A Full Belly

NYC: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: Hemsin, Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar, Cesca, Mix, Café La Palette

NYTimes Diner's Journal William Grimes visits Hemsin (39-17 Queens Boulevard (near 39th Street), Sunnyside, Queens):

Hemsin is an easygoing restaurant with deli counters on the left displaying all manner of kebabs and flaky pastries. Big ovens behind the cases hold the secret to the restaurant's success. All day and all night they produce pide, the puffy, round flat breads, crisp at the edges and chewy in the center, that make the foundation for Hemsin's so-called Turkish pizzas. Lahmacun, a $2.95 pizza snack, is topped with ground lamb and assorted vegetables chopped into bits.

"Meat pita" sounds unappealing, but it's one of the best of the pizza-style dishes on the menu, topped with small chunks of lamb and sautéed bell pepper. Other toppings include kashar cheese, sun-dried beef and sausage.

The rest of the menu is devoted to classic Turkish dishes.

Links To Go

Mario Batali cooks for Gotham Gal.

Eat This New York - a documentary "capturing the pure grit it takes to open a restaurant in New York." On the Sundance Channel.

Opening Soon, a series on the Fine Living channel is similar in concept.

A preview of the restaurants coming to the Time Warner building.

Mix: Fun and cool, or lost in translation?

Two months since its opening, Mix continues to elicit a mixed reaction from food critics, primarily in terms of the dining experience. Last week William Grimes wrote of Mix, "Someone needs to tell Mr. Ducasse that Americans, even if they do watch a lot of television and have short attention spans, do not need to be distracted every second that they are in a restaurant. Mix is fun, but a little less fun might work just as well."

Adam Platt of New York Magazine writes: "Of course, Monsieur Ducasse’s version of a good-old fashioned meal is different from yours and mine. Mix may be a spin-off, but being a Ducasse restaurant, it has nothing casual about it. The tone of the place. . . is elaborately, even purposely confused. It’s a mad jumble of transatlantic styles and intentions, an entire restaurant lost in translation." and ". . . some of the dishes have a stilted, off-key quality."

Today, Steve Cuozzo cries "Robbery!" today over the prices at Mix:

Certain places flagrantly take customers to the cleaners. Two weeks ago, I called out new Alain Ducasse-backed Mix over its obscene prices, which much of the foodie press seems determined to deny. The Times reported Mix's pre-fixe dinner options as $48 or $58. It unfathomably chose not to mention the $72 option - the only one that includes a real entr‚e, and the one most diners will want.
The new Zagat Survey ranks Mix as "E" for expensive. In the zany world of Zagat, "E" means $31-$50 for dinner per head with one drink and a tip. At Mix, $31 will cover a glass of wine plus tax and tip, leaving maybe $4 for food. Eat up! Pretending prices don't matter is unfair both to customers and restaurants.

But never fear, dear foodies and fans of Monsieur Ducasse! Egullet.com's Steven "Fat Guy" Shaw has come to the rescue, defending Ducasse from the haters who clearly do not understand the concept of fun and tremble in the shadow of cool! He writes,

NYC: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: Chennai Garden, Django, Bao Noodles, Sunburnt Cow

NYTimes $25 and Under Eric Asimov reviews Chennai Garden (129 East 27th Street (Lexington Avenue)):

I could have ordered off the regular menu, but the room was crowded and everybody else was lining up at the all-you-can-eat buffet, so I joined them. Not too long after, I got in line again, and again after that. The selection was small, but the food was fresh and lively, and at $5.95, it was definitely cheap.

. . . With fond memories of the lunch buffet at Chennai Garden, I went back for dinner. By night, the menu emphasizes South Indian specialties, like dosas, huge crepes rolled into cylinders around fillings like potatoes mashed with onions, and utthappam, smaller pancakes studded with onions and topped with vegetable mixtures. It also offers vegetarian specialties from Gujarat, on the western end of India's midsection, and the Punjab, to the north.

BEST DISHES Steamed rice-and-lentil cakes; rice-and-lentil bhel poori; boiled chickpea snack; boiled potato snack; masala dosas; paper masala dosas; mysore sada dosas; rava dosas; black chickpea and onion curry.

Brunch at Popover Cafe

Clockwise from top: popovers, capricorn omelette (goat cheese, wild mushrooms, spinach), flopover ("eggy baked pancake filled with fruit and cinnamon sugar topped with sour cream"), fruit salad, and freshly squeeze orange juice.

Yesterday, brunch at Popover Cafe with Shannon and Jason.

Popover Cafe
551 Amsterdam Ave (between 86th and 87th St.)
Reviews: Citysearch, Digital City, NYTimes

Links To Go

• Food Blog photos from Aquavit.
• Chefs on Paper -- new cookbooks by a few of the city's chefs.
• VittlesVamp attends the Urban Harvest event and survives.

