Italian Birthday Dinner

Believe it or not, there was space at the bar for four at Po in Carroll Gardens at 8pm on a Saturday night, not an opportunity we were willing to pass up given our experience at the Red Rose two weeks ago.  Po is one of those reliable Italian restaurants where you know everything will meet basic expectations.  They didn't disappoint. 

I like the amuse bouche of charred bread topped with olive oily white beans, mostly because I like charred bread.  Soft shell crabs, a personal favorite, are currently in season, inspiring off-menu specials city-wide.  Po was no exception.  Our soft shell appetizer came lightly battered, pan-seared, and served atop spinach and julienned vegetables with a pink aioli.  

I ordered with linguine with clams, which is my definition of the ultimate in carb comfort foods.  My objection regarding Po's version has to do with moderation rather than technique.  They use pancetta in their sauce, and I'm a purist and would prefer the dish without.  But I could have dealt with the added meat if it had been added to the dish with a lighter hand.  Lardon-sized chunks of pancetta overwhelmed the dish, which was otherwise tasty, even if they substituted cockles (very tiny) for my personally preferred littleneck clams. 

My friend, enjoying a birthday, ordered oricchete with broccoli rabe and sausage, but this dish was a twist on the traditional, made with a spicy red sauce.  Her husband's spaghetti swam with an ample helping of boar bacon.  It was... bacony.  

Dessert was simple and seasonal: ricotta ice-cream with a sauce of strawberries and rhubarb.  Wines at Po are affordable and, of course, Italian. 

It may not have been the kind of meal you have dreams about, but it was good enough for carb-cravers looking for a quick fix. 

*

Po

276 Smith Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

718.875.1980

You Really Do Need The Fifth Napkin

 Burgers are back.  It's probably the economy.  I like burgers well enough, but I don't eat them various often.  (I'd rather eat pizza.)  

Well, hey.  It's important to stay abreast of trends.  I heard good things about Hell's Kitchen's Five Napkin Burger so west it was.  

A few notes: 

1. The menu is insane, and I don't mean that in a good way.  I want to know who's ordering the maki rolls at a burger joint.

2. Really, really, are you serious?  $13.95 for a burger?

3. I've never been a fan of brioche-as-burger-bun.

The fries were thin, salty, passable.  The meat was tasty but a bit mushy and guilty of slipping from the bun.  The cheese completely overwhelmed the burger and it came with no lettuce or tomato, or mayonnaise, a big no-no in my book.  Also, I'm not crazy about caramelized onions on burgers.  I like them raw, for the crunch factor.  

The best part of this overpriced experiment was a side of pickles, the bread and butter kind.  They were sweet, salty, and flanked by onions, coriander, and mustard seeds.  If you're watching your wallet--or your figure--I'd suggest opting for the side over the entree.  

*

Five Napkin Burger

630 9th Avenue

New York, NY 10036

212.757.2277

Is Having A Second Branch The Same As Being A Chain?

I went to the newest addition to the Upper West Side, Zak Pelaccio's Fatty Crab on 76th and Broadway.  I can't help but think, in retrospect, that this restaurant is way too cool for the Upper West Side.  It's hard to envision a bunch of affluent, middle-aged Jews sitting down to a fried oyster banh mi and a plate of Malaysian chicken wings. 

But New York is all about expansion.  All great restaurants now have to have an "uptown" and "downtown" location.  It's the new hot thing.  Small spot downtown, where space is limited.  Large, sprawling space uptown that never feels full.  The American way.  

Needless to say, the larger Fatty Crab was not full on a Monday night.  We sat down and had cocktails, a Mai Tai for my date (adorned with brandied cherries) and a watermelonish cocktail for me (adorned with pansy petals).  We ordered the special, a fried oyster po' boy banh mi.  The oysters were good, but the sandwich lacked some of the subtlety of better versions.  Next came the so-called Fatty Dog, a spicy sausage covered in cilantro, pickles, radish, and onions.  My date declared it too spicy.  I don't believe in such terminology. 

My favorite by far was a sticky salty sweet noodle dish topped with baby shrimp, cockles, sliced chicken, steak strips, hot peppers, pineapple, and the motherload of brown sauce.  The noodles were long and similar in consistency to good udon.  The sauce was excessive, but it was the kind of excess I like.  We ordered more cocktails, a tequila-yuzu concoction for him and a bourbon-Pedro Ximenez drink for me.  The Fatty Duck arrived, three pieces of duck breast served on the bone over rice.  "The chef recommends you eat this with your hands," the waiter said.  We obliged.  It was messy and slightly overcooked, though the plentiful breast fat made up for it.  I would have eaten the crab special, too, crabs doused in chili paste and served over white bread.  But it would have been too much food. 

