Japanese Home Style

Family Recipe, an LES project spearheaded by Chef Akiko Thurnauer, may be one of the best small plates joints to pop up in Manhattan. Small plates restaurants normally force me to a.) overorder and b.) overspend, but Family Recipe required no such sacrifice. We were a table of four and ate a wide cross section of the menu without overindulging. And all this for sixty dollars a person, alcohol included.

I will overlook the somewhat negligent service for now, given the fact that the one working waitress (I get it; it's a Monday night) spoke parsed English and struggled to keep her tables cleared and fed. In fact, an oversight on her part bought us a free bottle of Valpolicella, sent out gratis for our troubles. Anyway, the fun, tasty food made up for lapses in service. Chicken wings were salty and crispy and came with tiny spears of celery and a creamy pink sauce. Battered and fried okra and shisito peppers with salt and lime provided ballast without too much bulk. Delicate lobster dumplings came with cracked peanuts and soy sauce and a swipe of mustard and pork buns, reminiscent of the Chang variety, approached perfection with a side bowl of Kewpie mayonnaise.

Then came pan fried shrimp over corn and rice cakes in curry, somewhere between the texture of risotto and a rice krispy treat. Pullman toast on the side of a plate of Prince Edward Island mussels with nori and a rich, buttery sauce sopped up whatever was left over. Pork ribs were meaty, sticky, salty, sweet. And kobe burgers came with a tiny bowl of potato chips. Everywhere, competing textures helped the meal to its acme. Even dessert--a coconut rice pudding with a bruleed sugar crust--was made more complete with textural contrast. I don't know much about Chef Akiko's family heritage of recipes, but the food she puts forth, right down to a carafe of sake sangria with watermelon and strawberries, is soul-satisfying.

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Family Recipe

231 Eldridge Street

New York, NY 10002

212.529.3133

Shramp

Here in South Carolina, people eat seafood all day long. Oysters and shrimp, fried, boiled, and roasted, thems the name of the game. I had done my due diligence before flying out and located a few places identified by Charleston locals as "authentic," places I felt obligated to hit up during my short stay. So, after an afternoon cruising the Charleston Battery, home to some of the most princely homes I've ever seen, I made a pit stop at Jestine's Kitchen.

Just my luck: shrimp and grits were the blue plate special of the day. Sauteed spicy jumbo shrimp came floating in grits with peppers and brown gravy. I ordered a side of fried okra, crispy and perfect. My friends ordered macaroni and cheese and fried green tomatoes and corn bread with butter and honey.

We drank teas, sweet and otherwise.

For dessert, we ceded all control to the sugar monsters of the south and ordered more than we should have, courting diabetes with decadent coconut cream pie, banana pudding topped with fresh meringue, and a Coca-Cola cake topped with the sweetest frosting I have ever tasted in my entire life.

It was the quintessential southern experience and the perfect diet-crasher. Good thing tomorrow's run will burn off anything left behind.

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Jestine's Kitchen
251 Meeting Street
Charleston, SC 29401
843.722.7224