Japanese Rice Cooking Contest

Thanks to an invitation from the most generous Souris, I attended the taping of the Kumai Harvest Japanese Rice Cooking Contest Semi-Finals, sponsored by NHK Television, to be broadcast in Japan. There were over 300 entrants in the contest, and three were chosen to compete in the semi-finals yesterday in New York City. The winner of the semi-finals will be flown to Japan to compete in the finals. The contestants had a limited amount of time to each prepare a cold dish, hot dish, and dessert which were judged by three professional chefs -- Mark Miller, Ming Tsai, and Michel Nischan.

Audience participation was encouraged and enthusiastic. We all were given samples of the contestants' hot dishes, and members of the audiences were selected to taste the contestants' desserts (including me!). I was impressed by all of the competitors and their creativity; each was dish imbued with the chef's unique personality. Best of luck to yesterday's winner in the Finals!

The Chefs, from left to right:Mark Miller, Ming Tsai, and Michel Nischan.
The Fans, from left to right: Jane, Robin, Souris, Me

This is how the professionals do it.

Last week while walking past the newly opened Mandler's: The Original Sausage Company, we witnessed a food photo shoot in action. Always prepared, Anil captured the moment:

And now the finished product has appeared online:

Openings

NYMetro restaurant openings for the week of November 3rd:

Mandler’s: The Original Sausage Co. (26 East 17th Street): ". . . [S]ausages are nine and a half inches long, swaddled in custom-made rolls—an Americanized version of the crusty Euro paradigm—and topped with everything from tahini and jalapeños to horseradish mustard. Besides offering the traditional wurst, Mandler’s sells seafood, veggie, and poultry varieties, some available sans bun as “healthy plates.” But don’t expect Mandler to stray too far from his cherished sausage sandwich. “I’m not a food person,” he says, “but this is the love of my life.” "

I Tre Merli Bistro (183 West 10th Street): ". . . [T]he nook aspires to be more hangout than bustling scene, which accounts for entrée prices no higher than $14 and, eventually, all-day service, from eggs and doughnuts for breakfast to panini and salads at lunch and Italian steak-frites for dinner."

Chai Home Kitchen (124 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn): ". . . But throughout her French-kitchen stints, she never lost the vibrant Thai seasoning that enlivens Chai’s grilled-beef and roast-duck salads, served on artisanal Thai pottery. Sweet Chinese sausage with chili vinaigrette, Vietnamese pork chops, and vegetarian duck add to Chai’s Pan-Asian appeal, as will the Japanese tapas Fukuda plans to serve with sake once the liquor license arrives. There’s more than one way, after all, to curry favor."

Links To Go

• Rachelle visits Amy Ruth's -- it all looks finger lickin' good.
• Gothamist visits Daisy May's BBQ USA. Also looks finger lickin' good, but I'm still partial to Carolina style barbecue.
• Related: Queen's Big Island Bar-B-Que team competes in the Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue Contest, the first team from NYC to be invited to the contest.
• Walker New York visits The Biltmore Room.
• Richard on Zagat, The Grocery, and William Grimes: "The Grocery's high rating has set the New York restaurant world (and the chefs at The Grocery) in a tizzy. How could it have the chutzpah to compete head-on with such food lions as Le Bernardin, Bouley, Daniel, etc.? Well, I've got news for food snobs like Grimes, sometimes the simplest things trump the most complex."

Timeout Cheap Eats

Timeout New York's Cheap Eats issue is out (not available online without an online subscription). Their picks are organized into food groups, including "The 24-hour Snacker," "The Daring Diner," "The Compulsive Carnivore," "The Carbo Loader," "The Liquid Dieter," "The Kosher Keeper," "The Food Snob," "The Tofu Fighters," "The Galloping Gourmet," and. "the Total Cheapass".

The "Food Snob" category includes 5 "epicureans" and their favorite cheap eats. Jeffery Steingarten likes the "succulent, prize-winning" hamburger at Peter Luger for lunch ($6), an order of xiao long bao at Joe's Ginger ($4.25), and Otakfuku's okonomoyaki (savory pancakes) ($7).

My favorite cheap eats would have to include an order of dumplings at Fried Dumpling ($1), $1 Sushi at Mori, and brunch at 7A.

What are your favorite cheap eats?

NYC: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: Mix, 50 Carmine, Hacienda de Argentina, Pop's Pierogi, Sumile, Blue Sky Bakery

NYTimes Restaurants William Grimes reviews Mix and gives it two stars (68 West 58th Street):

Mr. Ducasse, the chef with the galaxy's worth of Michelin stars, and Mr. Chodorow, the club-minded restaurateur responsible for China Grill, Hudson Cafeteria and Rocco's on 22nd, have a bottomless bag of tricks that they are dying to show you at their fun house. For starters, a waiter presents a marble toast rack with neat triangles of toasted country bread and three little ceramic pots containing peanut butter, Concord grape jelly and salted butter. Then comes the recitation, explaining the restaurant's philosophy. Listen hard, because it is confusing. Mix, one is told, aims to build a bridge between the Atlantic coasts of the United States and France, with homey dishes from both countries, although many of the dishes seem to have nothing to do with the Atlantic.

