Garment District Dinner

The NoMad. Will Guidara and Daniel Humm's latest joint foodie project. A dark bar leads to a formal host stand, where a maitre'd with an anemic sense of humor takes my coat and leaves me to fend for myself to meet my guest: through the carpeted dining room, into the back bar, and back into another room aptly called The Library, where books line the walls of a dark-paneled room. Instantly, it's a scene. Ben Leventhal of Eater saunters in; the black-clad cocktail waitress will not let us sit at a table for two, since tables "with books on them" are reserved. Except, it's a library. There are books everywhere.

Cocktail lists come in books, but the system is flawed, with pages sticking out every which way. Cute idea, if you can make it work. Cuter is the mythic bottles of booze, hiding in fat books on The Library's walls. Find one, and it's yours, but it's gauche to look with so many people staring into cocktails.

We are exported back into the dining room, which feels empty and full at the same time. Too many staff members. Too few diners. Too many people tripping through the room and knocking our chairs. We order a three course meal: two snacks, a seafood tower, and an entree for two with another appetizer in lieu of a side. Snacks arrived in seconds, thin pastry cigars stuffed with sweetbreads and a rillette jar of beef tartare with brioche squares. Our wine came. Seconds later, the seafood tower--a staggering $25 per person--came, too. It was, perhaps, the star of the evening. Uni in a sweet gelee with a brunoise of apple hit all the right notes, as did a clean oyster with a similar apple garnish. The fat from cubed hamachi was cut by shaved fresh white horseradish. King crab benefitted from lemon and lobster benefitted from just a hint of mayonnaise and fresh tarragon. A scallop shell played host to a chopped raw scallop with crunchy accoutrement.

But we still had another bottle of wine to tackle and food was coming with a surprising ferocity. And so we tacked on an additional course, which arrived shortly after our bread service, a soft and salty onion and potato flatbread. Next, tagliatelle with more king crab and perhaps a bit too much butter, mitigated only by a salad of chiffonaded sugar snap peas with pancetta and parmesan.

Then the entree arrived, a whole chicken brought for us to see first--lacquered brown skin, and a plume of fresh herbs. Minutes later, the chicken reemerged as a butchered, plated thing, a breast apiece, a smear of truffled pommes puree, three spears of white asparagus, and a medley of morels and chicken thighs in butter for us to share. A bone marrow appetizer, topped with croutons and anchovy paste, provided the heft necessary to sop up all that spare fat.

We reached the end and ordered dessert, a weird if impressive rumination on milk and honey (milk ice cream with honey, crisp meringue) and a peanut butter bar that brought to mind a sophisticated s'more. NoMad is still negotiating sea legs--uneven service, an abruptness when it comes to pushing food out--but the food itself isn't the problem. Nor should it be.

*

The NoMad

1170 Broadway

New York, NY 10001

212.796.1500

Mmm. Wells.

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

Thai Style

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

The Carnivore's Dilemma

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

Hungry Caterpillar

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

Where The Servers Dine

For a long time in New York, Blue Ribbon Brasserie has been the go-to for people in the biz.  I hadn't been in years and the last time I did go I found that it was more expensive than I thought it should have been.  But nevermind.  When you're hungry and it's past one, there are limited options.  So I took a cab to Sullivan Street. 

Maybe it's a sign of the times, but Blue Ribbon was dead.  Like, hammer a nail in the coffin dead.  This place used to be on a wait well past three in the morning.  And here we walk in and there's an empty dining room at our disposal.  Have people stopped eating out after work?

Well, perhaps.  Or perhaps it was just the Monday doldrums.  As usual, I ordered more than I should have.  We started with a foie gras terrine (it was 21 bucks, but then again, they gave us enough foie to feed a family of four) that came with toasted brioche and citrusy sliced pears.  I could have eaten this and this alone and it would have been sufficient.  But no.  I had to keep going.  

On to steamed perogies, stuffed with meat and served with sour cream and beets.  They were fine, and not my choice.  More than fine was the pu-pu platter style set up that arrived next, frenched chicken wings with piles of crumbled blue cheese and sticky sweet spareribs with a little flame to crisp everything over.  

And then... more.  Salt and pepper shrimp were jumbo and fried with the shells on.  I wasn't sure whether or not I was supposed to eat the shells so I ate some of them and peeled some.  The piece d' resistance, the dish for which Blue Ribbon is known, came last, three stocky marrow bones with French fry forks, more toasted brioche, an oxtail marmalade, and what looked like Maldon Sea salt.  The marrow was like the best butter you've ever had and, combined with the excessive amount of foie, it amounted to one of the more decadent meals I've enjoyed in recent memory.  If only it was always that easy to get into Blue Ribbon.  Sigh. 

*

Blue Ribbon Brasserie

97 Sullivan Street

New York, NY 10012

212.274.0404

Where The Hell Is Bushwick, Anyway?

I had to take a cab out there, since it was late.  I was supposed to be in and out of work in three hours.  Obviously that didn't happen.  A group of people were meeting at Roberta's for dinner.  They do this most Monday nights. 

By the time I arrived, a thousand things had been ordered, passed, re-ordered, etc.  I sat down and was passed a plate of bone marrow, sea salt, and jam.  Along came agrodolce radicchio with Marcona almonds, polenta with guanciale and a poached egg, roasted hen of the woods mushrooms, curly spaghetti with thick rounds of pepperoni, spaghetti with meatballs (each ball a different type of meat, no less). 

