime Meats

465 Court Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

718.254.0327

Eton Too

359 Sackett Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

718.222.2289

Buttermilk Channel

524 Court Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

718.852.8490

Kunjip

9 W. 32nd Street

New York, NY 10001

212.216.9487