With a flourish, the waiter then presents the day's appetizers, or the First of Mix. There are five, lined up on a narrow shelf supported, like a hospital stretcher, by an X-shape steel frame on wheels. They are encased in clear glass vessels with lids, making them look a little like leftovers from the refrigerator. Or perhaps they are meant to suggest an in-flight meal, although airplanes do not travel trans-Atlantic bridges.

At any rate, there is not a lot of time to think about it, because the waiter must now explain the menu formula. Listen hard, because it is confusing. Believe me, there really is a difference between Mix of Mix and Mix Prix Fixe, two menu options, and diners who pay close attention will be sure to figure it out.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Bouillabaisse; duck ham with corn and chorizo; glazed shrimp with eggplant; elbow macaroni with ham and truffle jus; veal blanquette; bison pot-au-feu; pork with barbecue sauce; chocolate pizza.

Now that I have read nearly a dozen reviews of Mix, I think I can safely summarize the critics' verdict: "A pricey mixed bag." But in case you need to read more, here's another review.

Links To Go

5 great writers, 5 great restaurants

7-Eleven Unveils New Hot Beverage Station: "At 7-Eleven's new "hot beverage stations," customers will have a choice of more than 1,300 combinations. A minimum of five varieties of coffee, four flavored syrups, seven different tea bags, five toppings, creamers, sweeteners and all types of milk will be available at each station. 7-Eleven's customers will make the drinks themselves, guided by store suggestions, thus avoiding waiting in line to order. The drinks will cost about $1 per cup instead of the typical coffeehouse prices hovering between $3 and $4."

How to chop onions without the tears.

Events at Suba

"In New York, it is not unusual to eat below street level. But Suba is something else. The descent to the dining room is a plunge into the netherworld, a series of twists and turns along a staircase made from industrial grating that delivers you, eventually, to a weirdly lighted windowless brick room. The platformlike dining area is surrounded by a moat of rushing water, illuminated to give off a fitful, flickering light."

Suba is hosting two series of events, suitable to its unique dining environment. First, The Diner in the Dark Chef Series to benefit the City Harvest charity. Waiters wearing night-vision goggles lead diners into the blackened dining room at Suba. Without being able to see their food, diners must rely on their other senses. A different guest chef will prepare a five-course dinner each week for four consecutive weeks. For reservations, call 212-982-5714, ext. 3. Schedule as follows:

October 27 - Alex Urena (Marseille)
November 3 - Chris Santos (Mojo)
November 10 - Alex Garcia (Calle Ocho)
November 17 - Anita Lo (Annisa)

Ed. Note: This particular event would be a great way to experience the Suba environs without the risk of submitting yourself to Chef Stephane Buchholzer's bizarre food pairings.

The Grocery

According to the 2004 Zagat Survey published today, the seven best restaurants in New York City are Le Bernardin, Daniel, Peter Luger, Nobu, Bouley, Jean Georges and the Grocery.

The Grocery? You may be forgiven for asking. The restaurant is a modest 30-seat, one-room storefront on Smith Street between Union and Sackett Streets in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, and does not even serve liquor.

Perhaps no one was more surprised by the news than the owners of the Grocery themselves.

"I don't think we're doing earth-shattering food," said Charles Kiely, who owns the restaurant with his partner, Sharon Pachter, when he was told of the Grocery's position. "We're just a really good neighborhood restaurant."

In light of this news, William Grimes revisits The Grocery which he originally awarded one star shortly after its opening in 2000. Le Bernadin, Daniel, Jean Georges and Bouley are all four star restaurants.

Grimes' original review of The Grocery: Service is glacial at this cramped storefront with a lovely garden in back, but the food is worth the wait. The market-driven lineup of beguilingly simple but impressive dishes includes manila clams in a garlic-herb broth and cumin-dusted tuna with cumin-yogurt sauce. The steamed puddings are epic.

And Grimes' conclusion after his recent visit:

Consumed

For a different take on "you are what you eat" you might want to check out tonight's opening of David Shapiro's Consumed!

"For two years, acclaimed filmmaker, artist and native son of the early Williamsburg scene, David Shapiro has been saving every package, bag, bottle or jar that once contained his food or drink. He fills the space at Jack the Pelican Presents gallery to the brim with this bodega-sized collection of garbage."