We ordered dishes that are native to the UWS branch of the restaurant, which meant not eating some of the dishes I love more (sliders, tea sandwiches, rice noodles with Chinese sausage), but that was part of the point.  

I prefer the frenetic, intimate setting of the Hudson Street restaurant.  And I don't see the point in opening a nearly identical restaurant in the same city.  Regardless, I could eat those noodles again and again. 

*

Fatty Crab

2170 Broadway

New York, NY 10024

212.496.2722

Age Is Just A Number (Or So They Say)

I bring that up because my most vivid memory of Lupa, Mario Batali's bustling Thompson Street joint, is from my 21st birthday.  That seems like ages ago now.  September 11th had just happened.  My family rented out the back room and people drank bellinis and we all ate charcuterie and rigatoni with breadcrumbs.  

It was a transcendent meal, but it was also a long time ago, so it's always amazing to me that Lupa never suffers from diner boredom.  They're busy seven days a week.  Their menus don't change dramatically but people still go back.  

I stopped in for a midday snack yesterday.  I had the shaved asparagus with pecorino, a plate of ricotta gnocchi with a sausage bolognese, and some bavette (thin linguine) with black pepper and cheese.  The bavette was the best.  It was simple, it was rustic, it was al dente, and it was perfectly satisfying.  Which, I guess, is why people go back.  You can get what you want.  No fuss, no muss.  No hundred dollar check, either.  The bellinis lack the spirit of invention, but they are delicious.  Maybe that's all food needs to be sometimes: delicious. 

*

Lupa

170 Thompson Street

New York, NY 10012

212.982.5089

Flushing Is A Foreign Country

I went there for dinner because it's cheap and exotic and because I love the scared look on people's faces when I try to get them to try weird Chinese stuff.  Last year, the New York Times wrote about Flushing, calling attention to the dingy (and very un-mall-like) Golden Mall, the bottom floor of which houses a food court (if you can call it that).   One of the court stalls interested me.  It was a place called Lan Zhou Handmade Noodles.  

In the grimy basement, a Chinese man with a bluetooth headset and baseball cap took dough and made noodles to order.  That involved smacking the dough down on a cold surface and winding it over his hands until he had perfectly uniform pieces the width of spaghetti.  He cut these into boiling broth and served them to us fresh.  Soups range from the basic (vegetable) to the meaty (oxtail) to the exotic (pig intestine), but the broths are all the same: rich pork and beef bone broth with a hint of star anise.  

My soup also had salty bok choy and scallions.  The noodles themselves had a spicy, star anise thing going on as well.  They were springy.  We were the whitest people in that windowless mall. 

I stopped at a bakery two doors down for a bubble tea.  I didn't get the name.  Unlike most bubble teas I have had in my lifetime, this one wasn't made from the flavored powders so commonly found in Chinatown.  Instead, my barista pureed fresh watermelon with ice and served it cold with lots of tapioca.  

Finally, I stopped at a food cart for snacks to take home.  I bought steamed pork buns (4/$1.25), doughy fist-sized balls stuffed with dumpling filling, and a large (and somewhat tasteless) scallion pancake that came wrapped in parchment paper.  My loot cost a whopping $11 total, and that included the trendy bubble tea.  

If you can stand a trip on the 7, or have a car like I do, it's worth the trip.  

*

Lan Zhou Handmade Noodles

Golden Shopping Mall

41-28 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11355

Reprise

Maybe I'm obsessed with the idea of making leftovers delicious because, growing up, just about half of my meals at home were leftovers.  And not necessarily good ones.  There was a lot of day-old chicken and dry pork chops and cold green beans re-steamed in the microwave.  I'm not unhappy that chapter of my life has closed. 

Yesterday, the rain brought out the homemaker in me and I made turkey chili, the same version I made for the Superbowl in January.  To refresh tired memories, that recipe involves ground turkey, poblano peppers, green peppers, corn, tomatillos, kidney beans, onion, and a tomato base.  It's spicy, hearty, and perfect for wet weather.  

But after a day of chili, I was sufficiently bored.  I started thinking about this sandwich I had a few weeks ago at Baoguette.  It was a banh mi made with the filling from a Sloppy Joe.  

Could I do it?  Could I make a knock-off banh mi with leftover chili?  

I had to make pickles first.  My pickles were a sweeter kind that I thought would be closer to the Vietnamese style.  I didn't use daikon, but I did use thin-sliced pickling cucumbers, shredded carrot, sliced hot green peppers, and white onions.  I salted them to draw out the moisture and then rinsed and dried them before putting them in the brine I had boiled and then cooled.  The brine was an apple cider vinegar-base brine, with the addition of kosher salt, cane sugar, allspice berries, cloves, mustard seed, a bay leaf, whole corriander, and water.  Most pickling recipes will tell you that pickles need to sit for days or weeks before they're done.  But with a mild sweet pickle recipe like this one, a few hours is more than sufficient.  

