Where It's Hip To Be... Hip

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.

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Rye

247 S. 1st Street

Brooklyn, NY 11211

718.218.8047

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Penny Licks

158 Bedford Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11211

718.384.0158

Flexing My Mussels

On the train to meet my friend for Friday Night Lights, or whatever you want to call it, I flipped to the 'Tables for Two' section in my most recent (ahem, unread) New Yorker.  The week's review was, somewhat surprisingly, for the very restaurant I was meeting my friend to explore, a newly opened seafood joint on the upper east side by the name of Flex Mussels. 

The name sucks, it really does.  It may be one of the worst names and best concepts currently operational in the City.  Flex is actually a Canadian import, eh.  The original Flex Mussels calls Prince Edward Island, the source of the restaurant's ample mussel selection, home.  

If you are truly a mussel lover--the kind that even eats the half-opened ones, the kind who drinks the broth with the mussel's shell, the kind that's in it for the seafood and not the butter--you will like (nay, love) Flex Mussels.  The conceit is successful because it is focused and because it does not veer off into the territory of other bivalves.  Flex offers six oysters on the half-shell, hailing from both the east and west coasts.  They offer a crab cake, a "fish of the day," a steak, and a few nondescript appetizers.  They offer one very good plate of smoked salmon that comes with dressed arugula, chivey sour cream, and a caper tapenade.  

And then there's the mussels. 

I lost count of how many mussels Flex actually offers, but they come in three or four separately priced categories, from about $16 to $20 per pound of mussels.  They range from simple to sublime (the most elaborate and opulent dish we sampled was the Champagne and black truffle variety), but the offerings never trick you into believing that the dish is about anything more than the mussels.  

My friend preferred the obvious luxury of shaved black truffles in our pricier mussel dish, while I gravitated to the rich southern-style suckers, which swam in a broth of ham, grilled corn, butter, and cream.  The night's special was a miso-based broth with sliced duck and ginger, a tempting alternative to my pork-based option, but my friend felt uninspired by the Asian influence, so we stayed more local with our choices.  

Of course, the best part of mussel-eating is the leftover broth and Flex does justice to this byproduct by providing perfect bread with charred edges and a chewy interior, great for absorbing all that butter and wine and who-knows-what-else at the bottom of the pan.  

Desserts were classic, indulgent, and tasty.  I could easily have eschewed restraint and ordered all four, the blueberry-stuffed doughnuts, the red velvet cake stuffed with cream cheese frosting, the caramel apple brioche, and the chocolate float with salty caramel.  But that would have been kind of gross.  So we settled on doughnuts and red velvet cake.  The doughnuts were soft like beignets, piped full of warm blueberry jam, and floating in a pool of vanilla cream.  Red velvet cake arrived looking more like a jelly roll.  The ice cream at its side, butter-and-sugar flavored and topped with salty-sweet pecans, couldn't have been more perfect for my particular palate. 

The restaurant's greatest failure was its wine by the glass program.  Sure, they ordered Muscadet by the glass; not to would have been a criminal offense.  But where were the off-dry rieslings, the chenin blancs?  By the glass, they were nowhere to be found, leaving me and my bivalves to slurp through adequate domestic pinot gris.  

But judging by the line and bar-crowd that had accumulated during the course of a meal, such menial quibbles do not make or break a restaurant.  

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Flex Mussels

174 E. 82nd Street

New York, NY 10028

212.717.7772

A Weekend In Queens

I was invited to be the date of my college roommate at a Long Island City wedding last night and, being the type of person who never passes up free food or booze, I was obliged to attend. No one should ever expect anything good from wedding food, even if the event comes billed as "fancy." Wedding food routinely fails to impress. I should know. This was my twelfth wedding since 2005.

Actually, the central conflict of a wedding I attended over the summer revolved around an overcooked steak that I politely passed on. I was accused of being a bad guest and I don't take criticism well. These days, I push the food around to conceal my distrust of banquet food.

Given the fact that I entered last night's soiree with diminished expectations, things could really only look up. So I was pleasantly surprised when a moist red velvet wedding cake (the ultimate Magnolia Bakery cliche, I know) made an appearance at my place setting. I can unequivocally say that the cake--threaded with layers of cream cheese frosting--was the best wedding cake I've ever had. That, and the somewhat majestic view of the city, unencumbered by any familial or other obligations, made the night very worthwhile.

Today's Queens adventure would have been the perfect remedy for a hangover had I overimbibed last night, which, incidentally, I didn't. A drive to Flushing yielded brilliant dim sum at Gala Manor (right off Main Street, for the intrepid). Baby clams came swimming in a thick and salty brown sauce. Stuffed shisito peppers and soy sauce were fresh and bright. Several varieties of dumplings (shrimp, mushroom and shrimp, vegetable and shrimp, pork and... shrimp?) and a weird mochi stuffed and fried with something unidentifiable were the makings of the perfect brunch.

Twenty-five dollars poorer--perhaps the steal of the century, FYI--we ventured to the Flushing Mall, where my friend begged me not to cruise the stalls of the food court. But I had to. And left vindicated, honey dew bubble tea in hand. My friend had never tried a bubble tea herself but I won her over.

My conclusion, weekend's festivities done, is that one can spend a perfectly awesome weekend in the boroughs without even touching foot to island. I'm no anti-Manhattaner, but maybe the perfect respite for winter city blues lies on the other side of the river.

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Gala Manor
3702 Main Street
Flushing, NY 11354
718.888.9232