Exhibition: David Shapiro: Consumed!
Opening: Friday, October 17, 7-9pm
Location: 487 Driggs Ave. between N. 9 and N. 10
Bedford stop on the L train, Williamsburg
Dates: October 18–November 10, 2003
Gallery hours: Friday–Monday, 12-6pm

Openings

NYMetro restaurant openings for the week of October 27th:

Sui (54 Spring Street): "At Sui, opening this week in Soho, sushi rolls come wrapped in prosciutto, slathered with Thai peanut sauce, and drizzled with salsa. The eclectic menu doesn’t stop there: Beyond the waterfall and the fish tanks, the kitchen, led by co-owner and executive chef Adam Roth, turns out buffalo carpaccio with foie gras and a teapot for two of seafood-miso soup."

Les Enfants Terribles (37 Canal Street): ". . . globetrotting partners Fabrice Vautrin (of Le Père Pinard) and Stéfan Jonot, a documentary filmmaker, plumbed their collective travels for culinary and decorative inspiration, to which they applied an atmospheric French Colonial veneer. Add a chef from the Ivory Coast to the multi-culti mix, and you’ve got a menu that features steak tartare and escargots alongside bacon-wrapped scallops with fried plantains and Senegalese rice. Soon serving breakfast, too."

Belleville (330 Fifth Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn): ". . . But what makes it a boon for the ever-burgeoning Fifth Avenue restaurant row is a not quite predictable menu that combines standards like duck confit and steak-frites with offbeat digressions like fazzoletti pasta with braised beef cheek, and calf’s liver with polenta and fig vinaigrette. Small plates of preserved tuna with lemon and capers and watermelon-goat-cheese salad offset the heartier fare. You may feel transported to Paris, but the kids’ menu (ham-and-cheese sandwich, angel hair with tomato sauce) is pure Park Slope."

NYC: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: New Chao Chow Restaurant, Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar, The Biltmore Room, Divane, Lever House

Village Voice Robert Sietsema reviews New Chao Chow Restaurant (111 Mott Street):

At nearly every table someone is slurping "broth noodles" ($3.25), a Chiu Chow specialty known on the menu as "combination rice stick (soup on the side)." Filling the deep bowl, the thick rice noodles are heaped with ground pork, sliced pork, delicious homemade fish cake, and freshly cooked shrimp. Indeed, pork-seafood combos are a Chiu Chow passion. A green wad of cilantro sits on top, while bits of sour cabbage hide among the noodles. On the side there's a small bowl of tasty broth. The dish might be mistaken for a disassembled version of Vietnamese pho, except that the broth is so clearly Cantonese.

The duck (one-quarter, $4) is another of the restaurant's signatures, nothing like the crisp-skinned mahogany creature seen elsewhere in Chinatown. The orange bird has been braised in a rich soy sauce, and arrives moist and flavorful and garnished with sweet pickled radish. It comes with a fish-sauce vinaigrette, a cousin of Vietnamese nuoc cham, in which float flecks of garlic, ginger, and green onion. The same sauce accompanies the inglorious-sounding boiled chicken, an utterly white bird that carries the boiler's art to a new high. The resulting succulent flesh—not dry nor stringy in the least—would have astonished my Irish grandmother, who boiled a chicken every Saturday.

Links To Go

• 107-pound woman wins World Champion Barbecue Eating Contest: "Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, of Alexandria, swallowed 23 barbecue sandwiches in 12 minutes to claim the title, $2,000 and the honor of wearing the champion's belt for a year." Sonya is my hero.
• Chowhound thread on "real wasabi"
• The perfect cheese sandwich: The perfect sandwich requires a perfectly sliced cheese. The best flavor requires that different cheeses be sliced to different thicknesses. "Dr Fisher, of the University of Bristol, revealed that to ensure optimum 'cheesiness', Cheddar should be 2.8 millimetres thick, while Caerphilly should measure 4.5 millimetres, and Blue Stilton three millimetres." (via Food Blog)
• Related: the grilled mac & cheese sandwich
• Lia meets and eats the McGriddle: "The McGriddle is tinier than the McMuffin and seems expensive at $2.69 until I realize how much bagels cost -- this sucker has sausage, egg and cheese and a griddle cake. And it tastes good, very weird but good. Where the McMuffin is salty and firm, the McGriddle is sweet and soft, with tiny pockets of syrup baked in. This was the thing that got me most interested in the McGriddle when I saw the ads, what made me wonder for months if I would like the McGriddle or not, and it totally worked."

Dragon Fruit

While we were wandering around La Boqueria in Barcelona, we spied this strange looking fruit. Bright pink with large scales on the outside, cut in half to reveal white flesh flecked with what look like tiny black seeds. Wena kindly informed me that these are Dragon Fruit, or Pitaya. It's part of the cactus family, grows in tropical regions, and apparently is very tasty. More information and photos of Pitaya.