Next, my own version of kewpie mayonnaise.  Kewpie mayonnaise is the Asian condiment of choice and it appears on sandwiches everywhere.  It's mayonnaise with MSG added and it's pretty delicious, but not exactly good for you.  I made my own spread with olive oil-based mayonnaise, sriracha, and a teaspoon or so of fish sauce (a traditional condiment used on banh mi).  

I used whole-wheat baguettes, sliced and toasted, as my banh mi base.  Then the mayonnaise, the pickles, the chili and, finally, fresh-torn cilantro.  The sandwich tasted very much like the banh mis I know and love.  

Old Skool

The Italian restaurant I ate at with three friends last night had a lot more to do with hunger pains and being in a "cool" neighborhood on a Saturday night than it did with any editorial choice on our part.  Our first choice restaurant, actually a much "cooler" joint, told us it was a 40 minute wait. I just couldn't wait that long.  

And so we wandered over towards the forgotten, old-timer Italian places that are holdovers from when Carroll Gardens used to be Italian rather than "seasonal and sustainable American."  That's how we found Red Rose.  

The decor made a friend of mine shudder.  Literally.  The chairs had these black lacquered backs that were probably cool n contemporary kitchens in 1987.  The servers wore red polo shirts and black pants and when we walked in, the owner, bearing an uncomfortable resemblance--in both physique and style of dress--to the James Gandolfini of television lore, commented, "boy, this neighborhood sure has changed."

Well, nevermind.  We're snobs, but we're up for a challenge.  Semolina bread arrived seriously hot with a ramekin of balsamic vinegar and a handful of those tiny peel-back butter packets that I have not seen since 1.) my last breakfast in a diner, or 2.) an Italian meal I ate in, oh, 1987.  We ordered "Tony's Famous Rice Balls," because how could we not.  We ordered two.  That was excessive.  Each was the size of a proper goiter.  They were gooey inside, one stuffed with ground beef and peas (decent), and one stuffed with cheese (tasteless). They both came with watery marinara, as did our hot antipasto plate: fried shrimp, fried mozzarella, baked clams, fried calamari.  I haven't had that much fried anything in front of me in a very, very long time. 

The baked clams were really good.  I swear.  But the shrimp tasted suspiciously fishy (if hot oil and batter can't mask bad seafood, what, I ask you, can?).  The fried mozzarella was nothing to write home about, but it was decent enough.  

And then.  Entrees.  

I ordered chicken marsala.  My friend swore he could hear them pounding the chicken in the back--we sat near the kitchen.  The portion was massive, flanked by all sorts of wilty green veggies (zucchini, broccoli rabe, broccoli, string beans) bathing in olive oil and garlic.  Also on the plate?  Rigatoni with that watery marinara.  Everything was fine, though there was too much of it.  

Across from me, a friend had ordered grouper oreganata.  She pronounced it "disgusting," but the grouper, a fish not native to the east coast anyway, was always a risky gamble. 

To my right, spaghetti and meatballs threatened to strangle my friend, who seemed unable to make even a tiny dent in her massive meal.  Across from her, her husband pushed around baked ziti, which wasn't really all that baked.  Thirty minutes into the endeavor, I heard him say, "Ricotta cheese, where did you come from?"

Places like this need to exist.  They are culturally important and they can, at their finest, make you wonder if there's anything more satisfying in this god forsaken world than a bottle of pasta and a warm piece of bread.  

Not last night, though.  Sigh.  Not last night. 

*

Red Rose

315 Smith Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

718.625.0963

Outdoor Seating

For a friend's birthday last night, I headed out to the newly re-opened Trout in Carroll Gardens.  Trout is cute and reminiscent of a bad Caribbean beach bar.  And I mean that in the best way possible.  

The menu is limited.  Our burger arrived on a slightly stale bun and our Niman Ranch hot dog, while flavorful and large, lacked the adornments I have come to expect (what, no onions?).  Also, they were out of the "watermelon with wildflower honey," which is probably meant to be a mid-summer special anyway.  

But the kitsch was worth the trip.  My friends drank hurricanes out of plastic Coors Light cups.  Those drinks, never quite as potent in the islands, came topped with a heavy hand's worth of Bacardi 151, enough to get the average drinker more than averagely soused.  For the record.  

