Ways To Celebrate The Completion Of A 20 Mile Run

Step 1: Abandon all rules and perameters set for yourself regarding food.  

I ran 20 miles on Monday, came home, sat around for a while thinking about what I should eat, realized it was too late for most delivery, and ordered Domino's, Brooklyn-style.  FYI, 16 inches of pizza is really not that much.  I ate half a pizza in approximately seven minutes.  At least it had vegetables on it. 

Which is more than I can say for the pizza that I ordered yesterday afternoon, at Otto, a small and crispy pie that came topped with a sunny side up egg.  To meet my veggie quota, I ordered asparagus with pecorino and English peas with proscuitto and mint.  To meet my already-met carbohydrate quota, I also ordered bruschetta with white beans and red pepper flakes.  It was a decent afternoon.  The pizza was crispy.  I can't complain.  

Later, it was on to more edibles in Carroll Gardens.  We tucked into a cozy booth at Black Mountain Winehouse for some passable nebbiolo, pretty darn good country pate, and weird-but-kitschy-cool fondue.  Also on the menu?  Salami and lard white bread, a panini stuffed with mayo and mortadella and served with hot peppers and quince marmalade, white bean crostini with warm ricotta, and a tuna nicoise salad.  We got experimental with the fondue and my friend went crazy dipping the mortadella sandwich into the hot cheese.  I'm pretty sure I got back the calories lost on that long, ambitious run.  

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Otto Enoteca

1 5th Avenue

New York, NY 10003

212.995.9559

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Black Mountain Winehouse

415 Union Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

718.522.4340

Carb Loading, II

I'm old enough to remember when the space on 8th Street and 5th Avenue was a swanky bar called Clementine; they probably served me one of my first underage New York beverages.  I'm also old enough to remember a time before Mario Batali and a time before everyone south of the Hudson and east of Queens knew what Otto was and wanted to eat there on a Saturday night.  

That reality no longer exists, which means if you choose to go out to dinner in the west village on a Saturday night you are, consequently, choosing to dine with the crowd that the industry affectionately terms "bridge and tunnel," the imports from, well, outside of the City.  I'll say no more. 

Last night was certainly an exercise in B and T lovin'.  We waited an hour and fifteen minutes for our table, but at Otto, that's considered a short wait.  In the meantime, I had my one allotted alcoholic beverage (the definite downside to racing on Sunday mornings), a blood orange bellini.  We ordered a cheese plate and a meat plate to munch on while we waited.  Meats included bresaola, proscuitto, sopressata, coppa, and something that resembled headcheese, to which I have an insurmountable aversion.  Cheeses included Coach Farms triple cream goat (Batali keeps it in the family; his wife is the heir to the Coach fortune, known for their bags and domestic goat cheese), a parmesan, a mild ricotta, a gorgonzola dolce, and a fifth cheese that was never identified.  Otto serves their cheese plate with some of my favorite goodies: black truffle honey, brandied cherries, spicy sweet apricots.

When we did sit, food was fast and furious.  Spaghetti carbonara was just as decadent and evil as its meant to be.  A dish of penne, mascarpone, tomatoes, and eggplant was simultaneously delicate and rich.  Rigatoni with ground sausage reminded me of a better-executed rigatoni dish at Batali's Lupa on Thompson, but nevermind.  The penne with butternut squash and... butter made up for it.  

Pizza's are Naples-style, which means small and crispy, just my style.  Margheritas came with patches of fresh mozzarella and wide, healthy basil leaves.  Pepperoni looked better than anything Ray's ever served.  The pieces are so small and light they go down a stitch too easily.  

But wait!  There's more!  By far Otto's greatest contribution to the culinary world is their heavenly olive oil gelato.  This stuff is amazing on its own, but this time I indulged in the olive oil coppetta, gelato topped with a fennel brittle, fresh blood orange, and lime curd.  The gelato is remarkably fruity and one of my favorite things about this vast and crazy island. 

The other desserts were good but a bit too sweet for my personal palate.  Caramel coppetta combined caramel gelato, brownies, whipped cream, and candied pecans.  The black and white offered up a mousse-like chocolate gelato with chocolate chips and whipped cream.  Like all good New York restaurants, Otto changes their desserts with the seasons.  Right now, you can find huckleberry and Meyer lemon gelato a la carte, as well as a brilliantly colored blood orange sorbet.  

I'd forgotten how much I'd missed this place.  I'll be heading back soon, though probably not on a Saturday. 

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Otto Enoteca and Pizzeria

1 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10003

212.995.9559

The Rain In Spain

Despite my still-undefined illness and the cold rain, I did manage to keep up appearances last night at Bar Jamon. Had I not made plans in advance, I would have taken the opportunity to watch Grey's Anatomy over takeout. But my daily goal usually includes leaving my apartment once during the day. So mission accomplished.

Bar Jamon, essentially a more casual version of Casa Mono, with which it shares a wall, features small plates from Spain. Their wine list is more than extensive; it's encyclopedic. I'm not sure there's a more expansive Spanish wine list in New York City.

Like Otto, another of Mario Batali's hot spots, Bar Jamon sells wine by the quartino (more than a glass, less than half a bottle), making experimentation a very real possibility. We started with an old standby of mine, the Vega Sindoa 'El Chaparral' Garnacha from Navarra.

With that Garnacha, we snacked on many, many small plates. Pan con tomate is a Bar Jamon signature dish--crusty pieces of bread doused with tomato and garlic. A lomo (air dried pork loin) and roasted shitake mushroom plate came garnished with a fistful of my favorite salad green, arugula. The duck liver--billed simply as duck liver with apricots--was actually much more. The liver had been prepared au torchon and had the consistency of that other liver. You know, the ethically questionable one with the high fat content and creamy texture? Apricots were reconstituted dried specimens accented by mustard seeds. I could eat this every day for the rest of my life.

Cauliflower with salsa verde was simple and sublime in its simplicity: roasted cauliflower, caper-tomato vinaigrette. The dish was devoid of pork and, consequently, guilt. A slow-cooked and fried egg served over toasted bread had been listed as "Soft Egg Ramesco," but the romesco was actually part of the frisee salad on the side of the plate. The dish was lovely enough, though the egg could have seen a minute less in the pot.

Our tiny quail escabeche--a method similar to ceviche in which a marinade of acid cooks the meat--came with feet intact. It was a lovely touch, though I prefer my quail hot and crisp-skinned. The bird had nice flavor, however, and came atop ribboned greens and dried apricots and over some kind of fruit vinegar reduction, which I couldn't stop myself from dipping extra bread in.

When our plates had been cleared, we were still hungry, so we ordered the Coach Farm piquillo, an ample piquillo pepper stuffed with the iconic goat cheese, as well as the Serrano ham. The Serrano was smoky and just fatty enough, although it could have benefitted from that David Chang's red eye gravy that should be mandatory with all ham plates nationwide.

For dessert, churros with chocolate and cream sherry. The churros were a bit too cold but the chocolate was hot and spicy, made more authentic with the addition of some detectable chili. Two churros for one cup of chocolate was not nearly enough and we resorted to dipping our extra slices of bread in the cup to sop up those final hot gulps.

If you can get a seat--and at Bar Jamon the true challenge is getting a seat--you can do some serious damage here. My final missive? Can New York please be done with the backless stools already? It's killing my posture.

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Bar Jamon
125 E. 17th Street
New York, NY 10003
212.253.2773