Links To Go

• The Food Section Agenda: 10/15 to 10/21
• Teany Tea Special: Introducing afternoon tea at Teany. Tea for two is $25 and includes two pots of tea, four tea sandwiches, and two sets of sweets. Perfect.
• Tracy Stern's Tea Salon now open at City Club Hotel
• Guide to Tea Rooms and Tea Shops - NYC
• Chinese Restaurant Project: Indigo Som makes a project of collecting take-out menus from every Chinese restaurant in the United States. Only taking into consideration the turn-over rate of Chinese restaurants in NYC, this sounds like a never-ending project.
• Fruit that Floats: ". . . Here, then, revealed for the first time in the annals of gastronomical science, are the results of my research. Floaters: apple, banana, lemon, onion, orange, parsnip, Bartlett pear, pomegranate, rutabaga (barely), sweet potato (barely), zucchini. Sinkers: avocado (barely), mango, Bosc pear (barely), potato, cherry tomato."
• Gotham Gal visits Kalustyan's: "It is an oasis of specialty foods from the middle east to asia. The herbs are packaged in small to large plastic zip locks. There are a variety of olive oils from Italy, Spain, and Israel. The dried fruit is abundant. Every rice imaginable. Also, incredible nuts."
• First Chinese dim sum in space: "Lt. Col. Yang Liwei, China's first human being in space, spent some of his time in orbit miles above the Earth on Wednesday eating from his choice of 20 Chinese dishes - including one-bite nuggets of spicy shredded pork, diced chicken and fried rice cooked with "nuts, dates and other delicacies."

  "The astronaut will enjoy himself over a rich variety of Chinese food," the government's Xinhua News Agency reported after Yang was safely launched. The agency's rather emphatic headline: "Chinese food for Chinese astronauts."

Esquire's Best New Restaurants

Esquire's Twenty-Second-Annual Survey of The Best New Restaurants in America is out in the November issue, now on newstands. Restaurants were chosen by John Mariani. New York restaurants to make the list include:

Capitale
130 Bowery (At Grand St.)
(212) 334-5500
Reviews: Citysearch, NYMetro, NYTimes

Pampano
209 E. 49th St.
(Between Second and Third Aves.)
(212) 826-8269
Reviews: NYMetro, NYTimes

Upstairs at 21
21 W. 52nd St.
(Between Fifth and Sixth Aves.)
(212) 582-7200
Reviews: Citysearch, NYMetro, NYTimes

Tips on Eating Out

Chicago Tribune restaurant critic Phil Vettel tells how to make the most of a meal out. Simply summarized: become a regular, "eat like a chef," get to know your waiter and don't be afraid to ask questions or make requests.

NYC: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: Chubo, Bao Noodle, Mix, Kuma Inn, The Biltmore Room

NYTimes Restaurants William Grimes gives Chubo one star [6 Clinton Street (Houston Street)]:

. . . Mr. Chassagne, formerly the chef at Montparnasse, has come up with a clever, appealing format for his often inspired French-Asian fusion cooking, with five appetizers, five entrees and five desserts. For $24 you can order one dish from any two categories. For $28 you get three.

The menu changes with the seasons, and during each season, Mr. Chassagne varies the formula in two ways. Each daily menu includes a new bento box appetizer. And on Wednesdays, Mr. Chassagne offers a $34 three-course meal organized around a single ingredient. One night it was basil, with dishes like vegetable shumai flavored with white truffles and basil cream. Another night the featured ingredient was coho salmon, which appeared as a ceviche, as a seared fillet crusted in cassava flour with beurre rouge sauce, and as an Asian pot-au-feu, with gyoza dumplings stuffed with arborio rice.

Chubo, whose name is Japanese for "professional kitchen," is a restaurant of small pleasures and little surprises. . .

RECOMMENDED DISHES Duck crepinette; root-vegetable ravioli; Indian-spiced striped bass; daily bento box; pot roast dimanche; poached pear almond tart; sweet potato cheesecake.

Hero Worship

Ed Levine describes the perfect (and proper) Hero sandwich in great detail in today's NYTimes:

. . . Let there be no misunderstanding by those who have never ventured to New York, or by those who have come lately, or by those who diet. The hero is a sandwich of cured Italian meats. These are layered into a forearm's length of fresh crusty bread, often with a few slices of Italian cheese and a condiment or two atop them — pepperoncini, yes; roasted peppers, yes; mayonnaise, an emphatic no. Also, perhaps, a splash of vinegar, certainly a drizzle of olive oil. Some ground pepper, a sprinkle of salt. But no more. No sun-dried tomatoes sully the interior of a true hero, no pesto, no Brie, no fancy pants ingredients at all.