And then... pizzas.  White pizza with Napa cabbage and anchovies, pizza with speck and a fried egg on top, pizza with burnt broccoli and cabbage, pizza with pepperoni and sausage, too many pizzas to count.  A calzone, longer than my forearm and three times as wide, steamed when cut and revealed slices of pink proscuitto, a creamy white cheese, and more runny eggs.  

We drank red wine (bring your own) out of tiny mason jars.  Almond cakes drenched in honey and topped with homemade whipped cream did not outshine Stumptown coffee (order at your own risk: even the drip takes forever).  

I didn't go crazy because most of these things are on my "do not eat" list.  Everything in moderation.  I will say that Roberta's may be my new favorite place to hang out.  Long and rustic tables with mismatched chairs fill the dining room, which also boasts a pizza oven that churns out Naples-style pies, small and black-ish on the edges.  Christmas lights, books, old wooden waterskis, hanging skeletons, and other found items provide a junkyard decor, not unlike some barbecue places you might see down south.  Best of all, the outdoor space, open for dining in spring and summer, also plays host to a rusting Volkswagen bug. 

If you can figure out how to get to Bushwick, this might be one of New York's best-kept secrets.  Cash only.  

*

Roberta's

261 Moore Street

Brooklyn, NY 11206

718.417.1118

Marc-ing Territory

I used to be a regular at Landmarc in the Time Warner Center, partly because I used to work in midtown and Landmarc serves until 2 am nightly.  Also, the hot spot used to be known for this weird trick they pulled with their wine list: no wines served by the glass, and a list dominated by magnums and half-bottles.  If memory serves, there were no ordinary 750 ml bottles on the menu.  

Times may have changed, but Landmarc still bustles on a Friday.  Here's the thing about Landmarc.  In all of my years of late-night stopover appearances, I mostly only ever ate two (delicious) dishes: bone marrow with country bread and a rib eye cooked rare.  With French fries.  My new attempts at self-preservation (and the battle to wear a size 26 without unbuttoning my pants, a goal now reached) mean no tasty white crusty bread, which makes the bone marrow--toasted in the bone and served with sea salt, a demitasse, and caramelized onions--obsolete.  And my personal ban on red meat (for the most part--let's not go crazy here) means no more rib eye, although I allowed my brother to order the hulking 23-ouncer so that it stayed in close proximity.  

My realization, then, was that, without my unhealthy staples, Landmarc just wasn't what I remembered.  I ordered the quail, which came in a vastly oversized portion (honestly, who on earth needs to eat two birds for dinner?) wrapped in undercooked bacon.  Traditionally, quail is snapped at the breast bone and cooked meat side down so that the skin crisps.  The bacon got in the way of any crispy skin, and even the bacon itself, gummy and unpleasant, didn't do the birds justice. 

And why stuff a quail?  The meat should be the point of the game, and my meat was overdone in places and underdone in others.  Quail, like duck, should arrive medium-rare.  Some parts of my bird were cooked all the way through, while others looked as if they'd never seen that long grill in the back.  A stuffing of some kind of bready thing and sausage rendered the dish a gloppy mess.  I wouldn't order it again. 

I subsisted, then, on a tasty bite of my brother's rib eye and two vegetable side dishes, haricot verts that tasted strongly of celery (?) and roasted mushrooms that were perfect but not enough to live on.  Dessert may have been the highlight, and may still be the best sweet deal in town, a sampler of blueberry crisp, lemon tart, creme brulee, nutella eclair, chocolate mousse, and tiramisu, all for $16.  Cotton candy--you have to ask for it--arrived in traditional paper cones.  Flavor of the night was Dimetapp grape.  

I should mention, too, that Landmarc is still a bargain basement when it comes to wine.  We drank the 2005 Beckmen Grenache, because my mother won't drink anything French--"too dry"--or crisp--"I like it big and full-bodied."  Our tastes couldn't be farther apart.  Beckman Vineyards, based in the southern Californian enclave of Santa Ynez, produces rich and ripe wines at a variety of price points.  For $56, this was a great deal for an American wine, if you like that sort of thing.  

In fact, you'll find more than a lion's share of bottles between $50 and $60, nothing to scoff at in hard economic times.  Too bad the quail can't meet the same standards.  Next time, it's back to the drawing board.  Flour ban be damned: I want my marrow back.  

*

Landmarc at the Time Warner Center

10 Columbus Circle, 3rd Floor

New York, NY 10019

212.823.6123

Getting On The Bus

After four full days of cooking, imbibing cheap American beer, and fielding half-serious marriage proposals, it's high time to brave the trip south. I'll be retiring my apron in favor of my American Express card, retiring my knives in favor of corkscrews. My home kitchen is the type of kitchen that performs best as a reheating area, where canned soups and takeout containers transform themselves into adequate dinners. There is no Viking stove and ventilator hood, no granite countertop, no Cuisinart, no Sub-Zero. My Kitchen Aid is dusty from lack of use. In New York, accomplished home cooks who live alone become accomplished diners.

I did miss the familiarity of restaurants during my time out of New York. I missed wine lists and I missed my food friends. But I suspect that when I arrive back in town I'll feel equally nostalgic for the facility of cooking afforded by a nice kitchen and willing test subjects.

Well. The grass is always greener and one luxury always supplants the next. Next week I'll no doubt wax poetic about the bread stuffing I miss so completely, even as I sit at some hip New York joint eating the world's best bone marrow. You can't have it all. But as for my foray into entertaining, the cupboards are now officially closed until the next holiday impels me to drag out the skillets.