Today, I ventured out in the rain once more for yet another outdoor dining experience.  Habana Outpost, in Fort Greene, is really the kind of restaurants that all restaurants should be aiming to replicate.  They're sustainable.  In the realest way possible.  They collect rainwater from gutter drains into big buckets.  They use plastic cup made from recycled corn.  Solar panels above the restaurant patio collect and store energy.  A smoothie blender is actually powered by--get this--a human on a bicycle. 

So I could look past the cash only thing (a pet peeve), as well as the fact that the Cuban didn't live up to Casellula's Pig's Ass.  Anyway, the corn on a stick, grilled and rolled in queso blanco, lime juice, and chili powder, more than made up for the passable sandwich.  

*

Trout

102 Smith Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201

718.935.1294

*

Habana Outpost

757 Fulton Street

Brooklyn, NY 11217

718.858.9500

Breakfast Of Champions

I had some tasty things at Roberta's last night, most notably a spicy ramp pizza featuring charred ramps.  (In their cheeky way, they called the pizza the Stephen Hawking, a tart joke I didn't exactly find funny.)  Afterwards, I stopped at a deserted Italian ice store in Maspeth--fyi, driving to Bushwick is easier than taking the train--and had myself a rainbow ice like the kind my dad used to buy me at the Park Slope pizza joints when I was six or seven.  But enough about that. 

When I woke up and tried to convince my boyfriend to take me out to brunch, he countered with a request for breakfast in bed.  Um, no.  I do NOT like the idea of food anywhere near my clean sheets.  But I did agree to raid the fridge and make breakfast/brunch for us both. 

I had three eggs.  I whisked them together with a little half and half (no milk in the house), some sea salt and cracked black pepper.  In a small frying pan, I heated some chopped prawns, asparagus, and red chili oil leftover from Chinese takeout night (Tuesday).  I added the eggs and, voila.  Spicy shrimp scrambled eggs.  

Next up, pork belly fried rice.  I chopped the leftover sliced pork belly and also used the chili oil from that dish to start the sautee.  Then I added a carton of brown rice and cooked it until the rice began to adhere to the bottom of the pan.  In Spanish cooking, the burnt brown ends are considered the prize of the paella.  

Finally, I threw halved whole-wheat English muffins under the broiler until they were just short of black.  These I served with kimchi butter that I bought at Momofuku Milk Bar last Sunday.  The kimchi butter was spicy.  It also had rendered bacon in it (I kind of feel like they should have told me this before, but whatever).  My companion claimed it tasted like a Slim Jim.  I'm not sure if I disagree, but it doesn't really matter; it was still good.  

Asian leftovers may be the best equipment for a spontaneous meal, assuming you can handle the spice in the morning.  As for me, I have an iron stomach.  

Changing Weather

On Thursday, I went out to Park Slope to see a friend's show and decided to stop for a bite on 7th Avenue at a tiny place appropriately called Little D Eatery.  Little D has all kinds of small plates, but I kept it simple.  A running nightly special includes a whole grilled fish, and on Thursday that fish was striped bass, a fish I like very much.  I asked for the bass filleted, and it came with bright green olive oil and preserved lemon.  

Pickled red cabbage was deliciously crunchy and roasted asparagus did right by us.  As a reward for such a healthy meal, I ordered the root beer float, made with root beer ice-cream and served in a cold mug with Virgil's root beer.  It was a little too root beery; it might have been more clever to serve root beer ice-cream with vanilla soda.  

Friday was a series of small meals.  I grabbed a slice at the new Roman-style pizza joint on Park Avenue called Golosi.  Roman-style means the pizza is sold by the inch, and it also means that you can get tiny portions of a lot of different varieties of pizza, which, for someone like myself, is kind of heaven.  

I only wish the pizza had been better.  It was crispy, sure, but it was also fairly flavorless.  The sauce had no bite.  It was like flatbread, only less interesting.  I thought a scoop of birthday cake gelato would redeem the mediocre pizza, but, alas, the gelato was grainy and not at all creamy like it is in Italy.  

Later in the evening, I stopped by Kampuchea on the Lower East Side for another small meal.  The pickle plate involved cucumbers, white onions, daikon, and spicy cabbage.  Yum.  Grilled corn came topped with kewpie mayonnaise, chili pepper, and toasted coconut.  Sound gross?  It isn't.  Mayonnaise and corn is effing amazing.  Kampuchea also offers, for a scant $17, a tasting of their sandwiches (choose three).  I chose a bacon sandwich, a meatball sandwich, and a barbecue pork sandwich.  All resembled the classic banh mi (baguette, pickled veg, cilantro) and none was as good as my recent banh mi adventures, but for the price, I could hardly complain.  

*

Little D Eatery

434 7th Avenue

718.369.3144

*

Golosi

125 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017

212.922.1169

*

Kampuchea Noodle Bar

80 Rivington Street

New York, NY 10002

212.529.3901