. . . There are a number of things the discerning eater should look for in a cold hero. The flavors of the sandwich should be complementary, as should the textures. Meat should marry fat, crunch should dance with cream, tangy should balance the sweet, the salty, the plain. The sandwich should be beautiful. And, as is true of virtually every great dish, a great hero should be made of only the finest ingredients.

But where to find a sandwich of such beauty?

Food-Snob

In this week's New Yorker, "Food-Snob Fear Factor":

Back in NYC

Back from Barcelona and busy as ever. I've uploaded a couple of photos from La Boqueria to hold you over until I can update properly (probably tonight or tomorrow).

Read about La Boqueria.

Adios!

I'm off to Barcelona! Thanks for all of your suggestions, no posts until next week.

Village Voice Best of 2003

The Village Voice Best of New York 2003 is out, including my favorite category, Food. Here are a few of the "Best. . ." I'm looking forward to checking out for myself:

Best Fries - Florent
Best New Bistro - Fada
Best Soul Food Startup - Copeland's Take-out and Catering
Best Use of Pig-face Parts - Cock's

Johnny Cash's favorites

This Friday From 7 to 10 p.m., Café St. Bart's (109 E. 50th Street at Park Avenue) will hold a salute to Johnny Cash, offering a $30 prix fixe of some of the late singer's favorite dishes while local artists perform songs either by the Man in Black or inspired by him. The meal will include Johnny Cash's Old Iron Pot Chili, Peggy's Famous Fried Chicken, mac and cheese, Jack Daniel's-laced pecan pie and more. alls. Donations collected during the evening will go to the American Diabetes Association (Cash died from complications from the disease). For reservations, call (212) 888-2664. [Via NYPost]

NYC: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: Lever House, Snack Taverna, Schiller's Liquor Bar, Penelope, Pylos, Pier 116

Lever House Lever House Lever House Lever House. It's all about Lever House, which "seems to be as much about looking as about eating." NYTimes William Grimes gives Lever House Restaurant 2 stars (390 Park Avenue, entrance on 53rd Street):

The food, rather than competing with Mr. Newson's retro-futuristic design, sticks to a clean, New American style that makes sense, given the location. Dan Silverman, formerly the executive chef at Alison on Dominick and Union Square Cafe, believes in fresh ingredients reflecting the seasons and the market. He does not worry his dishes or overwork his ideas. The menu, in line with his less-is-more aesthetic, is terse. Most of the time, the ingredients do the talking.

. . . Plain dealing does not always make for the most exciting or the most adventurous food. At Lever House, what you see is what you get, although Mr. Silverman does throw a curve and a change-up just often enough to keep things interesting. A special appetizer one evening, a very basic, honest terrine of foie gras, came with a vibrant green-tomato chutney, well balanced between acid and sweet, that rose above its second-class condiment status and took over the plate.

. . .In the first phase of its young life, Lever House seems to be as much about looking as about eating. Diners, having sauntered down the runway and braved the gaze of the entire dining room, can spend the rest of the evening either looking or being looked at in a dining room that sometimes seems like nothing but sight lines. It may be the ultimate Manhattan restaurant in that sense. But I have faith that as time goes on, Mr. Silverman's work ethic will win out. There is good food coming from the kitchen. Just take a look at the plate.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Tuna carpaccio with wasabi crème fraîche; foie gras terrine with tomato chutney; poussin with foie gras sauce; wild salmon with herb butter; rack of lamb with fava beans; squash cheesecake; pecan-cranberry tart.

Here and There

Restaurants Verbena and Bari Demi on Irving Place have closed after unsuccessful lease renegotiations. Owners Diane Forley and Michael Otsuka are looking for another space.

Jonathan Morr "is packing up his truffles" and has closed 325 Spring Street.

Twilight 101 has changed names and is now Alta because owners Christopher Chesnutt and Eva Olsen said it sounded like a lounge and not a restaurant.

[Via NYTimes Food Stuff]

Barcelona

I'm headed to Barcelona in a couple days for a quick weekend getaway, staying near Placa de Catalunya. As it will be my first time in Barcelona, I need your restaurant tips and recommendations for "NYC Eats meets Barcelona"! I'll be posting the highlights of my culinary adventures when I return so with that in mind, please leave your recommendations in the comments section below. Gràcies!

Peter Luger

NY Newsday's roundup of steak houses

I'm not going to bother listing their ten favorites because as I understand it, if you're serious about your steak, there is only one steak house -- Peter Luger (178 Broadway, Williamsburg; 718-387-7400).

Burgers

The Food Section reviews The Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien Hotel:

Is putting a burger place smack in the middle of an upscale midtown hotel the last gasp of trucker hat chic? Perhaps, but that's where the "irony" ends. For every Ashton signature there is also a Jerry Stiller autograph, and, thankfully, the "joint" stays true to its simple handwritten menu of burgers, fries, beer, and milkshakes without the high prices and wannabe hip vibe you would expect to find in a concept restaurant like this. You won't find any ironic "takes" on greasy spoon cuisine. No, the burger's the thing here.

Related: The eGullet Burger Club is on a quest to find the best burger in the city. Some of the contenders: Blue Smoke, Burger Joint, Cafe Luxemburg, Chumley's, Corner Bistro, Fairway, Landmark Tavern, McHale's, Molly's (a personal favorite), Old Town Bar, PJ Clarke's, Peter Luger, Smith & Wollensky's, Tavern on Jane. See also: New York Citysearch's Best Burgers, NYMetro's Best Burgers

Openings

NYMetro restaurant openings for the week of October 13th:

Pinch-Pizza by the Inch (416 Park Avenue South, near 29th St): "The brainchild of Todd Birnbaum, a former manager at John’s Pizza, Pinch was inspired by the meter-long pizza Birnbaum ate in Uruguay. If the pricing seems difficult (figure 50 cents per inch, toppings extra), the appetizers, pastas, and main courses, courtesy of Birnbaum’s brother, Lupa grad Matthew, are normally priced. But they break out the ruler again for the mocha tirami su."

Fatty’s Café (25-01 Ditmars Boulevard, Astoria): ". . . Fernando Peña—a.k.a. “big fat Fern”—is the manager, mixologist, and guiding culinary force behind the gently priced Latin-themed menu. He’s also a bit of a gym rat, which accounts for the high-protein presence of jalapeño-turkey burgers and sofrito-marinated grilled chicken with blackened asparagus, and flaxseed oil in the avocado sauce."

NYC: Review Roundup

Today's review roundup includes: Lever House, O Mai, Giorgione, Snack Taverna

NY Daily News reviews Lever House (390 Park Ave. at 54th St.):

In the "raw" section of the menu, go straight for the fluke. Mixed with searing-fresh onion and a kiss of orange, and topped with baby arugula, this tickler of a starter could leave you wondering why anyone would ever cook a fish.

Although a number of main courses were exquisitely executed, others lacked flair. It takes a lot to compete with the constant neck-craning and the wow factor of this room.

A hefty double-cut porkchop paired with spiced applesauce and sweet potatoes boulangere in a pomegranate reduction was a special that deserves a permanent place on the menu.

Silverman poaches his filet mignon in wine, leaving it silky and flavor-soaked. Pan-seared halibut served with capers, cucumber slices and thin streamers of shaved fennel was a refreshing surprise one night, bored with itself another. With ingredients like ruby-red shrimp and lobster, shouldn't the risotto be more than just fine?

A generous Colorado rack of lamb bolstered by a salad mountain of fresh favas, arugula and Pecorino was perfect.

Pastry chef Snyder, who has an artistic sense of play, must love autumn, with such offerings as a cranberry-pecan tart with maple flan and a luscious butternut cheesecake crowned with quince and a Concord grape sorbet. Her warm fig and cornmeal cake with sweet-corn ice cream is a figlover's fantasy. Her cookies are the bees' knees. She is one to watch.

Double Happiness

The Food Section reports that Mandoo Bar is opening a second location on University Place between E. 10th and 11th. That's very good news, indeed.

See NYC Eats does Dumplings for more on Mandoo Bar.

Xtra hot pork sausage at Schnäck

Hawk of Schnäck writes to tell us, ". . . we have just added a xtra hot spicy pork sausage to our special board. It was made with/for us by Jubilat in Sunset Park. They are one of the best traditional Polish butchers in the city and it really shows. We are selling a 4 to 5 oz portion on a hot dog bun for $4.00." Sounds tasty.

Schnäck
122 Union St., Brooklyn
718-855-2879

Sunburnt Cow update

An update from reader Noeleen on the Sunburnt Cow, an Australian restaurant recently opened in the East Village (137 Avenue C):

. . . Have had some comment by Australians visiting this establishment and the resulting comments are very glowing. In particular, the Aussie Style hamburgers and of the course, the classic Pavlova (meringue base with a cream filling and topped with fruit or chocolate - classic Aussie dessert - one taste and you will be an instant convert;the above description does not do it justice.)

You will possibly find many Australians dining here in future, among Europeans and Brits.

[Prior Sunburnt Cow mention]

Pushcart NYC

NYC Eats is going to have to venture into Lockhart Steele's 'hood to visit Pushcart NYC ( corner of Ludlow and Stanton Sts, 11 p.m. until 5:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays) for a kim chi hot dog. The NY Daily Sun recently paid a visit to Pushcart:

. . . Whether or not that’s an accurate description, kim chi is a surprisingly perfect hot dog topping: The combination of juicy grilled frank and cool, crisp, fiery cabbage is a sublime exercise in contrasting flavors and textures, especially if you add a sprinkling of nutty, crackly salted fish. (Regular hot dogs are $1.50; Korean condiments bring the price up to $2.)

. . . Perhaps less American but still equally tasty is Mr. Talbot’s rendition of bulgogi — grilled, marinated, thinsliced beef wrapped in a romaine lettuce leaf with sushi rice and all his Korean condiments. (One hefty roll is $4, which includes a free cup of apple cider or homemade lemonade.) And let’s not forget the Carolina-style barbecued chicken, available in either wing or sandwich form, whose sweetand-sourness masks a spicy heat that builds in the back of your throat.

[Via Gawker.com]

Coming to New York

There's a great piece today in the New York Observer with Thomas Keller on his return to New York with the opening of a new restaurant in the AOL Time Warner building come February. His Napa Valley restaurant, French Laundry, is considered to be the best in the country by many and his return to New York is highly anticipated. The big question is, how with the French Laundry experience translate?

And therein lies Mr. Keller’s challenge: How to transpose the success of the ultimate boutique restaurant—a bucolic, insular place swathed in the scents of lavender and smoked wood; a place where hard liquor isn’t served, not for purist tastebud-preserving reasons, but because of some quaint Prohibition law still on the books—into the Time Warner space, a space which, many fear, may resemble nothing so much as an upscale food court, with a Jean Georges Vongerichten steakhouse and a Rande Gerber bar down the hall, and a café run by former Lespinasse chef Gray Kunz directly upstairs.

To get an idea of what the French Laundry dining experience is like, I highly recommend reading Anthony Bourdain's chapter on the experience in his book (probably my favorite chapter), A Cook's Tour. Or save yourself a trip to the book store and read Megnut's and Jason's accounts of their French Laundry experience.

If at this point you are thinking, "I have to eat at French Laundry! How do I get a reservation?" VanEats comes to the rescue with How to get a reservation at French Laundry.

Update: Keller recently appeared on Small Business School, the series on PBS, to discuss how he started The French Laundry. Here are links to the episode and transcript.

NYC: Review Roudup

Today's review roundup includes: Hue, Pier 116, Pearson's Texas Barbecue, The Biltmore Room, El Maguey y La Tuna, Lever House Restaurant

NYTimes Restaurants William Grimes reviews Hue (91 Charles Street); :

. . .By my second visit, it became clear that I and my guests were sitting in the dining room for reasons that set us apart from every other customer in the place. We were studying the menu, exclaiming over this appetizer and frowning over that one, savoring the good and criticizing the not-so-good and, in general, acting as if we were actually in a restaurant. Everyone else knew that the appetizers and entrees were theatrical props, that the cocktails were at least as important as the pho bo and that no one over 30 belonged there.

Quite a few of the props are edible. Hue, unlike many feverishly social restaurants, does care about the food, although it undercuts the Vietnamese idea by attaching an adequate but distracting sushi menu that is long on super-duper rolls involving alien concepts like goat cheese and very short on simple sushi and sashimi. There is something to be said for the dragonlike eel roll, a choo-choo train of barbecued eel chunks with avocado and crab meat that snakes its way across the plate, but in the end it is far more rewarding to zero in on the Vietnamese dishes.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Spring rolls; barbecued eel roll; Vietnamese meatballs; stir-fried bok choy and chayote; wok eggplant; clay pot curry chicken; crispy whole fish; tamarind-glazed salmon; coconut stewed banana; and fried coconut ice cream.

Manhattan's Chinatown

One of my absolute favorite ways to spend a weekend afternoon is wandering through Chinatown, stopping to enjoy my favorite tasty treats along the way. And I am in good company -- Eric Asimov on rediscovering Manhattan's Chinatown (link to the accompanying audio tour).

Nobody says much about Chinatown these days. Not Manhattan Chinatown, anyway. Flushing is where the excitement is, or Brooklyn. "You know," one Chinese-food maven whispered to me recently, "there are really two Chinatowns in Brooklyn now, Sunset Park and the Avenue U area near Bensonhurst, but nobody knows about that one."

Lovers of Chinese food crave secrecy and are suspicious by nature. They are desperate to learn where the hot chefs are cooking, but fear they have chosen a restaurant where the great chef has already left. They are certain a restaurant's real treasures are denied to them because they can't read the proverbial Chinese-language menu. Long ago the writer Calvin Trillin said that he carried a card with the Chinese sentence for "Bring me what they're having at the next table."

But the big secret in Chinese food these days is right out in the open, if only anybody were looking. It's Chinatown — Manhattan Chinatown — where the food, to my mouth at least, is as good or better than it's ever been.

Some mentions:
Mei Lai Wah Coffee House, 64 Bayard Street
Big Eat, 97 Bowery
Chanoodle, 79 Mulberry Street
OK 218 Grand, 218 Grand Street